Category: Oceanside

In Parksville there’s Rathtrevor Beach which, at low tide, goes out for miles giving you the sense that you could walk to the small Mistaken Island during that low tide period. Ocean Trails Resort, where we stayed for five nights, is accessed via Resort Drive, which has a collection of resorts ranging from the fancier Tigh-na-mara to more modest priced ones. From what I gather Ocean Trails is in the mid range. It does not provide rental units right on the beach, so I’m assuming the price tags on those (e.g. Madrona Beach Resort) are higher. However, there’s this great […]

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Coombs BC takes its hippy heritage seriously. If you can imagine a totally funky market with goats literally on the roof, grazing, you are in the right place. Goats on the Roof Old Country Market is located at 2326 Alberni Highway, west and north of Parksville, and west and slightly south of Qualicum Beach. It’s no more than a 15 minute drive from either town. The market, apart from its unusual roofing, has a deli section, a bakery, a restaurant at the back, a great cheese section, a wild selection of craft items including home furnishings, bamboo fans for cooling […]

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Mini Golf is one of those games where, once at the third hole, and if you were playing fairly, gives you the thought “why did I ever think this was a fun game?” The “no cussin’” signs are appropriate. Parksville has a couple of mini golf courses and RipTide is in the southern end of Parksville’s part of the 19A “old” Island Highway. It services all the Rathtrevor Beach traffic and Resort Drive folks. Riptide has two courses that are consistently themed and decorated in a very imaginative way. I’ll let the photos do the talking on that point. Despite […]

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It seems we have a tradition with Parksville. It’s Lefty’s Fresh Food, which is a restaurant on the Island Highway. It’s right beside a Thrifty Foods in the same strip mall. We never manage to leave Vancouver early enough to stock up for our stay at Thrifty Foods and have the energy to cook something back at where we stay. Part of the reason that we end up late in Parksville is because of a) we aren’t morning people and b) BC Ferries is odd. BC Ferries charges you extra to book a sailing but they only allow bookings for […]

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With the exception of banks, pharmacies and gas stations, Qualicum Beach is fairly brand free. This does not mean that there’s no shopping. There’s a lot of knick-knack, clothing stores, independent coffee shops like Bailey’s and perhaps the last video store in existence called Catacombs Video. A partial list is here: www.qualicumbeachdowntown.ca/p/shop.html We did find an antique store that had everything. Good quality antique glassware (it may be a rustic shop, but he knows his stuff) along with old LPs, some comic books and memorabilia from the 50s and 60s. There’s enough stuff to fill a man cave / basement […]

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Qualicum Beach is an unusual town in that its town centre is inland from its amazing seascape, which is right on Highway 19A, suitably called the Oceanside Route. (In fact the tourism board for the area was called Oceanside Tourism, but changed to Parksville Qualicum Beach Tourism. Oceanside is a bit generic, so I see why they made the change, but the romance is lost for me.) Along Highway 19A there is a series of accommodations that are perched on the water. One we stayed at was Buena Vista by the Sea, which has x oceanfront suites. Because of the […]

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Parksville as a town was always a bit more commercial than its neighbour Qualicum Beach. In recent years with more swanky resorts appearing in Parksville, you start to see the shift away from the classic beach, sunburns, ice cream and burger stand kind of holiday. To prove this all wrong, there’s Paradise Mini Golf and Fun Park. It is a combination of faux castle, mini golf, water bumper cars, a games room, a cheesy gift shop, and RV Park and a Motel (Paradise Seashell). It’s awesome. The mini golf has two courses which can be very annoying. It’s the only […]

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We were visiting Qualicum Beach (staying at Buena Vista by-the-Sea) and we decided to do something educational for the kids, specifically the Deep Bay Marine Field Station. This is further down the 19A highway/Oceanside, about 25 km from our motel. It is past Bowser (can’t help but thing of a barking dog) and down a series of streets and a gravel road. Sadly, we picked a day that the place was closed for a private function. Important tip: check their website in advance. There was a sign at the highway saying it was closed, but I was determine to double […]

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Cameron Lake, which is about 22 km from Port Alberni and 20 km from Qualicum Beach is supposed to have a strange creature that’s silvery and serpentine, but no one is sure what it is. Such mysteries fall under the category of cryptozoology and in keeping with British Columbia’s tradition of nuttiness, there’s an actual organization called the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club (bcscc.ca) that takes a serious approach to various mysteries. Given the lake monster Ogopogo in Kelowna and Sasquatch having its naissance in Harrison Hot Springs, you could create quite an interesting travel itinerary. This local Vancouver newspaper […]

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You may have heard of Nanaimo because of those delicious Nanaimo bars that are sold all across Canada, and yes, it was named after the city on Vancouver Island! But there’s more to Nanaimo than Canada’s favourite dessert! Did you know that this is the ‘Bathtub Racing Capital of the World’? No, seriously! Bathtub racing was invented here in Nanaimo in 1967 with a race between Nanaimo and Vancouver as a way of promoting this quirky little city to the rest of the world. The idea took off and now there’s a bathtub race here on the last weekend of […]

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