Category: Vancouver Island

Our first night on Salt Spring Island we needed to find a place to eat. In our case the usual issues of kids’ menu and vegetarian choices applied. Our B&B (Quarrystone House) was keen to recommend the Oystercatcher as they share ownership! The Oystercatcher is located at 110 Purvis Ln #201 near the Ganges shopping area. The restaurant has a great view of the Ganges Harbour. The decor was nautical with boats (like a sculling boat) hanging from the ceiling. I had the beef burger that’s a common theme on Salt Spring Island as they like to use the local […]

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Important safety tip … when booking your ferry trip to Salt Spring Island, it’s a good idea to pay a lot more attention to the process than I did. It wasn’t until I went back to figure out what I’d missed did I realize on the BC Ferries schedule did you have to go to the Southern Gulf Islands schedule (www.bcferries.com/schedules/southern/) and then click on Vancouver Departures. On this page you have to navigate to further navigate Tsawwassen to Salt Spring Island (Long Harbour). There it tells you that it’s a three hour trip because you stop at Galiano, Manye […]

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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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We were visiting family in Victoria in August and decided to drive the hour and a half up Hwy 1 to catch a show at the Chemainus Theatre. As my son is only 7 we enjoyed the matinee of James and the Giant Peach originally a book by Roald Dahl. This production was dramatized by Richard R. George and was just delightful. It was entirely geared to a young audience with songs, audience participation, funny costumes and wonderful puppets. The Chemainus Theatre boasts an entire festival season of 6 to 8 productions throughout the year (http://chemainustheatrefestival.ca). It was lunchtime when […]

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Carmen at Blue Vista Resort tells us these five secrets. Having Bruce’s amazing chowder at the Sunny Mayne Bakery Seeing the sea lion colony off the shores of Bennett Bay by kayaking out with Bennett Bay Kayak tours or your own kayaks Snorkeling near Piggott’s Bay and seeing the giant mollusks just at the entry to Navy Channel Cruising with Mayne InterIsland Sea Tours for a cold Beer at Saturna’s Lighthouse Pub Don’t miss the Mayne Island Fall Fair, which happens in August!

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A couple of months back I was sitting with some friends and we were discussing good food places to eat at because let’s face it, I am a food junkie. One of my friends said that they had just gotten a job at this place called Noodle Box. All that was going on in my head was Noodles…. Sounds amazing…. Where is this place and where can I get some? The following day I told my friend about it and we decided to go because it was five minutes away from my school. When we got there the place had […]

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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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