Day 416
Tall trees and waterfalls
So our plans to laze by the coast had been delayed and we were heading across the island. Our first stop was a campsite at ‘Little Qualicum Falls’. When we arrived it was full and no amount of pleading was getting us a pitch. I sat exhausted as we contemplated what to do. The plan was to wildcamp somewhere and the camp host here was very helpful, I just didn’t want to ride anymore. Fortunately they received a cancellation and we had a pitch for the night, two if we wanted! The campsite is pretty basic, flush toilets and a water tap but that’s it. Still we had a river to swim and wash in, Upper and Lower waterfalls to explore with a fantastic path linking them, bliss.
We chatted to the camp hosts about our onwards plans, heading to Port Albernie and onto Tofino on the West Coast. They were both pretty adamant it was a bad idea. To reach Port Albernie we had to cycle over ‘The Hump’, a steep hill, traversed by a narrow winding road where the hard shoulder narrowed to nothing. We would also have to make the 100-mile journey on this busy road twice as it was a dead end. We settled down to think it over and decided we simply couldn’t face it. Everywhere was so busy, it was doubtful we would even find anywhere to camp at the coast. So we booked a second night and went for a swim/bath in the river then explored the falls!
On our free day we braved the road to ride to ‘Cathedral Grove’, a stand of Douglas firs and Western Red Cedars. The latter can grow for a 1,000 years and both are big tall trees. The Grove was devastated by a fire 300 years ago and the majority of the trees were lost, but one or two 800-year-old trees still stand and the young 300 year old ones are pretty majestic. As we had left it until late afternoon the traffic was pretty light especially for our return journey, just a shame we couldn’t utilise the disused railway line!
