Sometimes It Takes Just Exactly As Long As It Takes

Alert Bay to Tofino was a bit further a trek than either of us expected.  We grabbed a morning ferry to Port McNeill and set about some errands to improve the quality of our road trip.  I resolved some banking issues, we found some coffee, and tracked down an elusive, but well worth the quest, audio cable that would connect our ipods to the car stereo.  Vancouver Island has some lovely scenery, but a drastic shortage in radio stations!  

Those things resolved, we spent the day driving down the island to Parksville and then across to Tofino.  A slight detour for an Information Centre lead us to the ocean front of Qualicum, which turns out to be absolutely lovely.  Seriously, Nanaimo has nothing on these great little ocean side towns.   

Our next stop was in Coombs to check out the local market that has a grass roof and a goat family living on it.  I'm not kidding (groan).  There is a mother, father, and three ridiculously cute baby goats.  A plus is that the market is actually quite a good one and not just a cheesy gimmick the locals suffer through.  

We then drove through Cathedral Grove en route to Tofino.  We really wanted to stop, but the nightmare tales of the road to Tofino seemed to emphasize a need to be off them before the sun sets.  The road itself is actually not that bad, with surprisingly accurate speed limits.  I can see, however, why you wouldn't want to be on it for the first time in the dark.  We had asked the woman at the hotel in Alert Bay how long it would take to get to Tofino.  In true island style, her answer was "well if you've already decided to go, it will take as long as it takes."  A 6.5 hour drive ended up taking about 9 with pit-stops and sightseeing, but it was a beautiful drive and certainly took just as long as it took :)  

Mid-way across the island, we found a group of cars pulled to the side of the road.  We slowed down to discover that there was a mid-size black bear picking berries along the side of the road.  We watched for a bit while he lumbered around and eventually disappeared into the trees.  Only slightly further down, we found a baby black bear picking berries all by himself.  At one point he took a small run down the road and it was about the cutest thing ever. 

We arrived in Tofino about 9pm and found our last minute hotel to be in a fantastically handy location and in fairly decent condition.  We took a stroll down to the dock, listened to some drunk kids play the guitar, and grabbed a yummy pizza to take back to the hotel.  Trees, ocean, lakes, goats, pizza, Pomtinis, cable tv, my sister, and Tofino - a banner day!