So, i've just returned from a long weekend in Tofino, on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. I travelled with Kara, to meet up with a few other Canadian Fundamentalist Campers (C.F.C.).
The West Coast is often referred to fondly as the Wet Coast, and let's just say that I have a personal appreciation of this nomenclature.
Above all, it was a fabulous trip. Highlights include:
- Walking to Radar with Debra - about a 4 hour walk (no! it's a HIKE), up and down and within a pristine rainforest
- Seeing many large birds of prey, which are apparently super meaningful, and not just because they're big birds
- Smokeys
- Discovering yet more meanings for & intonations of the word "eh", commonly popped on the end of a sentence by Canadians
- Losing my ring in dense, rainforesty undergrowth (while erecting the tarp, after flinging a metal spoon with a rope tied to it over the high-flying branch of a nearby tree), thinking about what it would mean to lose such a special thing, and then finding it again
- Some advice about love
- Many roaring fires, splitting wood, and all that good firey stuff
- Watching the C.F.C. perform tarp maintenance. At one stage, we even had it so the water which collected (very quickly) as it rained simply ran off the tarp all by itself in what appeared to be a well-choreographed ballet
- Learning that there is a type of tree (fir, I think) that is referred to as a "Nurse Log" when it falls, and becomes ecosystem fodder in the rainforest
- Marinating pork chops for the first time eva - they weren't bad!
- Continual gobsmackment at how well-prepared the C.F.C. were... amenities included an electric coffee maker, candlesticks, sheets... Debra even brought a nightstand for her unbelievably cushy tent set up
- Just how much it rains on the Wet Coast
- Seeing the Sagittarius and Scorpio constellations together in the sky (I was just guessing about the Sag. one, but my companions seemed to agree)
- Hearing the Warrior Song, sung by two C.F.C. warrior women, around the campfire
- Getting out and in it!
This is a little gallery I made up on Flickr - /george/tags/tofino/.