Western Dreamz TripLog
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Tuesday July 20, 2004 - "Swimming to Japan"
The weather forecast for Tofino for the week was rain in the beginning, followed by sunny skies for Wednesday through Friday, so we decided that we'd stay the week since we came this far anyway - Tofino should be seen in the sunshine! Today we woke up and headed to town to do laundry and have a shower (finally.. a little cleanliness), but only succeeded in the former. THe pay showers were $4 for 5 minutes... a serious tourist rip off. But at least our dirty selves would be loaded into clean clothes for the next couple of weeks. WHen parking at the laundromat, we had to fight for a parking spot, and we noticed another Ontario-plated car doing the same. Then while waiting for washers, the woman from that car made a point of stating that she was in line in front of us (beeyotch). THe funny thing is that we kept seeing these people and talking to them and it turns out they were our campsite-neighbours. Hopefully she felt bad about being all up in our bidness at the laundromat (damn Onterribles again). After finishing the chores, we hit another trail as recommended by the info centre. This one was a two-part boardwalk through the depths of the rainforest (again within the park boundaries). The trees there were immense, and fallen mossy trees are the norm. The cycle is such that a fallen tree will feed saplings which grow out of it, and their roots will reach around the fallen tree toward the ground. After hundreds of years, the fallen tree will have disappeared, leaving the new trees standing with large gappy sprawling roots. Eventually these trees fall and the cycle starts over again. You could see all stages of the cycle throughout the forest... Fallen trees with huge spidering root systems as well as new trees straddling the old. THe pictures don't do the forest justice (but some come close)! After the 2 km through the forest, we went back to the campground and checked out their beach. The sites are a 5 minute walk from a section of long beach, and we went down and ended up walking a 4km stretch of it, checking out some surfers, and then walking the 4km back. When we got back, we started exploring the tide pools in the rocks near the campground. When the tide comes in, it fills the rocks and sandbars with water and marine life, and when the tide goes back out it all gets trapped in the pools. Our first find was a huge starfish (about eight inches across). We then discovered some live barnacles, which attach to anything they can. Rocky found a giant chunk which looked like coral. When you put it in the water, their "mouths" come out and start filtering the water and chomping away. As soon as you brush them with a stick they retract into their hard casings. Another pool revealed four or five tiny crab, one of which we nudged out of the water onto a rock and proceeded to have a swordfight with (he was grabbing and swinging at the stick we were brushing him with). Other pools were filled with sea urchins which lined all of the sides and bottom. We also saw some small fish and shrimpy guys and other bottom dwellers. At the end of the day we hit the beach and had a small fire. THey have designated a part of the beach for fires since the walk-in campers can't have them at their sites. The funniest part is that the beach is COVEREED with huge dried up driftwood, but you are not allowed to use any of it for firewood. Though that didn't stop us from scavenging for a few small pieces to keep the fire going after our legal wood supply ran out. We decided that what they really wanted to avoid was burning of entire trees, so we stuck to the really small bits. Unfortunately all of the barefoot action in the past two days killed my feet, and their insides started aching pretty intensely, rendering me slightly crippled for the rest of the week. This didn't slow us down as far as activities though (it just slowed down the pace at which I could get from one activity to the next).
Wednesday July 21, 2004 - "Learning to Fly"
Today was the first full-on sunny day in Tofino, so we decided to pack it with fun. Tofino is at the far Western end of the Trans Canada, right on the west coast of Vancouver Island, and actually sits on a small peninsula so that the ocean comes around the other side of it. The road to Tofino is a true dead end. To the North and East of Tofino there are a bunch of smaller islands with paths, villages, hot springs and beaches. These are only accessible by boat, water taxi or seaplane. We decided that we would see what we could from the air, so we headed to the docks and got a 20 minute scenic flight on a DeHavilland Beaver. The flight was an awesome way to get a lot of sight-seeing done in a short amount of time (we are all about efficiency). We saw sea lions lounging on the rocks, whales (and the boats out watching them), beaches, forests and everything else within a 20 minute round trip's distance. The funniest part was when the young pilot just jumped in and said "I'm Rob. There's life jackets over here. Let me know if you have questions" and started 'er up like he was just taking the car around the block. Seems like a cool job except for having to do the same 20 minute route over and over all day. After the ride, we grabbed some food and signed up for a three hour surf lesson. Rocky had surfed (only slightly successfully) for a week in North Carolina a couple years ago, and I'd never tried at all, so we decided we would both benefit from learning the basics before trying it out for ourselves in the surfing capital of Canada. The lessons did pay off - we learned the proper techniques for paddling to catch the wave and for hopping from stomach-to-feet without going overboard. Surfing was really frustrating, but a lot of fun. Three hours was a long time but not quite long enough to get very far ahead in skill level. One thing is for sure, though, surfing is a lot of work. After killing our upper bodies on the surfboards, we headedback into town to find some food and to hopefully discover exactly what the "awesome show" was going to be. While stopped at our favorite (read: the only) free wireless internet parking spot we realized we were right outside of a health-food/pizza/wrap joint and headed in. While waiting for pizza, a red-haired hippie-ish guy asked us if we were going to the show tonight... we told him we were just trying to find out who it was. He said it was the Wasabi Collective, and we got pretty excited. We'd seen them at Pepper Jack's in Hamilton before and they are amazing. So figuring he was a local, we told him we'd be there, and figuring the show would be full, we asked what time we should arrive so as not to be turned away at the door(it was at the Legion by the way... hilarious). He answered, "We go on at 10:30". Meaning that he was IN the wasabi collective. We had a good chuckle at our not realizing he was in the band, and ended up sitting with him to eat. He was there with a girl (their singer) and another guy who was very quiet. We had a good chat with them and found out that the third guy was their new keyboardist, and that this would be his first show with them. We also learned that they are all living in Nelson, which we didn't realize. I guess they used to live in Victoria. If I remember correctly, most of them were from Ontario originally. We talked about Pepper Jacks, and life in Nelson, and we gave them a couple of leftover pizza slices. All in all it was a funny little run-in which helped kill some time between dinner and the show. After dinner, we witnessed an intense chickfight which started with a scrawny blond girl screaming "OH YA? COME SAY THAT TO MY FACE BITCH" and going on and on. We couldn't see who she was yelling at until she started running up the street, and about a block away from us she found her opponent and it was ON. SHe started at a heavier set girl who looked like one of the local natives (there seems to be a decent sized native population in the area). Well, for the minute or so before the fight was broken up, the blond girl was getting her face rocked by her "friend" and that isn't an exaggeration. FOr most of the fight she was stuck in a headlock and was getting it in the face, via fist, knee, and whatever else the other girl could use. I can honestly say we'd never seen anything quite like it. Quite a few other people on the street were frozen, watching and not knowing what to do when luckily another girl (that appeared to be part of their group) stepped in and broke them up. A few minutes later the RCMP came cruising by with their paddy wagon, but of course they were too late to do anything since it had long since broken up and everyone had moved on. What an evening. When nighttime rolled around, we headed to the Legion for the Wasabi show, and appeared to be nearly the first people through the door to get stamped. It was worth getting there early though since it apparently sold out. The show was really amazing, and the new keyboardist played as if he'd been with the band for years. They also had a hula-hooping fan who spent one song spinning three hoops at a time -- it looked pretty impossible to do, but I guess seeing is believing. THe scene in the legion was pretty funny. We were certain that the majority of the people there didn't know who the band was, and were just looking for a drunken dance party. If that was indeed the case, then I hope that Wasabi made a few more fans that night. One interesting thing that they are doing on their tour is recording every show and making it available 20 minutes after the end. It's not a new concept, but it's still pretty cool... and it's pretty intense to see it being done in a small venue where the recording guy doubles as the sound guy (and probably the lighting guy too if the equipment's available). The show ended with the Legion turning all of the lights on in the middle of a song, and after the song we were all told to move the party off of the property. That's by-laws for ya. So we moved the party to the campground and went right to sleep, saying good night to one of the most action packed days yet.
Thursday July 22, 2004 - "Surfin' Safari"
Since we were out pretty late on Wednesday (for the first time during the trip), and also due to our walk-in campsite being especially shaded, we slept in nice and late today. Then we woke up and made breakfast burritos and took our sweet-assed time getting rolling. At about 1 pm we were on our way back to town (by this time we could have driven the 15km stretch blindfolded we'd done it so many times). After checking a few places out for surfboard rentals we were ready to go, getting a six hour block from Storm, who bill themselves as "Tofino's surf shop", even though they should call themselves "One of Tofino's many surf shops). We then hit the beach for a day of gruelling surfing. It was well fun. As far as our abilities by the end of the day: Rocky got up more with his short one than I did with my long. And FYI, short ones are harder. It's a fact. We got a few snapshots of us with the boards, but no action shots due to us not having an audience to take pictures of us (thank God). By the end of the day we were extremely beat, so we took it easy (again) and headed back to the campsite for sleep. Our last night on the TRUE coast (sob!)
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