Between the city of Parksville and Port Alberni on Vancouver Island is a little oasis of calm and peace. It’s a stand of trees, very old trees, mostly Douglas Fir with Red Cedar as well. The oldest standing tree is about 800 years old and stands over 250 feet tall, taller than the Leaning Tower of Pisa apparently.
Recently we visited Vancouver Island. Most of the few days we were there were spent in the capital city of Victoria with relatives, doing a bit of driving around and hanging out. We rented a car and drove “up island” to see some friends in Parksville and before returning the next day, I really wanted to see Cathedral Grove. It was a long-standing destination on my list and it’s only about a half hour drive from Parksville on an inland road from the coast.
The weather is overcast with rain threatening but we only got a little heavy mist. There had been a tiny dusting of snow and in the forest there was still a little on the ground, enough to make the path slippery so we trod carefully. The light was low due to the cloud cover. No sunlight streaming through the branches picturesquely. The air was damp and cold. The breeze rustled the leaves. It was completely quiet aside from an occasional car that drove by. The grove is part of the MacMillan Provincial Park and its near the road. In November, there were few tourists besides us three. I hate to use a cliche word but it did feel a bit magical. Just when you think Nature can’t throw one more jaw dropping sight at you, in comes a curve ball. Here is a bit of video I took and a few photos.
The drive to Parksville is only about 2 hours from Victoria. You could easily visit Cathedral Grove in a day. You also drive past Goldstream where, in early November or very late October, the salmon return to spawn and you can watch them flipping through the water trying to get upstream. We were just a little late and there were only a few fish left alive (yes, that’s Nature again. The fish return to where they were hatched to spawn, and once the eggs are laid, the fish die and are food for eagles, birds and bears)
We stayed overnight since we were visiting friends and booked the Travelodge. Not a bad choice. There are quite a few hotels and motels in Parksville as it’s a resort area with some nice beaches.
The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world, as high as 16 metres at the Minas Basin inner end of the bay. All that water coming and going can play havoc and these two photos from the Fundy National Park in New Brunswick of the “Hopewell Rocks” show you what water can do to stone over centuries. The tide comes a fair way up the cliffs where those stairs are and you can only see the sculpted rock from over the top of the hole upward, at high tide.
This is another part of the Bay of Fundy at Blomidon, near the Minas Basin. Low tide means it’s quite a walk to the water. The red in the earth is caused from a high clay content. You also see the red earth in Prince Edward Island in the Bay of St. Lawrence.
Here are a couple of shots of Niagara Falls. The sound of all that water gushing over into the river can be heard through most of the centre of the city. It’s quite a sight to see, even in the winter when there are boulders of ice choking the sides of the river, caused by the mist freezing over the snow.
Now we see the effects of wind on a tree over time, on the moors in Cornwall.
This is a very old geographical formation of rock. I’ve had this photo published in a textbook that explains what it is but I’d have to dig it out to jog my memory.
It looks like it might actually be spring here in Nova Scotia. Mind you, this time last year we had just come out of another snowfall so it “ain’t over til it’s over” when you live here.
Being optimistic, I’m pulling out some floral photos from my distant past travels. I’ve probably blogged about it way back when I first started this travel blog, but my first major trip once I could afford to go was on a bus tour around the UK in 1993. There were many stops along the way and I had a fabulous time. This photo is of Anne Hathaway’s cottage near Stratford-on-Avon. It was the end of August/early September 1993 and the garden was still lovely. We posed for our group photo here, but not in front of the garden  as you might assume. No, it was in the parking lot. Never mind. I know where we were!
Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, Stratford-on-Avon, 1993
Let’s jump forward a few years to October 1996 and a bus tour around Italy with a friend. We stayed in London for a few days, first and met up with a friend who lived in Essex near Southend. We drove out into Kent and visits Leeds Castle. This is on the castle grounds and the garden is called Culpepper Garden. It might be mid October but there are still a few wildflowers hanging on!
Culpepper Garden in Leeds Castle, Kent, 1996
I did some minor travel in 1998 relating to training at work (Boston, New York, Toronto, Ottawa) and in 1999 there was a weekend in Toronto, but in 2000, things were looking up. Â I had two major trips, one to British Columbia in the spring and one to the UK again, in September, incorporating stays in London, Manchester, Stoke and Scotland with a short bus tour in Scotland. One of our stops there was at Inverewe Gardens overlooking Loch Ewe in the northwest of Scotland.
Inverewe Gardens, Scotland. 2000
Finally, in 2003 I made a solo visit to the UK to visit friends in various places, Worcester, Manchester, Cardiff, Glasgow and London. These were the spring blooms in Cardif by the War Memorial. Blossoms on the trees, tulips blazing across the ground. Gorgeous! (too bad I was on my way to a nasty flu which hit me hard in Bath and London!)
Since the weather was uncooperative for star gazing, we had a nice dinner out in Yarmouth and relaxed in the hotel for the night. Breakfast in the morning was kind of mediocre but it was free. You sometimes get what you didn’t pay for, right? Today’s destination is Brier Island.
The province of Nova Scotia itself is an isthmus or peninsula, nearly an island and surrounded by water aside from a little neck of land near the New Brunswick border. There’s also another bit of land that is nearly detached from the main province, along the north side along the Bay of Fundy. It’s long and skinny and is called Digby Neck, running into two small islands at the end. The first is Long Island and the last tiny one is Brier Island. The main attraction of this area is eco tourism. There are trails, birds and sea life in abundance. The Bay of Fundy is the summer home of several pods of whales, humpback, minke and “right” whales mostly with schools of dolphins and porpoises and lots and lots of seals. There are many kinds of seabirds as well including one type that lives exclusively on the water and never on land at all. There are a number of companies that will take you out on the Bay with whale watching being the main objective and it’s something we’ve both long wanted to do. The best time to go is over the summer and into September. After that, the whales leave for southern warmer waters to breed.
Cape Forchu Lighthouse, Yarmouth
Right. So we’re going there today from Yarmouth which will be about 2 hours or so on the road. First a stop at Cape Forchu outside of Yarmouth to see the lighthouse. It’s a little different, this one. It’s an “applecore” style as you can see from the photo. While this particular structure dates back to the early 60s, there has been a lighthouse or station here since the early 19th century. There’s a little museum in the lighthouse now. The shore line is extremely rocky here and you really don’t want to go clambering over the boulders. It can be very dangerous even if it seems like the sea is calm. Rogue waves have been known to snatch tourists into the briny. Trust me, this happens. It was still foggy that morning so the lighthouse wasn’t at it’s best though sometimes, taking photos in the fog does give them a bit more atmosphere. We could tell the sun was trying to break through and indeed it was full out sunny by the time we were half way to our destination.
East Neck ferry, en route to Brier Island
On the road, following Route 1 this time. We stayed on the older highway rather than the 101 for awhile. We stopped at had a look at another lighthouse at Cape St. Mary. By the time we got past St. Anne, though, we decided there wasn’t much interesting along that road so we took the next connector to the 101 and zipped up to Digby where we grabbed a quick lunch at an Irving Big Stop. The sun was out by then, too. We back tracked to the exit for the 417 that leads to the islands. That was a pretty drive through rural areas with glimpses of the water now and then. It’s about a 45 minute drive to the first ferry which runs hourly on the half hour and takes about 7 minutes for the crossing. It’s about 15 minutes to the final ferry to Brier and again, just 5 or 7 minutes across. The village on Brier is Westport and there isn’t a lot there. The island has few hotels or guest houses, just a couple of places to eat, a general store and a gift shop. You can hike as there are lots of trails where you can see lighthouses, bays that have seals frolicking and you might even seen some whales if they come close enough.
We stayed in Brier Island Lodge so we headed there to check in and then drove around the island’s dirt roads. Only the main road along the water is actually paved and just a bit beyond that but the roads are in pretty good condition. We found all three lighthouses, passed a couple of cemeteries outside of the village on hilltops, and went to a cove where we could see seals bobbing in and out of the water. We had dinner in the hotel that night and it was very, very nice! This will be a restaurant that serves really good, really fresh food but isn’t a budget place. Worth a splurge, just the same.
Mama and baby humpback
The next morning, the skies were blue and the sun was out. Hooray! After an excellent breakfast, we picked up packed lunches that were part of the hotel package and went to the dock to wait for the whale watching cruise to depart. It turned out to be everything we hoped for and more. We were on a small boat, as we weren’t comfortable taking the type of whale watching from a zodiac (similar to a lifeboat in size. Much too small and too close to the water!) They sail out into the Bay and keep watch. We did see some “blow” in the distance and one whale was a bit closer but it didn’t want to have anything to do with the boat and swam off sharpish. Soon, though, another one was spotted closer by so the captain cut the engines off. We floated there and were excited that the whale, a female humpback, swam right up to the boat. She floated there, came up and went down, under the boat from side to side as if she was making sure everyone got a good look. These animals can be well over 50 feet long and many, many tons in weight. You look down over the side of the boat at these creatures that are probably as long as or longer than the boat you’re on and you realize they could have you tipped over if they wanted to. Whales are pretty peaceful, though.
Everyone was taking photos of course and I did too though I made myself put the camera down and watch, just watch, rather than spend the whole time behind the lens. You really do find yourself awestruck at these gentle giants. We saw a couple more close up as well and then after another ride to another spot, we encountered a mother and her calf. They didn’t come close to the boat but they were still close enough that we could all see them well. The calf was showing off, and at one point was waving it’s flippers at us! We weren’t lucky to see them jump right out of the water but they did breech and a couple of times dive with the tail flipper up out of the water. We didn’t see any other types of whales besides the humpback nor did we see any dolphins but it didn’t really matter. We saw whales!
The water in the bay wasn’t too choppy though we did bob about quite a bit while stopped. Nobody seemed to mind much and the sun was very warm. There was a breeze but it wasn’t really cold. We did have warm things on but I had to take my coat off. We both got lots of pictures and some video that I put together into a clip which gives you a better idea of how close they were. A lot of these pictures aren’t zoomed in much at all, not the ones of the whales that came close to the boat. Only a little and the ones of the mother and calf are zoomed in a bit to a lot.
We were out a total of three hours and had a bit of sunburn when we finally came ashore. We’d already checked out of the hotel so we hit the road again, this time heading for Annapolis Royal where we had a Bed and Breakfast booked in nearby Granville Ferry for the night.
The Daily Post at WordPress challenges us this week to post a photo of something Rare. I’ve posted this photo at least once before and it certainly fits this theme. Scotland, late August 1993. Driving across Rannoch Moor on a drizzly day on a tour bus. The sun must have been breaking out somewhere because we saw colours across the moors. Real colours like a rainbow but it was puddles of misty colour on the ground, not an arc over the sky. I took a quick photo through the window and was pleased to see it turned out. (Those were the days you had to wait for the film to be developed).
I posted the photo on Flickr and entered into a discussion with someone about it and he suggested it would have been the top of the rainbow. This part of Scotland is higher above sea level and at mid to late morning when this was taken, the sun would have been at about 40 degrees elevation and just the right angle for it.
Rainbow in the Highlands, near Glencoe. The “Hail Mary” lucky shot through the bus window
Nancy Merrill Photography has a weekly photo challenge and this week’s is Natural Monuments. The best example I have is from my visit to the Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, where you’ll find the Hopewell Rocks, formations created by the world record high tides in the Bay of Fundy. The tides here can advance over 50 feet in some places. It does play havoc on the coastline. This area has a group of rocks behind these, to either side of the small inlet. Recently one of those had a portion that collapsed, testament to the power of nature.
The weekly theme at Where’s My Backpack this week is Graceful. Swans come to mind for many of us when thinking of that word. Their long curved necks and slow, languid movements through the water are mesmerizing to watch. This one was spotted at the Martin Mere Wetlands in northwest England. Black is a more unusual colour for these birds but they are no less graceful.
This week WordPress wants to see depth. I had a little think and decided to go with an “under the sea” concept, photos from an aquarium in the Chester Zoo, England.
Ailsa at Where’s My Backpack has given us Gardens as this week’s theme.
My first love is architecture but I used to travel with a woman who loved to garden and when we shared our photos, you could always tell whose were whose. Mine were all buildings, doors and windows and hers were all gardens and flowers and plants and trees. Since then, I’ve tried to take photos of flowers and gardens.
Italian gardens, Trentham, England
Gardens at Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen
Culpepper Garden, Leeds Castle, England
Where I live, Halifax, Nova Scotia, We have a beautiful Victorian era public gardens. There is a big duck pond, a little stream, flowers galore, rare trees and other specimens of plants. There are fountains, a beautiful gazebo, statues and a little cafe. It’s a wonderful place to walk in the summer, the annual zombie walk streams through here on it’s way through the city, and is a hugely popular place for wedding photos. Here are a few photos from our Public Gardens.
In the Canadian province of New Brunswick there’s a park on the edge of the province that runs along the Bay of Fundy, home of the highest tides in the world. The park contains the Hopewell Rocks, high rock formations that stand alone away from the rest of the cliffs. When the tide is out, you can see the formations much better. The tide and elements over centuries, probably millennia, have caused the erosion.
I visited a couple of years ago and saw them at low tide. There is a large park here, with an upper and lower section. They have a shuttle running between the two. There are hiking trails and an interpretive centre (and a gift shop and cafe, of course!). They do charge entry during tourist season but I believe we were just outside that and parked at the lower end. We could view the beach and rocks from a viewing platform for free. You can go down to the beach as well and explore around the rocks and cliffs but you must watch out for the incoming tides. They wait for nobody!
The park is about 45 minutes outside the city of Moncton. The rest of my photos are here on Flickr.
Hopewell Rocks. The high tide reaches just about the top of the under-arch/hole.
Staircase to the beach
For scale, you can just see someone standing by the outer rock.
Tvor Travels 