SUNSHINE!!!

We got a miraculously sunny weekend and wanted to make the most of it, so took Friday off work and caught a ferry to Salt Spring Island.

Salt Spring Island is the largest and the most popular of the southern gulf islands, close to Victoria on Vancouver Island. It has a similar feel to Gabriola Island, where we spent 4 months at the start of our Canadian adventure, but with more people, shops/restaurants/things to do.

We opted to get a ferry from Vancouver which takes you to Salt Spring via some stops on 3 other gulf islands. The other option is to go to Victoria first and change, but this seemed like too much effort. Once we arrived, we headed to the campsite in Ruckle Park on the south-east side of the island. The temperatures were in single digits, so only the brave campers were there. Aside from the quiet campsite, another benefit of late-season camping is that sunrise isn’t until 8am. On Saturday and Sunday morning, we sat for 1/2 hour before sunrise watching otters, seals, sea lions and lots of birds and drinking our coffee. Sunset was just as beautiful and we combated the cold by burning lots of dead trees (sorry COP26).

Here is some of the wildlife Rosie managed to snap at the campsite. Our favourites were the sea lions, they were so big! Didn’t manage a photo of those though unfortunately.

On Saturday we crammed in all of the touristy things to do on Salt Spring. We started with the farmers market, went on to a winery and a cidery and finally said hello to some goats at a cheese making place (a cheesery?). We had already visited a brewery and another cidery on Friday night, but still hadn’t ticked off all of the alcohol made on the island!

On Sunday we decided to be more healthy and went on a short walk up Mount Erskine. We knocked on several fairy’s doors on the way, but nobody seemed to be in. After our walk, we headed back to the campsite. We hadn’t managed to book a ferry on Sunday, so stayed another night. There was absolutely nobody else there which made for an extremely peaceful evening.

The price we paid for our beautiful and tranquil last night on the island was the 4.45am wake up to pack up the tent and catch the ferry back to Vancouver. We did get one more sunrise from the ferry though.

Vancouver has granted us our perfect weekend, so we are back to the r**n this weekend. No plans yet, apart from having Thom and Hannah over for dinner tonight, so we best get cooking!