A day of shorter walks was planned, so we fuelled on café breakfast (which included a breakfast sandwich inside a fried savoury doughnut!) and a box of 6 regular ring doughnuts for 6 Canadian Dollars (about £3) and headed towards Ucluelet on highway 4.
We stopped twice – once at Combers Beach and then at the Rainforest Trail. Both were forest walks, one ending in a wide open beach. Apart from the trees, a helicopter and a bald eagle flying overhead it was a pretty standard pair of walks.
We returned towards Tofino, stopping at the town outskirts for lunch at the original Tacofino. It seemed to be more of a tourist destination than a food place, with huge queues waiting for food. However, it was definitely worth it, and we had tacos, gringas and what they called “freshies” which were basically slushies. I had watermelon and basil, which sounds disgusting but is actually excellent. And fish tacos. We returned to the hotel to pause before the afternoon activity.
Our plan for the afternoon was to get a water taxi across to Meares Island, a semi-protected 20 square kilometre island about 10 minutes’ boat ride from Tofino. The island contains 2,000 year old trees, is entirely unmanaged, and is only accessible by boat. Kayak trips stop there, as does a taxi service. It’s not cheap, but worth it for the experience of walking for 2 hours through dense rainforest. There are some boardwalks, but these are made from fallen trees using axes and hand saws. We were lucky to see a blue jay, which was quite hard to photograph as it kept moving and hiding. It’s really hard to explain how big the trees are – some are vast, easily 5m diameter at the base of their trunks.
Back at the hotel with just enough time to shower before dinner, and this time a short walk to Shelter which had a great view over the water from our table. Excellent food and we watched the sunset and a sealion feeding just off the end of one of the piers!
