We're definitely not seeing Vancouver Is at her best, it's another drizzly, cool day with all enveloping heavy clouds. For all that it has a nice feel to it, a place we could easily see ourselves living. It has it all, forests, the ocean, rivers, plenty of recreational areas, surf beaches even a ski slope. There's a lot of options to eat out and shop. It would seem it's pretty much self sufficient. We've seen vast areas of market gardens and some cattle farms. They have some sort of power producing plant(s?) not sure what fuels them other than the one hydro plant we saw. If you want to build they have a timber industry, lumber yards, plumber supply yards etc
There's a two lane stretch that's got a 120k/h speed limit; very civilised.
The scenery is much like on the mainland, forests, rocky gorges, rivers and lakes. We drove through an old growth forest with some amazing huge trees. Of course we had to stop to check it out :-) it was peaceful, cool and very green. Some of the trees were 60m tall! There was a lot of moss and ferns down low and the giant Douglas firs and cedars towering above. We loved it.

Port Alberni is a working port but had some interesting sculptures of eagles etc on the waterfront. Heading out of the port is a lovely riverside walkway, in season you can see bears just across the river from here but not today.

Now don't get me wrong, we've been some really awesome places this trip, seen some amazing sights BUT it was so good to once again be on a beach. It's been a month since we left home where we live just a few blocks from the beach. It was great to once again hit sand despite the far from perfect beach weather. It was windy and visibility was not great due to a heavy fog.
As is our way we checked out some rock pools, huge pods, lots of nems and a good size pretty red star. There were a few wannabe surfers but despite the posting of warnings being set at high for surf, it wasn't too much to get excited about. A group of hippies further along the beach were playing bongos and dancing around.
Most of the beach access points only led to private properties or resorts which was a bit disappointing but we managed to find our way to the beach twice. In one of the beaches we pulled up a log and sat to have lunch where we proceeded to be stalked by a seagull. He kept circling us and moved in quickly once we went back to the car only to find we'd left nothing so moved on to another couple further down the beach.

Tofino itself is a bit Montville by the sea, lots of galleries, arty places, restaurants, hotels, B & B's and tour operators. There's a harbour but if there's a beach actually at Tofino we didn't find it.
Tofino's poorer cousin down the road is Ucluelet. Much smaller, far less pretentious and a lot more our style. We explored around the lighthouse, a rocky place which was also swathed in the fog which had been in Tofino. We clambered over the big rocks and checked out the ocean which was far more lively than it had been at Tofino. All the time the lighthouse was sending out its mournful warning cry.

We headed back to Nanaimo not getting back to town til nearly 9pm. It was very dark, the heavy cloud cover we'd had all day still blocking all light from the stars or moon.
We stopped at a liquor store to pick up some cider and red wine to go with dinner.
When we left this morning we'd mentioned the net was a little patchy in our unit, it tended to drop in and out a bit. When we got back tonight we noticed a new booster relay in the hall outside our door, now that's service!

It's now half way for this trip, one month down another to go :-) since we picked the car up a month ago in LA we've done 12044km's. It's been fun and is far from over yet!