Tofino (Dogs in Wetsuits)

Unrelated vaguely travel relevant photo of our new suitcase.

We're just in the door from spending Easter in Tofino on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. It's unfortunately probably as close to Japan as we'll get before you leave Tokyo Marcyo. So it was our first extended stay outside of downtown Hong-Coover since we arrived. Not so much culture shock as where has all the skyscraper wallpaper gone? I no longer have any respect for buildings less than 20 stories high. The co-op supermarket in Tofino barely has one storey.

Mulligan and O'Hare perform their hit "Yes That Is An Oar On The Wall"

Anyways, we got the bus outside our building at 7am on Friday morning and off we go to Horseshoe Bay to catch the 8:30 ferry across to Nanaimo. I have aspergers - its official. At least according to M whose years of experience working with the unwashed dysfunctional child hordes in Newbridge is hard to contradict...... all because I got a little competitive with some young Chinese couple with a map and a smaller suitcase than ours. If I get up at 6am I don't want to still have to queue behind the "we never sreeeeeep" Chinese. Kinda like the Germans and the early-towel-gets-the-lounger syndrome. Anyways - my competitive stress was misplaced because the Vancouver transport system is hyper efficient. It just works well and the locals are pretty laid back when it comes to line ups.

Ferry ride over or back.

The trip over is about an hour and a half and a more windswept journey we never had (note the first mention of the elements). We arrive and jump straight on the Tofino Bus - driven by Otto from the Simpsons - for the 3 hour bus trip across the island to Tofino. This man had an air conditioning fetish no doubt about it. He sat there in shorts and a tshirt for the whole journey while everyone of his passengers were wrapped in several layers of clothes and hats and gloves to ward off the freezing blasts from the air conditioning. It was a scene reminiscent of when the contestants in the Eurovision Song Contest or the Rose of Tralee go on a day trip for the cameras. I'm not sure how. Oh yeah - Otto was wearing a tiara aswell...... and it wasnt a tshirt - it was a singlet. But the bus journey itself was a stunning spin through a national park, over a treacherous mountain pass in the snow and through some of the best scenery we've sceneried yet.

So basically the west coast of the island is called Rain Coast. I only figured out why when I realised I'd actually slept in my raingear. There was rain, hail, snow, some sunny rain, some windy rain and then some refreshing rainy rain. One of few remaining temperate rainforests in the world is located on Meares Island just off Tofino. The whole of Clayoquot Sound is a massive conservationist stronghold and some of the leading North American conservationsist / scientist types choose to base themselves here for most of the year. As an interesting aside, Greenpeace was founded in Kitsilano in Vancouver during the seventies aswell. The Tofino locals have a reputation for being tree huggers and loving the rain. Tree huggers they may be but their compassion does not extend to rain soaked hitch hikers on the main road out of town. I don't know how many hippy vans passed us on the road over the whole weekend. Maybe if I hadda used a peace sign instead of an outstretched thumb. Peace signs can cause offense if viewed from an incorrect angle. If we go again I'd definitely hire a car. There was no car hire place in Tofino and the place we were staying was about 3 miles from town. Over the course of the weekend we must have walked at least a lady's mini marathon a day. If we hadnt eaten so much, we'd have passed for windswept, rain soaked, but bizarrely sun bleached Kenyans by the end of our stay. The campaign to allow Kenya and The Nairobi Rose, Rosie Ngngngng Ng, enter the Eurovision starts here.

The Cut Bush Rose / Mull of Kintyre video shoot.

Highlight of the trip was definitely the whale watching. We were brought out on the water on a sunny!! Saturday morning by Peepo a French immigrant sailor who spent 10 years sailing around the world and the last 10 years settled on the wilds of the pacific west coast. He described sealions as "dogs in wetsuits" and for that alone it was worth the journey. We were told that the likliehood of seeing a whale was only about 50/50 and the skippers from the other boats out on the sound were radioing (ra-DOING!) that they hadnt seen much that morning. So we were pretty thrilled to hear Peepo out of nowhere shouting "Thar She Blows!!". The simultaneous realisation of the meaning of that phrase coupled with the prospect of seeing a humpback whale in its natural environment brought unbridled elation to the atmosphere on
the boat and before long we neared the whale by following the fountains of water he was blowing out the hole in his head (technical terminology aside). Then, right on cue, he decided to give us a performance - known in the business as a breach - it's when the whale jumps into the air out of the water to come splashing - all 40 tonnes of whale - back into the water, creating a massive splash . Pure showbusiness.

View up the Clayoquot Sound from the boat.

The tour guides fill you with the most bizarre statistics aswell - for example the tongue of the average humpback whale apparently weighs more than the average indian elephant (what they dont tell you is that said indian elephant had just spent a week losing hundreds of pounds walking in and out of Tofino in the rain). Bald Eagles (Glenn Frey without the Miracle-Gro) are also a regular sight in the area and we learned all about aeries (they're not called nests because they're the permanent lifelong home of the monogamous eagle couple - they even pass them down to their eagle children). Somewhere in Colorado an aerie was recently discovered which is as big as VW Beatles turned upside down...... Its now in the "Ngeenis Bukk uff ReKORD". Peepo speaks weird.

Glenn Frey without the toupĕ

But the Vancouver Islanders are a resourceful bunch - they've managed to make a tourist attraction out of their horrendous year round weather. During the winter months you can enjoy "Storm Watching" which is what we spent most of our weekend doing. In fairness the place we stayed was amazing. It was right on the ocean and the lounge area had 20ft floor to ceiling windows overlooking the chaos on the ocean and the spectacle was pretty impressive. I think we still would have preferred a plain old sunny sea view - but what can you do? There was also hot coffee and fresh cinnamon buns available all day for nothing so we cashed in there. Big time. Extra-notch-on-the-belt-big-time. We have to thank Marc, Eri, Linda and Siamak (and Louise & Stephen for the recommendation) for giving us the best wedding gift ever and the opportunity to travel to such a beautiful and unspoiled part of the world. Fabulous trip altogether. We owe yiz big time.

Tofino Harbour

Coming back into Vancouver on Monday night was very weird altogether. Going from spending 4 days in a remote fishing village in such a beautifully natural environment to coming "home" to your high rise city apartment in the very man made environment of a modern city, which has been built from the ground up solely to accommodate swarms of humans.... I think we prefer the more natural environment. Even though you can go whale watching whenever you want in Metrotown (think Liffey Valley x 10), its just not the same when the whales are walking around drinking slurpies.

In other news we're bald headed eagerly awaiting the arrival of A. Dug to Vancouver. She arrives toaday and we both can't wait. We hope she's brought her walking shoes.... Lenny the Legend has decided to up sticks and go seek his fortune somewhere else in Canada. He leaves Vancouver at the end of this month so the best of luck to him.