This is where the fun starts. We check in at the floatplane terminal for our flight over to Vancouver, leave our bags and go off to have a break strolling round Victoria for a couple of hours. I take a few photographs. We watch the flight that we had originally booked on take off (we changed our reservation to a later flight so that we didn’t have to hang around Vancouver Internation Airport for too long) and then we slope off to have a lovely lunch in the open air overlooking the bay.

We check back in for our flight at the appointed time only to be told that the flight has been delayed due to fog. Fog? What fog? We can see a very thin haze on the horizon but it’s apparently enough to make take-off too dangerous. E. has a word with the captain who says this is very unusual and it will probably blow away in about 15 mins.

30 mins later they announce the flight has been cancelled. Other passengers get on to their mobile phones and start enquiring about ferry crossings and scheduled airline flights. We go to the desk to ask what we can do. They say that they can take us on a 4:00pm flight across to Vancouver Waterfront which is about 30 mins away from the International Airport. Our flight to Heathrow is due to depart at 5:25pm so, with luck, we can still get there in time. Apparently our bags have already gone on the earlier floatplane flight.

We spend a fraught couple of hours drinking free coffee and discussing a Plan B in case we miss the flight.

The fog clears and we get on the 4:00pm floatplane flight which lands in Vancouver on time.

We are reunited with our bags. We enquire what is the quickest way to get to the airport. We are told that the new Canada Line train will be the quickest. This is a new railway that had been opened only the week before to much fanfare in preparation for the Winter Olympics 2010. Oh goody, we think, we’ll be able to say we’ve been on the Canada Line.

A courtesy bus takes us the few blocks to the station. We descend to the ticket hall where we discover that the tickets are dispensed by unmanned machines which no-one seems to know how to work. Try as we might the machines will accept neither our credit cards nor our dollar bills. Fellow travellers warn us that the machines have been giving trouble since day one and that there are severe penalties for not having a ticket. Just as we are thinking of going back up to the street to get a taxi, a station employee passes by and helps us by coaxing one of our $5 bills into a machine to buy two tickets to the airport. We rush down to the trains and get on one straight away. 35 mins later we are at the airport. Strangely, there are no ticket barriers at either station and no-one has asked to see our Canada Line tickets.

We have thankfully already checked in to the Air Canada flight on-line so we already have our boarding passes but we have to go through the usual security checks. As before, my knee sets off all the metal detectors and once again I am frisked and searched.

When we finally emerge, there is a long, long walk to the gate. We have, by now, been travelling for almost 12 hours and I am exhausted. We arrive at the aircraft just before they close the doors.

The flight goes well, the food is still dire and E. takes the precaution of asking for two helpings of wine each. We spend the night watching our flight’s progress on the GPS screens in front of us.

We arrive at Heathrow early and when we come out we are met by our friendly, local taxi driver who takes us home. The journey has taken almost 24 hours.

Fanny and Charlie are overjoyed to see us.

We set off quite early so the day was still misty when we left.

We travelled to some remote beaches where bears are known to hang out and it wasn’t long before we found a black bear digging for crabs:

He seemed quite unconcerned by the boat and we stopped at watched him chomping at crabs for quite some minutes. Then we moved further along the beach and we found another one:

As you can see from the photos, the day got brighter as we travelled.

On this trip we also saw some more seals and some eagles (which are quite common hereabouts).

We were thrilled to see the bears and watching them shift the boulders made us all too aware of how strong they must be.

Back to dry land, and after lunch, on an impulse, we went down to the floatplane jetty again and asked if someone would take us up to try to see some whales. Josh (pictured) agreed and up we went again – just the three of us.

I am happy to report that we did see some whales and I actually managed to get these photos from the air (ignore the yellow boat):

Look, I know these pictures are not that impressive, but given that they are the only ones I managed to get, and given that I took them from a bumpy plane through a  not-very-clean window and given that this was the last day of our holiday, I’m going to show them here anyway

These are whales, trust me.

We watched them spouting and splashing and frolicking around, and they were absolutely gorgeous!

This was a wonderful, unforgettable day.

And tonight we have to pack up for an early start on our journey home tomorrow.

We caught a boat ready to go out to sea to find some whales.

After we left harbour the weather turned wet and windy and the sea became quite choppy:

We had to go a long way to find the whales and we did actually see quite a few humpback whales, both fairly near and at a distance. But the trouble with whales is that they appear only for a second or so, they don’t keep still and you never know where they are going to surface next. So I didn’t get a photo of a whale – this time.

But I did actually photograph some sea-lions…

… and sea birds …

… and we also saw a lot of seals, which the locals call ‘killer whale sausages’(!)

I spent some of the time up on the deck with the captain in a vain attempt to catch an early sight of a whale but, regardless, it was a good place to see the view as we came back in.

This was an amazing experience which was like nothing I have ever done before.  And the whales were huge – when you see them fairly near you realise what a size they actually are.  And they are really, really lovely.

When the boat trip was over we went down to see the seaplanes (again!) and I thought I’d try and take some different photos – here’s one:

A day to remember.

On the way we stopped off at Sproate Lake to see the Mars Martin water bomber planes. These are huge firefighter planes used to scoop water from the sea or lakes and drop it on forest fires.

As usual, E. had to have a closer look and here he is looking out of the pilot’s seat:

(I know you can hardly see him but I was a fair distance away and this is the best I could do   )

Tofino and the surrounding area is still largely populated by First Nation people (as opposed to all the immigrants who later colonised Canada) and the place names reflect the place’s history. We stopped for lunch in Ucluelet and then drove on to our hotel, the Tin Wis Resort, in Tofino.

No mess-up over the ocean view room in this hotel: here is the view from our room which looks right out over the Pacific ocean:

I didn’t do much photography today because we were travelling most of the day but I’ll try to make up for it tomorrow…

Then we headed into town to see the train come through. Qualicum Beach has quite a nifty little train station:

Along the track, by the station, is an old steam train on display:

Before long we heard the hoot of the train and in it came, all two coaches:

The train stopped, quite a few people got on and off and it went on its way again.

Our curiosity about the train assuaged, we returned to the town.

We noticed that all the town gardeners appeared to be young women and a great job they were doing:

We ended the day back on the beach, sea-gazing and eating ice cream.

This was our last day in this magical place and I’ve come away with many happy memories. I now know where my father came from.

The railway line runs right through the town. There are no level crossings and the verge along the track is neatly mowed grass. There is one train a day and we just missed it, so we’ll come back tomorrow to see the train come through.

Qualicum Beach has a famous grocery store and we went in and bought the ingredients for a picnic which we took down to the beach. The weather was glorious and we stayed there for the rest of the day.

This place is beautiful. I don’t think I ever want to go home…

Back to the hotel where, at last, we can move rooms. The manageress has upgraded us to a lovely room with a balcony and a sea view – just what we wanted! We can stay here for the next two nights. Perfect.

The beach is absolutely phenomenal: miles and miles of sand around a wide, shallow bay – unspoilt and well-maintained – and with all sorts of sea-life in the ponds and ocean.

Behind the beach is a promenade with seats and a grass verge and trees to provide some shade.  This is a popular place for the locals to stroll.

This being Canada, large pieces of timber are sometimes washed up on the beach and these are left to dry out and become used as seats or children’s play areas.

We spent the morning bumming around the beach and we went into the town in the afternoon.

It is a picture-perfect little town, just a bit smaller than Sherborne. So this is where my father lived his life. We’ll come back and explore more tomorrow.

So, back to our gloomy little hotel room in Parksville. There are still no alternative rooms available but the manageress says that they may be able to move us tomorrow. Here’s hoping.

The flight across the Straits of Georgia takes about 35 minutes and the plane flies at about 3000 ft.  Here are some shots I took from the plane as we approached our landing in Victoria harbour:

After we landed the courtesy bus took us up the road to the Hertz office where we picked up a hire car and we then drove the 2½ hours to Parksville.

We checked into the Quality Resort Hotel and discovered that, rather than a beachfront room overlooking the sea as we expected, we had been allocated a stuffy back room overlooking the car park. We queried this with reception who said that this was the type of room our travel agent had booked so this is what they had given us. When we asked if we could change the room they were sympathetic but sorry that there were no other room available.

We were not happy bunnies.

After spending a while gazing at the views we came back down to see some of the striking landmarks around the area:

Inevitably, we gravitated back to the floatplane terminal…

…where, inevitably, we took a scenic flight around the bay…

I was sitting right behind the pilot and didn’t have a side window to shoot out of but flying in a little floatplane is an amazing experience.

After coming back down to earth we sat in the window of our spectacular hotel room with a glass (or two) of wine and watched the sun go down over Vancouver’s skyline. Magic!

Our room overlooks the harbour and we can look down on the floatplane terminal and the cruise liner docks.

When E. saw the floatplanes taking off and landing right in front of us he thought he’d died and gone to heaven

For an outing we took the Aquabus over to Granvill Island where there is a huge indoor market and loads of live entertainment:

We spent a happy few hours wandering around the market and the island and then came back to the mainland to explore the near neighbourhood of Gastown. One of the first things I was struck with is this statue:

The statue was erected by the Canadian Pacific Railway in memory of all the employees of the railway who lost their lives in WWI, some of whom must have worked on the railway we just travelled on.  It shows an angel in flight carrying a soldier up to heaven. The soldier is fully dressed in uniform with his boots on. I thought that over some of the battlefields the air must have been thick with flying angels, but nevertheless, we stopped for a moment and remembered them.

And just down the street is this amazing steam clock:

Every 15 minutes it grinds into action, hooting and hissing and spewing out steam.  I’m not sure how accurate it is but it was certainly entertaining!