May 7th-9th, 2018
I got invited to join in on a quick trip up to Tofino, and even though the timing was a bit tight I couldn’t say no. Honestly who could refuse a surf trip?
We headed out the afternoon of the 7th and took our time getting over to the island via the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal. The drive from Nanaimo to Tofino is about three hours, but we made a few pit stops along the way: the first being at Cathedral Grove in MacMillan Provincial Park.
We took a quick walk around the trails and our resident plant biologist identified trees for us (thanks, Devin). He even had us eating pine needles which, I kid you not, tasted like citrus. We didn’t spend very long at this park; we were on the hunt for a lake to swim in.
After many dead ends and wrong pull offs, we finally found a parking lot right off the highway at Sproat Lake. We followed a short trail to the lake and the boys all hopped in. I opted just to stick my toes in the water (it was cold). After skipping some rocks and drinking some Stanley Park Summer Ale, we finished the drive to Tofino where we checked into the HI Hostel there. We had picked up groceries along the way and made pita pizzas for dinner and finished the evening with a game a euchre.
The next morning we rented surfboards and wetsuits from Long Beach Surf Shop and headed to Long Beach for our first round of surfing! We pulled into a parking lot off Pacific Rim Highway, just across from Airport Road.
Things I learned about surfing: wetsuits are very difficult to put on, surfboards are hard to carry with little arms, catching waves has a very steep learning curve, being too far up on your board results in flipping face first into waves, and standing up on a board is maybe the coolest feeling ever.
I struggled initially with catching waves but luckily I had Makoto and Ian to give me guidance and instruction. Before we went in for lunch I had figured it out for the most part and could STAND UP!
Of course we went to Tacofino for lunch. I had a tasty vegan burrito.
We went back for round two after lunch even though it had started to rain a bit. Struggling back into our cold and damp wetsuits was WORTH IT because we had the beach to ourselves. Once we had sufficiently tired out our arms we packed the boards back up and went back to the hostel where Devin made us stir-fried noodles for dinner!
For our final day in Tofino, we checked out of the hostel early and went to the beach to try and fit in one last round of surfing. Unfortunately, the waves weren’t very good so we returned our boards and found a short hike to do around Tonquin Beach.
We had a final Stanley Park Summer Ale at the beach, played Tic-tac-toe in the sand, and climbed around some of the tidal pools in the area. Once we finished our hike we stopped at Tacofino one last time and headed back to Nanaimo to catch an afternoon ferry back to Horseshoe Bay.
Tofino was perfect!! I’ll be back soon.