West

It’s the classic trip to the Canadian West: Flight to Vancouver, visit of the wild coast of Vancouver Island followed by a round trip through the national parks of the Rocky Mountains. Quite a few tourists take the ferry through the Inside Passage to Prince Rupert and approach the parks from the north. We chose the southern route through the valleys of Fraser and Thompson River. Rather unclassically, our journey ends in Calgary.

We spend three days in Vancouver, the only major city on Canada’s west coast. Then we take the ferry to Vancouver Island and spend the next day in Victoria, the “British” capital of British Columbia. By the way, this is where the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH) begins at the Mile-0-Marker, with 7,821 kilometers the third longest road connection in the world. We continue north across the Kinsol Tresle (a gigantic wooden bridge construction) and the cities of Duncan (City of Totems) and Chemainus (City of Murals).

At Parksville the only main road to the west coast turns off; at Little Qualicum Falls Provincial Park two magnificent waterfalls are worth a stop. The road – a dead end – finally ends in Tofino in Pacific Rim National Park. Here, the Pacific is raging at Long Beach where hundreds of tree trunks pile up on the beach. Our way back follows the same road; this time we stop at MacMillan Provincial Park where we admire an 800 years old Douglas fir at Cathedral Grove. The last night before the crossing we spend in Nanaimo, the second largest city on the island.