The Atlantic to Pacific 2011 road trip with my Shadow: Victoria to Tofino (May 26, 2011)

After one more Denny's breakfast, I left Victoria and headed for Tofino. In my experience, driving on TransCanada is close to being horrible on the Vancouver Island. The road between Victoria and Nanaimo is too slow to be a highway with a traffic light almost at every 5km. Apparently the concept of overpass does not exist here on this island. On the Nanaimo highway things were much better and wilder. After that I took the Pacific Rim highway that runs right through the Pacific Rim National Park and ends at Tofino.

The day was as usual cloudy and rainy with just a bit of sunny break. I had a late lunch in Tofino and then drove around to observe the open water of the Pacific Ocean and the rugged topography. The high waves were definitely giving a hard time to the surfers. Everything in west coast is very much different than the east coast including the vegetation. This is a rain forest area and the trees are enormous. For the first time I saw a humming bird today right in front of me and some other beautiful bird. I was never a big bird watcher so not sure exactly what it was. It looked like a blue nightingale or maybe all nightingales are blue. I also visited the town of Uclulutet, which is identical to Tofino and close by. At the end I found myself a camping spot and this time I have a friend here who went to school with me at the university for geophysics degree. He comes here for surfing in the Long Beach area. Currently the fire is going and I am sitting at the otherwise dark campground. I carried a bunch of fire wood from Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland and finally got to burn them here on the west coast. I could not post this yesterday due to no internet and so the story comes a day late.