Saturday came round fast again! All the mosquitoes were sharpening their knives and forks for their tasty Janet dinner…

This morning we drove towards the west coast,inland to the town of Port Alberni. Huge ships can travel inland via  the Trevor river over half way across the island. We noticed a steam train was firing up and went over to the station. Grandad took lots of photos for his grandsons to see (and granddaughters too). 

 We strolled around the harbour and really enjoyed the views over the water.

Back in the car we next headed to Sproat Lake, intending to spend the afternoon there. It was a beautiful place and we both sat on a huge sawn off tree log in the sunshine. Next the peace was absolutely shattered and spoilt by a guy on a high powered speed boat who revved up and went round the lake disturbing everyone. 

This is where the seaplanes were located that carry water to quench forest fires, it was interesting to see them there, but we couldn’t stand the noise so we left.

On the way back Vince stopped at Cathedral Grove, an ancient forest with 800 year old Douglas fir trees. We took a picture of ourselves by the tallest tree I’ve ever seen in my life. 

  

  

 The oldest trees had survived a forest fire 350 years ago.  Also many of these huge ancient trees had fallen down blown over by a huge wind about 10 years ago . I can’t believe the force of that wind to be able to do this. We really loved this forest, Douglas trees can live for over a thousand years and so they will be there for a while yet.

After a coffee to wake us up at our favourite Canadian coffee shops called Serious Coffee ………we went to Neck Point. This is only 3 miles away from where we are staying and we hadn’t realised we had such a nice beach so close. You can see where there was a whaling station. Thankfully not allowed now. 

 You can walk right around the small rocky headland and there are little coves which you can swim in. There are rocks and pebbles and grit though, no sand. We spotted a blue heron,it was huge and we watched it for ages catching an eel and fish. It chased another heron away.  

 We saw Canadian geese and gulls too. A lady was walking her small dog and a ferret on a lead! I took a photo lily but it’s not very good. I’ll show you it when I get home.

Last day in Nanaimo tomorrow and we are going back to Neck point now we’ve found out about it.

Love to you all xxxxxx