Port Renfrew

Brother Bob with wife Regina and son Brandon paid a visit to Vancouver Island recently, arriving the same day as Ralph, a very dear friend from our old neighborhood in Scarborough. We all grew up together so it was pretty cool to meet up in Qualicum Bay and do some reminiscing so many years later.









Bob and family planned to do a little salmon fishing over on the Pacific coast so Roy, Dad and I drove over to Port Renfrew (about a 3 hour drive) to spend time with them, join in the fishing and do some exploring. The guys were up and out early to try their luck with the fish, leaving Reg and I with a car and a few visitors pamphlets. Where to go...?


Port Renfrew is one of the gateways to the West Coast Trail, one of the toughest backpacking trails anyone would ever want to take (more on this later), and home to some very beautiful beaches, scenic woodlands and lots of wildlife. We decided to visit Botanical Beach early while the tide was out and hit Avatar Grove after lunch.




It was foggy and quite surreal when we first arrived at Botany Bay and the sea fog lifted and returned several times during the few hours of our exploration.


A trail through the woods linked Botany Bay to Botanical Beach and wound through some stands of really contorted cedar trees. What forces of nature could cause them to grow like that?




Botanical Beach stood in sharp contrast to the jagged black shale of Botany Bay. It was all worn rounded boulders, tidal pools, carved sandstone and bleached driftwood.


After lunch we headed out in search of Avatar Grove, a stand of old growth trees in danger of being logged, hence the Avatar reference. Although this attraction appears on some of the visitor guides, the directions are vague and the logging road access is unmarked. The logging company that owns the land really doesn't want tourists and the potential for liability so persistence is necessary in order to actually get there. Can you say "U" turn?


We did find the trees and yes they were huge. The ones above may not look so big, but look below: there at the bottom right, that's Regina dwarfed by the size of that gnarly old cedar.

And since we're on the subject of grand old trees, here's one more:


This one is well marked, close to the road and well traveled so it has a fence around it to protect the root system. Scale is off because Roy is well back from the tree. Look up, way up and you still can never see the top. Last but not least, let's move from the very large to the very small. This little fellow took root on a submerged log in the middle of a lake. Drought is not a problem here.