Friday Aug 28 - Thursday Sep 3 Whiskey Creek, BC
Our last week at Pineridge was very relaxing. We really didn't do anything worth writing about, so in a nutshell, that was it for our 2-week stay at Pineridge.
Today, (Friday), we head back to Whiskey Creek campground. We'd booked in for another week before we left Pineridge a couple of weeks ago.
With the continuing Covid situation, it seems that I am begining to suffer from a lack of enthusiasm, a lack of enthusiasm to venture further afield; Jen's feeling the same way. We had thought of heading up island, towards Campbell River – there's an RV park on a sand spit that is surrounded by water. But we've visited Campbell River numerous times in the past, so we decided to just spend the remaining weeks of our summer closer to home.
At Whiskey Creek, we are in site #2, in the trees.
The weather continues to be very comfortable – temps in the low to mid-20s during the day. The breeze is definitely cool and the overnight temperatures are starting to slide south – 8-9C.
We really haven't had a hot summer. I can count on one hand the number of days the temperature has climbed to above 30C since May. Not complaining mind you!
Today, Monday Aug 31, we went exploring. When we drive from Parksville to Whiskey Creek, there are a couple of buildings on the mountainside above Cameron Lake. We searched Google maps but couldn't really find anything that told us what they were or how to get to them. But we did discover an area of houses just on the other side of Little Qualicum Fall provincial park. Hmmm, never knew there was anything there, but there sure looks to be a lot of houses.
Even though this area is just on the other side of the provincial park, which is 2 km up Hwy 4, it will take us 29 minutes to drive there!
On the way up the road, Jen had noticed a sign to a regional park. We turned around, found the parking lot and parked Alfie.
We walked down the trail and right into Little Qualicum Falls provincial park.
After a bit of looking around (we missed the small map on a post), we determined we were right by the upper falls. (We explored the lower falls when we visited the provincial park a couple of weeks ago.)
What a pretty setting. Here are a few pictures and videos I shot.
I set the GPS for one of the streets and off we went, down Hwy 4 to the roundabout before Qualicum Beach, around the bypass, left onto Hwy 19 north, then left onto Bayliss. A couple of dipsy-doodles later and we arrived at the end of the road.
We walked back to Alfie and drove to the waterfront in Qualicum Beach.
Not long after we arrived, our tummies started growling, so we headed to the Courtyard Café for a bite.
Then it was off to the park next to the old E&N rail station.
While Jen rested, I snapped a few pics.
What a delightful day. We had no idea that residential area existed. It was fun to go suss it out and visit the upper falls in the provincial park. And also to explore the Qualicum Beach E&N train station.
On Wednesday (Sep 2) we drove to Courtenay to run a few errands.
The only item of note was a delightful visit to the Ace Brewing Company just
around the corner from the Courtenay Airpark. We sampled a flight of 4 of their
offerings and came away with a 4-pack of Kitty Hawk Honey Cream Ale. It was tasty.
As stated on their website (you should check it out):
"Ace referring to Ace Fighter Pilots in WW1 and WW11 fighting for the Military community of CFB Comox."
So now we are into the month of September, Fall is approaching quickly - warm days, cool nights. It'll soon be time to head back to Comox and hunker down for the winter.
But we still have a few weeks left before that happens, so stay tuned. If we get up to anything exciting, I'll definitely update the blog.
