Walking among the giants - Cathedral Grove

The oldest Douglas Fir in MacMillan Provincial Park

Today we made our way from Campbell River to Port Alberni. Everyone was pretty zonked after yesterday’s big hike so we had a lazy start packing up. It may have taken more than a couple of attempts to get the girls awake and moving (even though they were bribed with donuts!).

The drive went smoothly, though I had to laugh at the cannabis dispensary we drove by that had a 20 foot high inflatable bong on top of it. BC Bud represent, lol.

How cool is all this moss?

Our first stop along the way was MacMillan Provincial Park, more commonly known as Cathedral Grove, to visit the giant Douglas Firs. It’s an easy stop right off the highway (though very popular and with not a ton of parking, given the popularity).

It was a polar opposite experience from hiking Bedwell Lake yesterday - going from an isolated, rugged mountain trail to busy, wide, graveled/boardwalk trails. Definitely a lot more people-y. :)

Even the fallen logs find new purpose and are still full of life

We saw tons of trees growing out of fallen logs and stumps

These sword ferns are so cool. They are everywhere and the underside of the leaves are covered in spores

The two most common giant trees we saw - redcedar on the left and Douglas fir on the right

We marveled at the giant trees, and spent about an hour making our way through all the trails in the park (about 2.3k total of very flat, very easy walking). The trees were magnificent. 

The root ball of a fallen giant

The trails on the south side of the highway boasted the oldest and largest Douglas Fir (about 800 years old) and the trails on the north side were almost entirely boardwalk, except for one small area where the kids were able to check out and climb the root section of a fallen tree, which brought them almost 20 feet in the air.

These trees are unbelievably huge

After this, we jumped back in the car and headed to Robertson Creek Salmon Hatchery. I think we maybe arrived a bit late in the day because after passing a few forboding signs warning of a 3:30 closure, deadly traps and locked gates, we got to an empty visitors parking lot. We quickly walked around but weren’t really able to see much (we arrived around 3). 

Proof we made it to Robertson Creek Hatchery

There were a couple of people working but they didn’t seem especially inclined to talk to visitors, so we opted to move on to our next stop of the day, Stamp River Provincial Park (sorry dad, we tried!).

Waterfall at Stamp River Provincial Park and you can see part of the fish ladder on the right

Stamp River, like most of the rivers we’ve seen here, had clear blue water and a pebble bottom. It rushes through a narrow canyon with gloriously cascading waterfalls. There is a salmon ladder built along one side of the river - we weren’t lucky enough to see salmon jumping up the ladder, but we did see a couple of salmon chilling in the clear pool below the ladder, building up energy to tackle the challenging uphill climb. And the scenery was spectacular (our mini hike here was about 1.7km).

We saw a couple salmon chilling and jumping in this pool below the waterfall 

Seafood abounds in Port Alberni - we actually spotted several guys selling fresh salmon out of the backs of their trucks along the highway, so there was no way we WEREN’T having seafood for dinner tonight (plenty of time for steaks next week in Alberta!). 

Seafood platter for two from The Clam Bucket. OMG. Fried oysters, calamari, halibut, salmon, shrimp, clams and mussels along with grilled vegetables, rice and potato croquettes. Fooooooood coma

We settled on a highly rated restaurant called The Clam Bucket, and aside from finding it a little sunny and hot on the patio, we absolutely loved our meals, which featured enormous portions of super fresh and delicious seafood. 

Brad and I split a seafood platter, the girls started with some popcorn shrimp, and then Zoe devoured fish tacos and Rosie opted for some creamy pasta. We all left stuffed and basically rolled back to our AirBnB, where Brad and Zoe are playing retro video games and Rosie seems to be playing chess against herself.

I’m just trying to keep my eyes open long enough to write this post. :) Tomorrow is our last full day on Vancouver Island and we are headed to Ucluelet and Tofino for some hiking and some beach time. 

Also, I want to apologize in advance for any formatting weirdness that's happening. Blogger has the most miserable mobile interface and I'm frankly not sure what any of this looks like on a desktop. Time to find a new platform!