Hornby/Denman Island signage

On our first hike, in Denman Island Provincial Park, we came across the sign above. We scratched our heads over it for a while. Was this a language unfamiliar to us, some kind of odd hybrid, or just a really plain language version of Go this way to find the lake? Turned out to be option #3. Chickadee Lake showed up just a few minutes later. Well, ok. This sign got its message across effectively and succinctly.

It got me thinking about signs and how well they work (or not). The one below left is crystal clear. We saw several of these in Mount Geoffrey Escarpment Provincial Park, where our trail teetered along the edge of a cliff (and I mean the absolute outer edge!) The photographs I took just don’t quite do justice to the hair-raising nature of some parts of that trail (see how the path below right adjoins treetops to the right? Well, the roots of those trees are a long looong way down, and I wasn’t getting any closer to show you just how steep the drop is.)

We came across one very functional sign that required no words:

The powers that be also provided some very detailed and informative maps of the park along the way. Unfortunately, all were identical right down to the lack of any “You are here” indicators, so all they told us was here’s all the trails in our park, plus those of the adjoining Mount Geoffrey Regional Nature Park and assorted Crown lands, with nothing to tell you where the heck you are in all of this. Fortunately, the Bluetooth on my iPad functioned well even out of range of Wi-Fi to allow us to orient ourselves and ignore the signs — after I'd taken this photo:

Then there were those signs being blatantly ignored in Tribune Bay Provincial Park. Below left, you are instructed not to build log structures; below right (immediately adjacent to the sign) are a number of those prohibited log structures. Perhaps they’re intended to provide examples so you know what not to build?

There was also a sign here stating that dogs were not permitted on the beach. Our little friend below (and his owner) must have missed that one. I opted to take a picture of the dog only, not the sign prohibiting him.

Signage can take other (better?) forms than language. This plain orange shirt hanging from the branches beside the trail of our final hike (Schoolhouse Trail) is far more eloquent than any words would have been. We also saw quite a few orange shirts and red dresses while driving across Denman Island.

And finally, there was the head-scratching puzzle of this truck (no, not a sign, but I’m sneaking it in here anyway). In the middle of the woods, with only a narrow trail running past and quite some distance from any roads, how the heck did it end up coming here to die? The imagination boggles.

And that brings to a close my observations about Hornby Island and its environs. We’ve more or less settled on Texada Island as our next destination (but not until the restaurants re-open!) There are a lot of islands off the BC coast to explore. We could spend years. But only if we can eat out.

Now I have to think up topics for future posts closer to home. This could get boring. Wish me luck.

Hornby Island dining and the view from our cottage

Generally, we expect to dine out regularly when we’re on vacation. On cycling holidays, that’s a necessity because we stay in hotels, where we can’t cook (besides, who wants to cook after cycling for hours?) Because of the pandemic, last year we opted for a log cabin with a fully equipped kitchen on Salt Spring, but had our dinners out about half the time anyway.

When I first researched Hornby dining options in late summer, I found quite a few. I knew that going in October might reduce that number somewhat, so I checked again the week before we left (part of my just-in-time planning). The more than half a dozen options I’d seen earlier had been whittled down for various reasons (renovations, staff shortages, seasonal openings only), but there still seemed to be at least four.

However, when we arrived, most of those had evaporated. One place was closed for October, despite their website still claiming regular opening hours. Another was just closed, no reason given, no reopening date provided (also contradicted by their website). I made reservations for Wednesday dinner at the Seabreeze Lodge restaurant (where our cottage was; open for dinner Wednesdays and Saturdays only), and hoped to have one or two more meals out elsewhere (even just lunches out if the whole island shut early). 

In the end, our only other option was food truck pizza with very limited lunchtime hours and outdoor seating in the rain only. Their gluten-free option was a 10-inch rice tortilla, not quite Mr. Fluffster’s (or my) idea of pizza heaven, and they only provided entire pizzas, not slices, so that would yield far more pizza than we wanted/needed. So much for fine (or indeed any) dining out.

The day we arrived, we stopped at the Co-op, intending to pick up some groceries for dinner and the next day’s breakfast. Who knew they’d decide to close early on Thanksgiving, without any notice? We had with us a packet of pasta, a can of beans, a small quantity of pesto, peanut butter, teabags, instant coffee, one banana, and a few energy bars. We wouldn’t have starved, but it wasn’t quite what we’d envisioned for our first evening, and would have made rather a sparse breakfast (with no milk for coffee/tea!) And we’d had no lunch that day, as the place we’d planned to stop at on Denman Island had also opted to close for Thanksgiving. You’d think it was a holiday or something.

We almost gave up in despair, but decided to peek into the Co-op Gas Bar store, just in case. Luckily for us, it was surprisingly well stocked, so we snagged milk, eggs, bacon, and blueberry Greek yogurt. A veritable feast!

Dinner was pasta with pesto while contemplating the view from our cottage window (below left). The next day, after rainclouds and wind rolled in, that same view would be very different (below right). 

The Co-op, when open the next day, was well stocked to meet the survival needs of one vegetarian and one gluten-free diner, so all was not lost, even though we had to battle rain and wind to get there (our hike for the first full day, followed by getting nearly blown off the rocky beach near our cottage). We ate pasta four times that week. We like the stuff, but once, maybe twice a week is our usual quota.

The photo at the top of this post was taken in Parksville, where we stopped for lunch on our return trip. I had a bit of a running joke with colleagues about spending my retirement dining out and drinking mimosas, so I couldn’t resist when I found them on the menu. But this is the first one I’ve had since August (and yes, I have been actively looking for them). I guess this means I really am retired now.

Next time we go on a cottage vacation, I’m delegating the meal planning to Mr. Fluffster. He’s better at circumventing unpleasant surprises.

Hornby Island wildlife (plus a couple of domestics)

According to the Travel British Columbia website, Hornby Island can be depended upon to provide wildlife sightings, which always adds excitement to any trip. I was looking forward to promised “eagles, seals, and sealions” (well, maybe not so much the eagles and seals, as they’re everyday here at home. But who’d say no to a good sea lion* sighting?)

On our very first hike, in Denman Island Provincial Park, we came across several wild creatures (though not yet the promised ones). The caterpillar below left was one of dozens littering our trail, and the one below right doesn’t quite look like a caterpillar because it rolled up into a ball when we got too close. Apparently Denman is working hard at preserving the Taylor’s Checkerspot butterfly, and this park constitutes one of its two remaining habitats in BC.

Sadly, neither of these caterpillars is going to become a Taylor’s Checkerspot, or any kind of butterfly for that matter. The black and orange “woolly bear” pictured above will become the rather mundane Isabella Tiger moth, and although it has a reputation for predicting the severity of winter weather (the wider the orange band, the more severe the winter), it’s far more likely that it actually shows the severity of the winter just past, which would be more of a postdiction). And their seemingly suicidal tendency to crawl across roads and sidewalks everywhere is due to the need to find some bark or cavities in rocks or logs to overwinter in.

The caterpillar above right is a Lophocampa roseata, also a moth, but this one’s apparently rather rare, so that’s something, anyway. (The things you can learn from Professor Google!) We also saw several large slugs (one pictured at the top of this post).

Less disgustingly, we saw three piliated woodpeckers doing woodpecker things as we passed them by. No need to spot carefully for these, as the furious rat-a-tat announced their presence a mile off. Apologies for the poor quality of the photos. I obeyed the signs that said don’t step off the trail.

Of course, I had hoped for a whale or maybe dolphin sighting, even though I’d found no evidence to suggest that might happen. Hope springs eternal and all that. And indeed, on our first day (after the wet trek to the co-op for groceries, then getting nearly blown away clambering over slippery rocks on our beach), while looking out at the wind-swept waves from our living room, I did spot something just below the horizon that resembled the fins of several sea creatures. Could have been whales. Or maybe dolphins. Definitely cavorting in and above the water. I excitedly pointed them out to Mr. Fluffster, but he couldn’t see anything. I blame his poor eyesight. I saw what I saw. Of course, those binoculars I got as a retirement gift from my employer would have clarified things nicely, but they weren’t much help sitting in their drawer back at home.

On day three, the highlight was sea lions. Real ones. Unfortunately, they were on a faraway island, so we couldn’t get near them. Nor could I get a proper picture. All I can offer is some splashing about if you squint closely and the sea lion sounds you might hear if you crank the volume all the way up on this video:

There was also life of the domestic variety to be found on Hornby. Below left is our only visitor (if you don’t count spiders. I don’t). He marched up to the patio door, looked at me and loudly demanded to be let in. I did not comply. He sulked on the railing for a while, then wandered off. That evening, as we were sitting down to our only dinner out at the lodge restaurant, he reappeared, stalked by, and gave us the stink-eye. Probably because I hadn’t let him in. According to our server, he's the Seabreeze Cat, which explains his assumption that he can gain entrance to any outbuildings on the property.

On the right is a dog who stopped by for a quick pat as we were braving the gale on Tribune Bay Beach. His ears are back because of the wind, not displeasure.

      

Aside from the large number of ravens we saw (and heard) everywhere and (a few) assorted other birds, that was it for wildlife. Some of our hikes were surprisingly quiet. I think the wildlife was hiding from us. They’re probably all out there partying it up now that we’re gone.

* Misspelling of sea lion as all one word courtesy of the Travel BC website. I know better.

The Fluffsters on Hornby Island: Day -1

  

Last September, we spent a wonderful week on Salt Spring Island, where we encountered lovely sunny weather, a charming log cabin by a lake with free paddle boats and other non-motorized water craft, and reassuringly active COVID-19 protocols everywhere. We discovered Salt Spring Wild Cider (which has totally supplanted the soda-pop-tasting-with-added-alcohol type of cider I used to drink). We hiked (every day), cycled (only once, because hills), paddle-boated on St. Mary’s Lake, dined on patios and in an orchard, read, and relaxed. Soon after that trip, we researched other Gulf Islands and decided Hornby would be our next — and my first post-retirement — destination.

Mr. Fluffster is a Planner. He likes to map all aspects of life out well in advance and thoroughly research options, to avoid surprises. Me, I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants kinda person, and I’m good with the unexpected.

We each approached this trip in our own way. Mr. Fluffster booked a cottage in early August after discovering that Thanksgiving was the earliest date one was available. Last day of shoulder season, and the day before official off-season starts. Ok, so we wouldn’t have sunny September weather, but hey, October still has pleasant days, right? Six days of brightly coloured leaves and crisp cool mornings turning into semi-warm afternoons? Perhaps we’d even see some more of this splendour (below, encountered on Salt Spring):

My only prep task besides packing was to book the ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo (ferries from Vancouver Island to Denman and Denman to Hornby can’t be booked in advance). So, in keeping with my general philosophy of just-in-time planning, I sat down the Thursday before to do this. Piece of cake, right? Well, no. Who knew that everyone and their entire extended clan wanted that ferry on that day?

The only sailings available were at 6:30 am (Mr. Fluffster is a morning person, but even he drew the line at getting up early enough to arrive at a ferry the requisite 30 to 120 minutes in advance) and 10 pm (too late to get to any secondary ferries, let alone two of them, plus driving between).

This was where I kicked into oh-my-god-salvage-this-thing-for-the-sake-of-our-marriage mode. Research into Sunday ferry options revealed there was still space on the 8 pm sailing (as well as the two untenable times aforementioned). But first I had to find a place to stay in Nanaimo for Sunday night (because we still wouldn’t make it to Hornby that day and taking an evening ferry without knowing where we would sleep was just a bit too fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants even for me). I got lucky; the Best Western just off the highway north of Nanaimo had one room left. It cost as much as three nights at the cottage, but at least it came with breakfast. So we added another day to our six-day trip. Definite perk to being retired; no need to consult anyone or alter work schedules.

We’d planned to bring our bicycles along, just in case Hornby turned out to be more cycle friendly than Salt Spring (not so fond of hills anymore). However, the weather report out on Saturday looked a bit like this for the week:

Day -1: Overcast and not-so-terribly-warm

Day 1: Rain and gale-force winds

Day 2: Cloudy and somewhat rainy

Day 3: Cloudy with a bit of sun peeking through here and there

Day 4: More rain

Day 5: Even more rain, with some more of those gale-force winds in the evening

Day 6: Torrential downpours all day long

Given the possibility that any or all of this could be accurate, we decided in the interests of not letting our poor bicycles rust on the back of the car for a week, we’d leave them at home. Turned out the weather report was surprisingly accurate, and this was a wise choice. The pictures at the top of this post reflect some of what Hornby weather was like. Our bicycles are thankful.

More about Hornby Island to come in my next post.