Cowichan Bay

Steph and I have been away for the Thanksgiving Long Weekend. Yes, that's right Thanksgiving in Canada was yesterday. Apparently harvesting takes place later in The States, hence their Thanksgiving Day is in November. Anyhow, Steph and I headed off to Vancouver Island on Friday night and came back yesterday (Monday). The ferries were ridiculously busy, both there and back. In fact we didn't get on the return ferry we wanted to as it was so full. We were queuing up, got to the front of the line... and they closed the desks as it was full. WE WERE RIGHT AT THE FRONT! Looking on the positive side, it meant we were first in the line for the next one, an hour later.

The actual holiday was very good though. We stayed at a B&B in Cowichan Bay, which is beautiful. I'll post some photos soon. We wandered around Cowichan Bay itself, and also visited some nearby attractions. These included Merridale Estate Cidery, Cherry Point Vineyards and Blue Grouse Vineyards. We also had dinner at Merridale on Sunday night, despite a power outage effecting half the island. They were doing a special thanksgiving dinner, which was fantastic. And it case you thought all we did was visit places where we could sample alcohol, we also went to the BC Forest Discovery Centre. This was a great place as we got to go on a steam train. Well, that's not actually true. They do have asteam train, but it wasn't running as its out of peak season. So our carriage was pulled by what looked like a train engine, but it was actually a V8 petrol engine from a car. Oh well. The BC Discovery Centre details the history of logging on Vancouver Island and was very interesting - all outdoors. As it was thanksgiving they also had things 'like paint a pumpkin' for the kids. Which I obviously joined in with.

There are some interesting towns in the area too and we drove back via Duncan, Chemainus and Ladysmith. We love 'discovering' each town's local independant coffee shop. The one the locals visit. We found just such places in Duncan and Ladysmith. For us, they're one of the highlights of the trip.