Part 2 of 3: Neat Shopping and Neater Nature Views
If you missed the last issue of Island RV Guide allow me to quickly recap: Me (Carmen) and my family: husband, Todd and children (Tomas – age 6, Toria – age 4) 
spent the joyous month of August 2006 moving from Edmonton to Victoria. Having unpacked enough boxes to find the trailer keys we decided to spend the last week of August visiting Parksville. We camped in our 33 foot fifth-wheel trailer at the Surfside RV Resort. We played, swung and jumped at the park, oohed and awed over the sandcastles, golfed and mini-golfed, walked on the beach and ate ice cream. OK, now you’re up to date.
Upon arriving in Parksville, one of the first things we had done was head to the Parksville Visitors Center located south of the city on Hwy 19A. We found all sorts of brochures and information on things to do both around Parksville and further ‘Up Island’. The staff was extremely helpful in directing us to places that may be of interest to young kids.
And that is how you found me a few feet away from a Bald Eagle. We visited the North Island Wildlife Recovery Center (http://www.northislandwildliferecoverycenter.org/) and we all highly recommend it. It was reasonably priced and we saw all kinds of neat animals.
The kids loved seeing the animals although I think Toria’s favourite part was at the 
Museum of Nature area where they had displays of each animal and you could push buttons to hear the sound the animal makes.
Tomas spent a full thirty (30) minutes watching turtles climb onto a dock to sun themselves. Even I must admit that it was fascinating to watch the slow slow sloooowwww moving-turtle swim across the pond then try to get his/her short legs onto the ledge so it could pull itself out of the water. They may be slow but smart. It only took the turtle one try on the ledge-side before swimming around to the ramp side. Once it slowly made it up the ramp there was a bit of a power struggle to find space before ‘our’ turtle plopped himself down on top of another turtle. We all cheered.
The Eagle Flight Cage is definitely worth a look. It is an enormous building that allows the injured bald eagles to fly while they are healing. You are able to view the bald eagles through one-way windows. We even saw a golden eagle getting fixed up – I believe it had a broken wing. And that is how you find me within a few feet of a bald eagle.
Our next destination involved an email a friend had sent that contained the following three words: Goats. Roof. Coombs.
Well, never one to pass up a kitschy tourist-joint I decided that visiting the Coombs Old Country Market was a must. I was impressed. This isn’t a tacky tourist shop – it is amazing… in a good way. Yep, there are goats on the roof. On. The. Roof. Seriously. But that isn’t the most amazing part of the Coombs market. The most amazing part is the food inside. Do not go without trying the cinnamon buns. Let me repeat myself. You must have a cinnamon bun or two or three…
And with a mouth-watering amount of imported food you will feel like you’ve landed in an overseas grocery (without the jet lag). I have been in withdrawal mode of Norwegian food since a vacation in 2002. They had shelves upon shelves of Scandinavian food by which I could satisfy my craving.
My husband (who is a much better cook then me) purchased all sorts of foods. He had been in Cajun withdrawal and found the best selection of hot sauces and seasonings since an RV trip to Louisiana in 2005. Tomas & Toria want me to remind you to have the cinnamon buns – they say they were really yummy and sticky.
After we had polished off our cinnamon buns, washed it down with a drink from Italy, taken 30 or 40 pictures of the goats on the roof and bought enough imported groceries to feed ourselves like royalty for a month we decided to explore the rest of Coombs.
Our first stop was the used bookstore. We found lots of great ‘vacation’ books. You know, the pocketbooks you always hope to read but never find the time because you’re too busy living your busy life. I’ve found that tourist destinations have the best used bookstores because people (a) finally have the time to read the books they have been carrying around for a year and (b) don’t want to take them home so they drop them off at the local used bookstore. Or at least that’s what I guess happens. In any event I found good used books.
The Coombs Village area is like an open market square with quaint unique shops around the perimeter. I’ve seen a fair share of tacky tourist joints but this is NOT one of them. This is great. There are art galleries, antiques, one-of-a-kind pottery and jewelry, funky clothing stores and more. There is not a tacky tourist shirt in sight. OK, OK, maybe one or two tacky t-shirts but I had to look at lots of great things before I found any “my Grandma went to Parksville and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” shirts.
All that shopping takes a toll on one’s kids (and husband) so I thanked them for their excellent behaviour with a stop at… the ice cream stand! We sat on the picnic benches in the middle of the square, ate our ice cream and enjoyed the relaxing moment. I remember thinking, this is a great vacation.
The Tuesday of our vacation we awoke to the birds chirping, the sun shining and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to check-out the big trees we had heard about.
As an aside, did you know that in the city I grew up in (Regina) every tree and every shrub has been hand-planted? So, when we moved into our established Victoria neighbourhood I was suitably impressed with the 70 or 80 foot cedar and fir trees around our house (until the recent wind storms but that’s a different story).
Nothing prepared me for the towering trees that you find at Cathedral Grove in MacMillan Provincial Park (19 km from Parksville). It left me speechless. It seemed to spur the kids to speaking, shrieking and racing around the unbelievably enormous trees.
I highly recommend the walks around the park, particularly the south side of the highway. These aren’t major hikes, just short walks that more or less seem to lead into each other. The signage isn’t that good and we did get lost a couple of times but we always ended up where we wanted to be.
We did manage to find our way to the largest tree in the park. It is a staggering 76 METRES tall and 9 METRES in circumference. That’s too much math to do in my head but the calculator says it converts to 249 feet tall and 29 feet around. Twenty-nine feet! Some of the trees are over 800 years old. To put it into perspective - when these trees were seedlings in 1200 AD - Genghis Khan was empire building, Marco Polo was setting sail for China and Britain was only on King Henry the II.
I’ve heard of the Redwood Forest in California but I didn’t know this existed on Vancouver Island (and now that I think of myself as an Islander I am hoping to keep it our little secret).
Of course, given that I’ve been telling everyone about how impressed I was with Cathedral Grove that may be hard to do. When my sister and her prairie-born husband came for their first Island visit this past Christmas I suggested they take an overnight trip to Parksville and made sure they headed for Cathedral Grove.
Continuing on with our outdoorsy nature hiking theme – we headed to Englishman 
River Falls Provincial Park. My first thought? What kind of a name is Englishman River Falls? The internet provides a logical answer: Legend has it that the First Nations found a skeleton of a white man along the river. Hence, Englishman River Falls.
In any event it is spectacular. Be sure to take lots of film, err, digital memory card space. This is one of those times when every picture will be a spectacular photo. There is a great trail across the bridge to see Englishman River Falls. If memory serves correct it a good walking trail about 3 kilometres in length. The downward portion of the walk was great, the getting back up was a little tougher but not too strenuous. The kids managed to run ahead of us and beat us back to the picnic tables where we enjoyed a pre-packed picnic lunch and listened to the roaring of the falls.
Check back next issue for the final installment when you can read about what we did during two days of rain on during our idyllic vacation.
