Canada - days 12 to 15 Campbell River to Ucluelet

Goats on the roof! There were two although you can only see one here. I did get a photo of the two, but it's not as good as this one

Day 12 Friday 

We left our lovely Airbnb for another 3 1/2 hour drive across the island. It started off well as we passed a black bear just by the side of the road, so close, but by the time Brian had managed to get the camera out of its little pouch on his belt it had gone.

We had a few stops en route again, firstly at Coombs market, which everyone knows as goats on the roof, because they have goats on the roof! It's an obvious place to stop, and they've made it well worthwhile. We had a drink and bought some snacks for lunch.

Little Qualicum Falls. Yes, they're waterfalls, but very pretty and a nice walk through an old growth forest

Next stop was Little Qualicum falls provincial park, which was a nice little loop walk over the river with some good waterfalls. We followed this with a stop at Cathedral grove for some big trees. 

Cathedral Grove. Big trees!

This was slightly harder as there was no real carpark, so if you couldn't fit into the small bit of parking by the side of the road you were out of luck. We thought we were going to be unlucky, but finally someone left and we snuck in. A couple of short walks and our sausage roll and Cornish pasty and we were ready to continue to Ucluelet. 

Looking up at the biggest tree. We'd seen other people doing this so we thought we would too. It's a very tall tree and very straight

The towns of Ucluelet and Tofino, are about half an hour apart, on the coast with the Pacific rim National park, between them. Tofino is the more expensive, we were staying in Ucluelet, which is smaller, but I think actually has a nicer feeling to it. We stopped at the visitor centre for advice, and got lots.

We've got a hot tub in this Airbnb!

We continued to our Airbnb, which isn't as nice as the last one, but is absolutely fine. We were just spoiled. Brian wanted a beer, I guess he deserved it, so we went to the local bar which had mixed reviews. We had no problem though, except, as ever, the weakest beer is 5%. 

After a long drive I needed some of these. It was worth waiting for even though they were only USA 16oz pints, not our UK 20oz pints

If we were going to have two, we'd better have a burger too. We had a great view over a small marina, though no animals to see. A guy came in from fishing, washed his boat down and vanished off somewhere. We then watched a dog come walking down the jetty and thought perhaps there was a dog in the boat. But no, as the dog got closer the big otter jumped out, over the side.

Next day on our whale watching boat trip. First sight was a seal while we were still in the harbour

When the man came back the dog did lots of barking, which he obviously wasn't very impressed with. After eating we went to have a look and told him that the dog was trying to tell him that he'd chased an otter out of his boat. He was quite disturbed it'd been in the boat, though fortunately there was no sign of it on his bed!

Look at these cute sea otters. We're told that if you get too close they'd go for you

Day 13 Saturday 

We went to have a look at Ucluelet and book a whale spotting trip. Jamie's has good reviews, but I'm sure they are all as good. Wandering around the town I managed to twist my ankle on a small bit of damage on the road. Jolly painful, but I still seemed to be able to walk, though didn't want to do much. Gave it a rest, before going to the supermarket, with pharmacy where we bought dinners, an ankle support and voltarol. It's ok, we've got a week here.

They look so chilled out floating on their backs. They were hunted almost to extinction in the mid 20th century for their fur. It's so thick that, we're told, if you put a finger on it's fur, there would be more follicles under that finger than on the whole of a human head

Day 14 Sunday 

I hobbled to the boat for our 10.00 trip. We'd decided on the cabin cruiser rather than the zodiac, which felt like a mistake as I didn't really want to move around the boat. Fortunately I'd managed to get the front seat inside, so it could have been worse. I left going out to the others.

The telltale sign of a whale, a jet of water

We had quite a good score, grey whales, humpback whales, California sea lions and Stellar sea lions, seals and cute little sea otters. They do look lovely, but can be very fierce apparently.

A humpback whale makes an appearance as it dives. This will usually be followed by it's tail in the air as it dives down. I'd got my camera on continuous shooting in the hope I'd get it...

There was a cute little Sunday market when we got back so had a hobble round that, before going back to the house. We picked up the car and drove to the loop around the lighthouse at the end of town. It's only 3 km, with a short half and a long half. I managed the 0.5km section from the car park to the lighthouse and visitor centre where we joined everyone else spotting orca way out in the distance. We continued with the even shorter bog trail which had some interesting sundew, carnivorous plants, growing, so that was good.

And I did...

Day 15 Monday 

My ankle felt much better, but looked more colourful. It was raining, as forecast, so after speaking to the travel insurance we decided to go to Tofino to the hospital. Only because the Yukon, where we are heading on Friday is even more remote than here.

The service at the little hospital was amazing, very quick triage and then x-ray, and then the bad news. There is a fracture on my tibia, low down fortunately, or it would probably have been an operation, but really not what you want to hear. I'm now wearing an inflatable boot, which once I refitted it, after the nurse had made it jolly painful, does seem to make walking easier. I've got to wear it for a fortnight, before trying to wean myself off it!

Several times as it went down (I deserved it, I'd missed quite a few, not being ready, not in go us or not quite in the frame)

And this is why travel insurance for the US and Canada is so expensive $1015  to go into the hospital, $340 to see a doctor, $170 for the boot and probably about $100 for the x-rays!

The big selling point for this Airbnb I think is the hot tub, which normally wouldn't do it for us, but things are not quite normal, so Brian went out for a run and we both went in. It was very hot!

Seals on a rock. There's more than one type here, possibly Californian and Stellar

Pizza for dinner, but seemed unable to order online, or even by phone, so Brian walked the 5 minutes to order and collect later. He opened the door to leave and found a cat on the doorstep. As you can imagine this made me very happy she came in, sat on the sofa next to me and purred. Came and went with the crossword, with Brian going to collect the pizza and finally went as we ate. How did she know that I needed some furry fuss?

I'm putting this on just because! I had the camera on continuous shoot as fish were jumping out of the water. We thought they might be being chased to the surface from underneath by a humpback and it might explode through the surface in a breach, which they can do, so I was shooting just in case. Not this time though and this was my best jumping fish photo

Did get this bald eagle sitting majestically in a tree looking for his lunch

Had a walk round the Sunday market in Ucluelet after our whale trip. The man at the top of the stairs is playing a guitar and singing songs. All very pleasant

Had a stroll round part of the lighthouse headland walk with hop-a-long. She was struggling somewhat and we must have looked like a couple of 90 year olds shuffling along

Stopped at this rocky headland here. There's a bell on a buoy you might just be able to make out. It's a haunting ringing as it moves in the waves, there to alert shipping to the dangerous rocks. A noticeboard told us of a shipwreck of the Pass of Melfort, a British four masted barque built of steel. It hit these rocks on December 26th 1905 after being swept here in a storm. It sank overnight with all hands, thought to be 27 people. Next day only three bodies and some splintered wreckage was all that remained. Just one of hundreds of shipwrecks along this coast giving it the name of the Graveyard of the Pacific.

We took another short walk along a path through a boggy area. It was quite interesting, the mosses and plants are amazing sources of life and microcosms. This is a Sundew, a carnivorous plant. It's little sticky tentacles trap passing insects, which it then wraps up and slowly consumes

My good old camera produces the results again set on its macro setting. You can see this Sundew has caught an ant and has it's tentacles wrapped tightly round it. I think I might actually feel a bit sorry for the ant. What a way to go - a horrible slow death!

So here's Jackie's ankle the day after she badly twisted it. Its got to look even worse now, clearly not good

After phoning our travel insurance company and getting authorisation we went to the local hospital in Tofino, half hour drive away. Its not a big hospital, about the size of a large gp surgery in the UK. There's no reciprocal medical arrangements with the UK, we have to pay up front and claim it back later (hopefully!). In case you can't read it, just to get into the treatment room you pay CA$1015 and then CA$340 to see a physician, that works out at £740 plus any treatment. We came out with a bill of nearly £900, which we should get back. The notice on the left is for uninsured residents which is still CA$484. Don't get ill in Canada unless you've got insurance!

After an X-Ray we can see the problem, a fracture at the end of her Fibula. It's the long thin bone on the right and, at the bottom a thin horizontal line showing the fracture, such was the twist of her foot as she fell. Not shown on here are the torn ligaments that will have occurred as well. 8 weeks recovery they said. Oh dear, that'll alter our plans somewhat! No wonder it was so painful

Now she has this delightful boot to wear for at least two weeks

Help is at hand though. I opened the door to go and get a takeaway pizza for dinner and a therapy cat appeared, wandered in and lay down next to Jackie

Very happy and content it was, just the thing to make Jackie feel a bit better