Aylmer Express "MoHo" Extravaganza 2006

Our first day in the Ucluelet and Tofino area so what should we do? We just spent the better part of and afternoon and evening battling the mountain roads to get to one of the most beautiful areas of the world and my kids just want to play baseball. So baseball it is. After a few circuits of the diamond, and then a short consultation with the Visitor Info centre, we decide to check out the Wild Pacific Trail in Ucluelet. The driving reason for choosing Ucluelet was because this trail would take us by the edge of the Pacific and it was just reaching low tide and there is a great place to check out the tide pools. We perambulated through a mini rain forest area that was just enchanting and Morgan seemed to have an especially good time and was by far the one with the best “eye” for wild life. He spotted a huge slug before we had gone more than a few feet and by the time we got to the part of the hike where we went along the beach at low tide, he was finding star fish hiding in the rock crevices. Morgan also coined the term “humungous fungus” as the fungus he found growing on the trees in this forest got to be pretty big. He certainly has a knack for spotting the out of the ordinary.
At this point I think I am running out of words to describe the beauty of this island. I think I am going to have to let the pictures fill in the details once again but I will say that it was a wonderfully relaxing stroll through a little piece of heaven.

That evening we planned to hook up with our friends Laura and David for dinner at their place which supposedly had beach access. We were hoping to possibly have a fire on the beach and watch the sun go down. Little did I know that their chalet over-looked the beach we saw earlier in the day on our hike. It is an absolutely stunning location which faces west and hosts the most incredible sunsets we have seen yet on our trip (sorry Saskatoon, you’ll have to drop to second place). We did have a great dinner together trying to catch up on the last 10 years or so. We then moved down to the beach where the kids could run amok and David stoked up a fire. Then we uncorked a bottle of champagne we picked up at the vineyard in Kelowna and proceeded to chat the evening away while we watched the only star of our solar system fall out of sight as the earth spun its way into the night. The funny thing is as we embarked on the hiking path earlier that day I saw the place where Laura and David are staying, before I knew it was the place where they are staying, and I thought to myself, man, that is an awesome place in an awesome location and it must be amazing to be staying there. Well, I can now honestly tell you, it is! For anyone who has ever seen the movie Ground Hog Day, if I had to choose a day that I would have to live over and over again, this one would definitely be a good candidate … although I might try to avoid the part where I caught my finger in the car door, but that is another story.