Travel Tuesday: Over-the-top Tofino

We had done the research – some, anyway – prior to our spur-of-the-moment road trip to Canada’s Vancouver Island in early September.  And that research had somewhat prepared us for high hotel room prices.

As it turned out they were breathtakingly high prices.

So high, that when the desk clerk at the Best Western Tin Wis Resort, just outside Tofino said,"$299CAD a night", it sounded inexpensive in comparison to what other places had quoted. The hotel was on a beautiful little beach and the rate was the best we’d found, so we bit the bullet and settled in for what would be a two-night stay.

Part of the reason why we gave in to the prices (that we would normally not have done)  is that it was 3 p.m. as we stood at the Best Western counter. The drive had been an arduous one on the Pacific Rim Highway and The Scout, who had been behind the wheel, firmly said he wouldn’t be retracing our route that night. So, I mumbled a question to the clerk about a AAA rate. Whew! That brought it all the way down to $277CAD.

As it turns out, the buildings that make up the  Tin Wis (meaning ‘calm waters’ ) resort ring a section of  beach which, up until the 19th century, was the landing place for Nuu-chah-nulth whale hunters who traveled these waters in their dug out canoes.

Remains of a canoe

The resort displays, near its parking lot, the remains of a dug out canoe – once used to transport supplies.


Another display – the totem pole – is a nod to the history of the First Nation’s people on this site. Back in 1970 the first buildings opened here operated as a residential school with 150 First Nation children in attendance. The school closed in 1981 and the site became a hostel and campground.

Our room, the restaurant and our view from our room

The resort, operated by the First Nations people, opened its first phase in 1991 and the second phase opened in 2002 which brought the guestrooms and suites available to 85.  It has an on-site restaurant (where we ate some incredible meals).

So, would we go back again?  

We might. . .perhaps during some real off-season time. Low season is when the storms rage and wet gear is needed to walk the beach.

We usually prefer sunshine on our beach walks.  That could be why we headed to Honolulu last week where our room rate at the Marriott Waikiki Beach was less than in Tofino! (In some future post I will tell you about Honolulu's killer taxes and the Marriott's mandatory resort fee. Both equal ouch!)


That’s it for Travel Tuesday – hope to see you back here on Travel Photo Thursday! And then come with us during the next few weeks  as we sail the South Pacific heading to Oceania! It is Tuesday afternoon and we are some 700+ miles south of Maui - we cross the Equator tomorrow afternoon. . .a whole new travel experience headed our way.  More soon - just got internet access!

Dateline: Honolulu

We left a drizzly Seattle Tuesday evening and arrived in a drizzly Honolulu some five and a half hours later. And then we had an irritatingly long wait for our shuttle and an hour-long ride to our hotel in a van called “Speedy Shuttle”. Love that irony?

It wasn’t until Wednesday morning that I started thinking ‘tropical paradise’. . . the view from our deck over Waikiki Beach was a good reminder that we, were indeed, in a tropical paradise. We stayed at the Marriott Waikiki Beach Resort. The photo below was taken from our deck. (If you have ever questioned the worth of those loyalty programs, let this be an example of what earning points/stays/other can do. We were upgraded to this ocean view room because of our participation in the Marriott loyalty program.)

And from that same deck on Thursday morning we watched our soon to be floating-home-away-from-home, the Celebrity Solstice, arrive. 

Later today we will be boarding this ship and then just before midnight we will set sail for Australia.  And then the adventure really begins. . .

I've been worried that my little Fuji point-and-shoot might give out while we were crossing the Pacific. And  because no shutterbug in her right mind would consider being without a camera, I bought a new camera-- another Fuji point-and-shoot but with a few more bells and whistles to be conquered. It arrived four days before our departure.  I am still building a relationship with the new side kick, so bear with me. . . (yes, I know you should never do that, but sometimes you just have to live on the wild side, right?)

We hope you’ll come along with us the next few weeks as we head out South, by Southwest. . .we depart at one minute before midnight tonight: first stop, Lahaina, Maui.

We'll touch base with you again as internet connections allow. Aloha!

A Walk in the Park

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth. . .

                         --A Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

Should we or shouldn’t we? 

While driving around the town of Tofino on Canada’s Vancouver Island we happened upon Tonquin Park. “Want to stop or just keep driving?” – our own version of Robert Frost’s poem.  We are glad we stopped – it was one of the high points of our road trip.
 

We followed a winding boardwalk through this nature preserve.

Past the remains of an earlier boardwalk, we wound our way through the emerald growth, all the while wondering where we were headed. Then down some 75 steps and our destination spread out before us:

Tonquin Beach, a small beach in comparison to others that line the western coast of Vancouver Island, was washed in sunlight and small wonders . . .like the clusters of starfish we found sunning themselves on rock outcroppings. . .



. . .with glorious views. . .

And wonderful curiosities like those below that closed and opened with a gentle touch of the toe. . .

Our stop was a good reminder to slow down the travels and take those ‘other roads’ when given the opportunity. . .

IF YOU GO:  Tonquin Park: Located on Tonquin Park Road, free parking lot. No permits required.  There are no disability accommodations – the last step is a big one.  For the hikers out there, other trails lead from the beach. 

In researching the park after our return I found it has a rather violent history.  Well, the ship for which it is named had a violent history. For a more detailed story of the sinking of the Tonquin, click on  this link.

That’s it for Travel Photo Thursday, so head over to Budget Travelers Sandbox for more photos.  This week we begin our South Pacific adventures so hope you’ll come back often – we’ll be writing from somewhere on the Pacific Ocean en route to Oceania. . and for those of you regulars, we arrived in Honolulu on Tuesday evening. We board the cruise ship on Friday - hope you'll set sail with us then. . .I've been posting to FB for those of you following our TravelnWrite page there.

Ready! Set! Aloha!

By the time most of you read this post we’ll be winging our way to Honolulu, Hawaii, the first stop on our island-hopping route across the Pacific Ocean to Sydney, Australia.

Approaching the island of O'ahu Hawaii

We were at our timeshare home in Hawaii last January when The Scout found this deal of a cruise while surfing his favorite cruise travel sites.  Sydney and/or greater Australia for years has bounced up on down on our travel bucket list and finally this cruise, its price and our schedule aligned.

Waikiki Beach - Honolulu, Hawaii

One of our favorite ways to travel is to mix a bit of the old familiar with new experiences.  We are doing that on this trip, with a couple days in our old-favorite, Honolulu, prior to boarding our ship, the Celebrity Solstice. The Solstice is also an old-favorite as it was the first Celebrity ship we ever sailed. What a fabulous introduction she provided to that cruise line.

The Solstice will be our floating home-away-from-home for 19 nights, as we travel to French Polynesia, to New Zealand and then on to Sydney.

Inside the Celebrity Solstice 

We’ll have a dozen heavenly days ‘at sea’ – one of our favorite parts of these ‘repositioning cruises’ that move ships from  summer to winter routes. 

For those of you wondering how we pass the time on  sea days, I’ve included the photos above which were taken aboard the Solstice as she transported us from Florida to Europe two years ago.

I’ll be posting updates here about our South Pacific adventure as internet connections permit. We hope you’ll come along with us as we island-hop our way to Sydney. 

Next update will be from Waikiki. . .until then,

“Aloha!”

WAWeekend: Roslyn ~ A Warm Welcome

Roslyn, a once-thriving coal mining town in Washington State is a place to peek into Pacific Northwest history. It is also a place where the warmth of welcome is the norm, not just some tourist promotion jargon.

Building in Cle Elum, Washington

Roslyn and its next-door neighbor, Cle Elum, are about two hours drive from western Washington’s Seattle and an almost equal distance from the TriCities (Pasco, Kennewick and Richland) in south-central Washington. The mid-Washington location is one reason why my childhood friend, Mary, and I chose them for our one-day girl’s getaway last week. 

The Cle Elum train station now houses a restaurant and historical displays

The two of us also have ‘history’ here  because we’d fallen under the area’s spell decades ago while college students. (Ellensburg, our old college town, is about 30 minutes drive from here.)

We were overjoyed to find that its magic was as powerful now as it had been, and it quickly wrapped us up all over again in its spell. . .

The Coal Mine Beginnings

Tribute to Fallen Miners in front of the old "Company Store"

Roslyn and Cle Elum are tucked away in the state’s Cascade Mountains. The coal discovered deep inside those mountains was needed to fuel Northern Pacific Railroad trains.

The first coal was shipped from Roslyn/Cle Elum area mines in 1886. In fact, the worst coal mine disaster in the state occurred in May 1892 at the Northern Pacific Coal Mine No.1 when an explosion and fire in the Roslyn mine (burrowed some 2,700 feet below ground) caused the death of 45 miners. Mining continued here until the last mine closed in 1962.

The Northwest Improvement Company Store (‘the company store’), pictured above, was the hub of the Roslyn community back in the town’s mining heyday and today, just like the town’s historic district, is on the  National Register of Historic Places.

Roslyn, Washington cemetery

The Roslyn Cemetery, founded in 1886, is an amalgamation of some 25 separate cemeteries and the 5,000 graves on this 15-acre wooded site represent some 24 nationalities.  The cemeteries reflect the far reach of the mines more than a century ago. Miners hailed from as far away as Poland, Serbia, Croatia, Lithuania, Germany, Slovenia, Italy and England.  Many of those miners rest in these cemeteries and their descendants still live in the small town.

The Runner Stumbles featured this church

Jumping ahead to a bit more modern history, the Immaculate Conception Church that towers over the town was featured in a 1979 movie, The Runner Stumbles, starring Dick Van Dyke and Kathleen Quinlan, that was filmed in this small town.

Northern Exposure was filmed here

Many of you – if you were followers of that quirky, but insanely popular television show Northern Exposure (1991 – 1995) that was filmed here -- will recognize this building as it was used in the show’s opening. Businesses report tourists still arrive because of it. And the café is still serving up meals!

The People

I’ve long said that once a ‘place becomes people’ it becomes even more special than its history or fame has made it.  Mary and I met two such individuals in Roslyn, both deserving a mention:

Joyce Welker of Dingo Wild Dogs of Roslyn

Mary and Joyce posed for the shutterbug

Joyce Welker, is the owner/operator of a hot dog stand -  Dingo Wild Dogs of Roslyn - on the town’s main drag.  She was setting up for lunch as we walked past . . .the fact that we’d brought a picnic lunch didn’t deter Joyce. She was introducing a new pulled pork sandwich that day and told us that we had to sample it.  We visited with her for nearly half an hour. Next time we’ll skip the picnic!  

Her small kitchen/storeroom, behind the grill, is an old red rock mine scale shack (fitting for a mining town, after all).  She does her biggest business after 10 p.m. when the local bars close down their kitchens, she told us.  But for the non-night owls, she’s open Fridays and Saturdays from noon – 3 p.m.

We had, pardon the pun, one blooming good time – just around   the corner from Joyce’s on the other, of the town’s two, main streets:

As we’d driven into town, I’d announced (as the shutterbug in the car), “We’ve got to walk back here so I can take a photo of that yard!”   By the time we got back, the owner of the house and creator of this masterpiece, was out working in the garden. She gave me permission to take a photo or two. . .then she invited us up onto the porch for a closer look at those baskets:

By this point we were talking about ourselves, our husbands, her husband, their life and ours. 

She offered to show us  her back yard,where we continued visiting, and then  - because she decorates the yard for each season – she invited us in to her basement store room (think the elves workshop at the North Pole). 

By then it didn’t seem unusual at all when she invited us into her home to see a  few photos of her seasonally decorated yard (framed photos, newspaper clippings and awards).

Once inside we got around to  introducing  ourselves by name. 

When it came time to leave we each hugged this lady who only an hour before we’d not known, vowing we’d come back again when we could stay longer, have a libation and do some real visiting!




Not every visitor to these small Central Washington towns will meet our two new friends, but I know where ever you go and who ever you meet will likely greet you with that same small town warmth of welcome. We are certainly planning a return!

If You Go:

For area information: Visit the Cle Elum/Roslyn Chamber of Commerce site by clicking this link.

Suncadia Resort, a large planned unincorporated community and resort complete with houses, condos, lodge and golf courses and  covering an area of 6,300 acres is nearby.

Roslyn’s Swiftwater Cellars winery is located on the Suncadia property near the historic Roslyn No. 9 Coal Mine.

On the Pacific Rim Highway

“When it says, ‘Slow’, it means it,” we were cautioned several times in Nanaimo before setting out on the twisting, two-lane Vancouver Island’s Pacific Rim Highway 4.

The  highway cuts across the forested spine of the island and was our route from Nanaimo on the island’s east coast to Tofino on its west coast.  Short of using a boat or plane, it is the only route between the two.

The scenic route some 124 miles (208 kilometers) long, twists and turns past spectacular mountain peaks, stunning lakes, many power lines and concrete road barriers; the latter two, every shutter bug’s bane. 
Come along as we set out on the Pacific Rim Highway: 

We took a break from the highway at Port Alberni a deep port city some 51 miles/82 kilometers from Naniamo. We drove to its Harbour Quay, a delightful mix of tourist accommodations and industrial businesses.

Set in the Alberni Valley it is on Vancouver Island’s longest inlet, Alberni Inlet.  With a population of some 18,000, the town’s motto is: Gateway to the West Coast

Directional signs pointed towards the Chase and Warren Estate Winery and Emerald Coast Vineyards, but those we tucked away in our ‘future trip’ file.

One place we couldn’t resist was off in the industrial looking area of the Quay – Home of the Cod Father.  The clever name got us in and the display case filled with smoked salmon was a feast for the culinary senses. . .teriyaki, lemon and honey, some spicy concoction . . .the selections far too many.  We finally chose two types and set off for our destination.


By early afternoon we were approaching the west coast – the sky had turned heavy and gray, the ‘highway’ narrowed and coiled:

But by late afternoon, we’d arrived in Tofino where they obviously didn’t want anyone confused about being at the end of the road:

If You Go:



Thanks to Tourism Vancouver for the excellent map showing the route of the Pacific Rim Highway. (It is also called Highway 4). 

The route is a beautiful one, but not for the faint at heart or those who have a fear of being on road trips. 

The warnings we had received were on point: the twists and turns make it a slow go.  Sadly, we passed two accident scenes – one on our westbound trip, another on our eastbound. One was an upside down car and another was a car smashed into a tree trunk. . . and both, even more sadly, were on straight stretches of the highway!

That’s it for this Travel Photo Thursday so head over to Budget Travelers Sandbox!