Day 1
Weather: sunny with rain on Vancouver Island. About 17-24 degrees Celsius
We had a nice direct flight from Amsterdam to Vancouver. We sat at the back with an empty chair between us. So room enough for us to spill our beers and water.. After landing get we got our rental car straight away.  Next stop was the ferry to Vancouver island. Before we left we decided to use a freeware navigation software on the smartphone. It wanted to go a different way than the signs. This resulted in going on and off the highway because the signs said so. Afterwards the navigation software was right! The ferries were at the end of the highway.
The ferry ride was quite relaxing. We met quite some interesting people on the boat. A nice lady who migrated to Canada many years ago who talked Dutch to us with an extremely English accent. We also met a fellow from New York whose mission was to see everything there is in all the states of Canada and the US, After arriving on Vancouver Island we rode through the rain to our motel in Parksville that we booked on the boat. We wanted to eat something but apparently all the restaurants were closed on Monday, Finally we found a place for some local beers and a burger.
Day 2
Weather: sunny with some showers. About 17-22 degrees Celsius
After breakfast and extending our stay in the motel for one night we left for Horn Lake cave park. There we visited the Riverbend Cave. A lovely tour guide by the name of Jackie walked and crouched with us through the cave showing us beautiful parts of the cave, I had quite a deja vu feeling in that cave. Apparently I have been in that cave 13 years ago. Afterwards we did a small round trip to find a geocache location, but sadly we did not find it.
Jackie and another guide asked if we were going to Tofino. Since we had no idea what it was we decided to take the long drive to Tofino. We made a quick stop to a nice water fall Qualicum Falls and made a short walk over there before continuing our long journey. The road to Tofino was long but lovely. It had nice scenery and a very curvy road. Tofino itself was quite disappointing. Not much to do over there. Â We decided to go back a bit and check out the beaches of Pacific Rim National Park. We als ate at one. A lovely meal and a good view! Afterwards it was a long drive back to our hotel in Parksville.
Day 3
Weather sunny. About 17-22 degrees
We started the day with a visit to Cathedral Grove. This are two small trails through very high trees. HW even hugged one! Afterwards we had to return to the motel, because I found out that I lost my lovely Noorderzon jacket.. Sadly back at the motel we found out even with the help of the owner and cleaning lady that it was not there. Our conclusion was that I probably left it at the restaurant at the beach the day before. We deicded to proceed with our journey to Victoria. We made a nice detour to Cowichan lake for lunch. There we found out the weird noise our car was making was caused by a loose plate at the front of the car. We bought zap-wraps at a local hardware store and the crisis was averted without a problem.
Finally arriving in Victoria we visited a mall to get a me a new jacket and HW a nice data sim card for his smart phone, After eating in the mall we left for the US by Ferry! After a long process of checking all the cars in by customs and ourselves getting checked by a funny custom guy we left Canada. After a nice boat ride where we tasted root beer for the first time we arrived in Port Angeles. We found our motel around the corner. We went for a quick geocache in the neighbourhood. But we were disturbed by a drunk guy who wanted to know if we believed in God.