Pedder Bay April 25 - May 2

 Monday we finished the last of the packing up and headed out at 10:30 am. Hit a few showers on the way, but it was not raining when we finally arrived at Pedder Bay. After unhooking the car and parking the MH into her spot, we jumped back in the car to go for lunch at the White Spot in Langford. Unfortunately it was pouring rain when we arrived back at camp so it was a hurried set up just to hook up services. We will do our outside areas tomorrow. They definitely have good size sites here. Ours is #48 with 50amp service. They only have a small portion being 50 amp and the rest are 30 amp. 

Dinner was a beef pot pie I previously made and froze, so it was a chance to try out my new oven that was installed just before we came home in 2020 from Arizona. It's much slower than my oven at home, but definitely did the job. It's an early night to bed after all the packing up for the past 3 days and of course Ray's eye is still stinging from the bleach, so better to close it early. :) In bed by 9am. (We have no TV here other than streaming stuff.)

Tuesday morning we were astounded it was 6:45 am before we both woke up. It sure is quiet here ... first campsite with no crows! After coffee etc. we headed into Langford to do some shopping at Walmart to pick up a few things we needed, especially a phone cord to transfer data from my old iPhone to my new Galaxy S22. I've been really unhappy with the quality of pictures my phone is tqking  for the blog. We managed to pick up the new phone on the way out of town, as it arrived at the post office :)

Ray called some RV friends of ours, Malc and Kathy Warrington, to meet us for lunch at OJ's in Langford. Itls great catching up with them and hearing about their winter in AZ.

After lunch we said our goodbyes and went back to camp. The sun is out so we were able to sit outside for awhile before the next batch of clouds moved in bringing the wind. Dinner is the rest of the tasty beef pot pie. :)

Wednesday morning the weather is much nicer, although still cool at only 9C. After a big breakfast it's out the door and by 10am we are at the Matheson Lake parking lot offloading our e-bikes for our adventure towards Sooke Inlet.

Off on the Galloping Goose Trail starting from Matheson Lake and going to Sooke Harbour.

Overlook at Matheson Lake

We're were likin' the lichen spread around the rock cuts.

Roche Cove at Sooke Harbour

At the end of this portion of the trail there is another parking lot at Sooke Inlet. Maybe this will be our next RV! Pretty impressive looking. It looked to have a Ukraine license plate. No one was around to talk with though.

We had a great ride. Took an hour to get to the end at Sooke Inlet with all the stops for Ray to take pictures. Turning back around it only took 8 minutes with the e-bikes on  Assist #3 with pedaling. lol What hill! Today's trip clock 9km.

They are changing out the septic tanks here at Pedder Bay for a huge one.

After barbecued hot dogs and sitting in the sunshine, we decided to walk the docks.

While there, we came upon this Ranger 29' Tug. It's the boat we dreamed of owning before we decided a life on the road and a house is the best for us.

There are lots of flowers blooming here at present. The Victoria area is about 2 weeks ahead compared to Lake Cowichan.

The path down to the docks.

This is one of two seals we saw down at the docks hoping for the fish guts and heads from the fishermen. Not too lucky today.

Back up to the MH for a bit more sitting in the sun but the clouds came over with a sprinkle so inside we went. Chicken on the BBQ for dinner tonight.

We've been sleeping like logs here. It is so quiet. The first bird doesn't squawk until 5:30 am or so. Backed onto the canal we don't hear people leaving for work either. All the full-timers have to leave April 30th for the resorts summer season to begin. 

Thursday morning we woke up to sunny skies. Hopefully they stick around today. Our long-time friend Laurel, back from Australia, came to visit us here at the park. With Covid she'd been stuck in Australia and could not come back to BC as all planes were not allowed to leave or arrive in Australia during their lockdown. Laurel originally went to Australia to settle her husbands affairs who had passed away suddenly while RV'ing in the USA the winter of 2019. Then the pandemic happened.

Laurel arrived at 11 am and after a short yack we loaded up into our car and headed out to the My Chosen Cafe. You need to get there early as by 12 noon there are lineups. What a great lunch.

Entrance to My Chosen Cafe

Laurel

Ray having his ice cream sandwich for dessert.

After lunch we took a walk on Weir's beach. The RV's behind Ray and Laurel are the area we've stayed several times over the years. The last time was for Ray's last back surgery. He won't go back as we were stuck there for nearly 7 months. Bad memories he says. That beach was his physiotherapy after surgery. He and Freya walked that beach at least 3 times a day while we were there as did I. We even found a message in a bottle back then!

The cruise ship season is definitely happening. This one is just leaving and in the next picture you can see 3 more at the dock. The zoom on my new phone works great. lol

Back at camp, the sun is out so we sat outside to continue our visit.

We took Laurel for a walk down to the docks. Beautiful lichen on the rocks at this time of year. The water is very clear and green.

Told ya we're likin' the lichen!

There were 2 seals swimming around the docks and this guy just gave you the look.... What!!!! you are interrupting my snooze. I'm surprised how white this one looked as the other two showed pretty grey in the water. Must be a young one.

At 4pm Laurel headed out to miss some of the (Colwood Crawl) traffic. She is staying with her sister near Elk Lake for the next while figuring out what her next steps will be. Great seeing her again.

An uneventful night after that. I watched a few shows on my computer while Ray played on his (trying to figure out what to do with our portfolio with the recession coming). Both of us in bed at 9:30.

Friday morning we woke to clear skies. Today we decided to continue on the Galloping Goose trail, but start at the other end in Sooke and come this way to where we turned around on Tuesday and then back to Sooke and the car. Sounds like lunch out! Big breakfast of yummy (according to Ray) pancakes first though to fuel us for our ride.

Out the door by 9:30 and headed to Sooke. First we went to the Sooke Marine Boardwalk to walk down to the water. What a great ramp with 8 or 9 switchbacks to get down to water level. They managed to build it so it was wheelchair accessible and walkable for most people with the gentle pitch. Here is a picture from Google to get an idea of it from the sky.

There is also two small accessible docks at the other end where two people were throwing traps down to catch crab.

Here is another picture from google showing how accessible this boardwalk is for everyone. Anyone with a motorized wheelchair can make it down to the water views.

Here are Ray's pictures. As you can see the foliage has filled in making it more difficult to see all the switchbacks.

Yeah, I see water!

Looking out towards the government dock where we stayed on my dad's boat years ago when our kids were just small.

As you see this portion of the boardwalk is quite long.

They have benches in various spots to sit and enjoy the views.

There were 2 guys fishing for crabs with their small traps as well. Did not see any caught though. Sooke Harbour is well-known for Dungeness Crabs.

This guy had quite the conversation with Ray going on. lol

After walking to the end of the pier we turned around and went back to the car the way we came. Apparently at the other end there are stairs back up to another parking lot. There is also access to the beach at the end of the boardwalk before it winds it's way back up the hill.

Government Dock

The builders of this boardwalk were careful not to damage any trees and cut the railings around them.

After an hour we were back in the car and headed to the parking lot for the Galloping Goose Trail. Bikes unloaded and we were off again at 11 am with an extra layer of clothes, as it's quite breezy out and the trail is mostly in the trees.

What a great ride. I'm feeling a whole lot more confident and did not mind steep hills this time. It's all a matter of gearing up or down at the right moment. :) The bikes did fabulously. So happy we have them.

From the trail we could view the Stickleback Pub where we plan to have lunch. A great little protected anchorage.

We came to the spot in the trail we turned around at on Wednesday. 

Veitch Creek Trestle

A fairly long trestle, see my at the other end?

There's a trail down beside the trestle to a lovely little beach so we locked up the bikes and went to investigate. Ray snapped these pictures from below the trestle.

And here is the beach.

There's evidence of lots of clams with all the broken shells on the beach and strewn water just below the incoming tide. There is an enormous amount of little crabs crawling everywhere just at the tide line and tiny Stickleback swimming around them. I could imagine lots of little ones having a great time catching them.

See all the clams?

My phone zoom ... these crabs are actually at best half an inch big.

Lots of spring trilliums in bloom, gorgeous. Mostly white with the odd purple one.

One last picture on the ride back to the car.

Once Ray'd filled his camera with pictures, lol we got back on the bikes back to the parking lot. Another 6 km done. We now know that if we stay at Pedder Bay again we can take the e-bikes all the way into Sooke and eat at the Stickleback West Coast Eatery and then come home. It would only be 15 km and since we wouldn't be stopping every few minutes for pictures I estimate it would only take 20 minutes one way. lol

A short distance from this parking lot was our lunch destination "The Stickleback West Coast Eatery". What great food in such an out of the way place. Ray ordered a pork belly burger and I  a "Stickleback" beef burger. Both were delicious with their Kennebec fries nice and crispy. Reasonable prices too. I of course brought half home for Ray's lunch tomorrow. :) They have a lovely patio to sit on for warm days. That's where we sat last year when we were here due to Covid. Today only one other table had people so it was fine sitting inside out of the wind.

On the way back to camp, we stopped at Spirit Bay Marina. This is on reserve land and was closed to the public last year due to Covid.

This old farmstead is across the road from Pedder Bay. Umi Nami Farm. They grow a lot of Japanese vegetables and some western ones. You can get a box program and pick up fresh in season stuff once or twice a week for reasonable prices.

Off to the top right corner is Glenrosa Farm

A great morning and afternoon. For dinner the Glenrosa Restaurant was open to order take-out pizza. They are only open Friday and Saturdays from 3 to 7 pm and make the most delicious Neapolitan thin crust pizzas in a wood fired oven. The are located just up the hill from the RV park. They used to be a full-service restaurant but since Covid only do pizza takeout 2 nights a week. This farm was originally established in 1850 and the house built  in 1890. I believe the farm across the road, Umi Nami, was once part of Glenrosa as well.

Pedder Bay at the V in the treeline.

Our Staycation Pizza.

Yum!

After so much exercise and no TV we were early to bed again at 9pm.

Saturday morning we woke to the predicted rain. This was an inside day and a cooking day for me. :) It didn't clear up until around 4 pm and we went for a short walk around the campsite. Back to the MH and I started dinner, Seafood Schnitzel, yum.

Sunday woke to cold temps of 3C. It was quite foggy out due to all the precipitation yesterday I think. By 6:30 it cleared to show sunny blue skies. We've been quite lucky with the weather this week as it's been nice enough to get out and about. The original forecast showed a bunch more showers, but they didn't materialize except for Monday, the day we arrived and yesterday.

Today we decided to take the bikes near the Sooke Potholes and go view the Todd Trestle, on Ray's list of trestles. We unloaded at the Sooke Salmon Enhancement Society. There's a short ride up a small steep trail to connect with the Goose. New skills for me to learn. lol. Starting going off the skinny trail twice but was able to stop, readjust my peddle control and carry on without dumping myself. Yeah me! Ray wanted to video me just in case we had a winner for America's Funniest Videos! To be fair to me though, I saw several other bike tire marks off trail going up too, so it was not just me.

Riding these bikes is like learning to drive standard and remembering to gear down before you stop so you don't try to go up the hill with the sprocket in 3rd gear while upping the peddle assist to be able to get up the hill. Going down the reverse needs to happen as if your peddle assist is too high, the minute you touch your peddles you fly far faster than you expect, especially around corners.

Narrow steep uphill trail! Oh My!

On the main trail of the Galloping Goose it was a great maintained wide trail to the trestle. You could really tell the uphill grade though, nice have the e-bikes so very little work on our behalf.

More lovely lichen on the rocks. Who knew it came in so many colours.

Back down the trail to the car. We stopped for Ray to take a picture of the Charter Creek Trestle through the fencing which is closed to crossing for repairs. 

The skinny trail goes back down under this trestle and yes I made it back down without incident. lol

We stopped at the Sooke Salmon Enhancement Centre before going to the car. It is all run by volunteers. They have both Coho and Spring salmon fry they are nurturing right now that will be released in 3 weeks or so. The Spring Salmon go directly into the Sooke River to go into the ocean, while the Coho are put into other tanks at the Boy Scout camp to grow a bit bigger before release.

They get the females to process in the fall and then put the eggs in trays awaiting their hatching, 50 to 70 days. The water they use comes right from the Sooke River and even though the salmon they processed comes from Nitinat River, they return to the Sooke River, so imprinting must come from the water they grow up in.

Apparently within the next three weeks they will grow to about 4 inches long before release. They get fed every 30 minutes.

One of the volunteers.

Back in the car to find somewhere to eat lunch as it was after 12pm when we were done. After trying 2 different places that were too busy we decided to go back to the Stickleback Pub for lunch. Another lovely day. 

Back at camp it was warm enough to sit outside for a couple of hours. We also packed up anything that could get wet overnight, including the bikes collapsed and put inside the car for travel tomorrow.

Monday we woke to cloudy skies but no rain so far. This has been a great little vacation seeing new things. Looking forward to going back home though and my hot tub!

Jacks up at 9am to travel back home hopefully before the real rain begins. Nope, rain began at Mill Bay and followed us home. We arrived shortly after 10:30. Yeah, home sweet home. It was raining so much we decided to run some errands, then go for lunch for the seniors discount (25%) at Jake's at the Lake. After lunch the rain stopped so we were able to do a bunch of unloading. A great week away.