Wild Pacific Trail, Ucluelet and A Wonderful Night

Here we are in Ucluelet. Yes, hard to pronounce. U-Clue-Let. Say it 3 times fast. You can’t. (especially if you’ve had a glass of wine or two). Locals just say Ukey. That works.

Oh my. What a great place this is. First, there’s The Copper Cabin.

It’s called the Copper Cabin for a reason — tricked out in copper and great finishes. The owners have done a fantastic job of designing this and making it some sort of fabulous retreat that actually matches the incredible scenery and hikes.

We have arrived and hit the grocery store (now that we finally have a kitchen!!), and in these parts, the grocery and one of the gas stations is a co-op — locally owned and invested in by local residents. (Thomaston? What a great idea! Yatesville? Even more terrific, Phyl!!)

A walk down Willowbrae Trail and then cooking fresh halibat, roasted potatoes, salad and bread. And soon to bed to get ready for our walks through the Wild Pacific Trail the next day.

Did. Not. Disappoint.

The Stellar Jay. Great bird, Great Britain’s Provincial Bird.

Biggest cedar I have ever seen. At least 25 feet around and taller than I could possibly get in the camera. It was a wonderful 1,000-year-old beauty of nature.

We walked right through this!

Picnic Spot!

We enjoyed our picnic on a bench in memory of a woman who was obviously loved.

Snails are the woods’ clean-up crew. We in the south have become way to judgmental about what the snail’s job is, thanks to the slugs we have that eat all the good stuff.

This tree is worth a second look…. And check out the publicity photo below to get its real size…

Kittis! They are everywhere and you will never know. Until it’s too late.

Everybody knows you have to pack it in when you have a limited amount of time. So we took the convertible to Tofino, a sweet little beach town that boasts The Long Beach (which I am certain affects real estate prices) and lots of great little shops. And The Long Beach Resort. And Wolf in the Fog (a fabulous restaurant.) Photos follow.

Driving to Tofino in the Mustang.

Love the name of the salon!!

So we walk around Tofino, but remember, this is not really tourist season. So at 6 pm, shops are closed. We bought some nice little rings at a sweet little shop (gee, I can’t believe I didn’t get their picture, such a great couple of jewelry makers who were from Germany), then walked around town. We couldn’t get reservations until 9 pm at Tofino’s Wolf in the Fog, which apparently in these parts is like trying to get in to Husk in Nashville. (It’s about a 30-40 minute ride from Ukey to get to Tofino, and let me just jump ahead and say: Worth it!)

So we ride back down to kill the next 3 hours and come across the Tofino Botanical Gardens…

The mud flats. I can only imagine how deeply one would sink. Since there’s not high-dollar spa here, I’m thinking you might sink pretty low…

The First Nations people (aptly named) built canoes out of one piece of wood, hollowing it out with tools they made.

And then there’s Long Beach at Tofino.

Surfer paradise.

So we lolly-gagged around these beautiful spots and then decided to see what the Long Beach Resort had to offfer…

LOCAL gins

Well, we love ourselves some gin, and they had a list of almost two dozen LOCAL gins from which to choose. I’m a really ginny-gin girl, loving juniper and cedar. Kim is more of the floral-citrus variety. They delivered on both. I had Stump gin. Perfect.

We envied those front window seats. So we moved there after the other folks left. 🙂

We reluctantly tore ourselves away after toying around with just now showing for Wolf in the Fog. Our server, Emma, said we really needed to go, so we did.