Last week I had my first worldschool trip to Malcolm and Hornby! My mom has a friend, Kyla, who lives in Sointula and has a wasabi farm, so we were looking forward to going there. We started our trip at 7:30 in the morning leaving North Van and heading to Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal. Let me just say being on a ferry with a dog sucks because you can’t bring them upstairs. Instead you have to go to the dog section or stay in your car, but you can’t stay in the car if you’re on the lower deck. I prefer staying in the car than the dog area, and we were parked on the upper level, so we stayed. During the 1 1/2 hour ferry ride (to Nanaimo) we listened to the Epic Education Radio which I recommend if you’re interested in travelling with kids. It’s a podcast where they interview travelling families. Once we got off our ferry the road trip began.
It is a 4 Hour Drive to get to Port McNeill from Nanaimo. We listened to some music, podcasts and enjoyed the view. We took a few rest stops along the way and had some snacks as we drove along the coast. Bamboo did not love the driving, she would walk around and keep relocating herself throughout the back of the car. We decided once we got to Port McNeill we would eat dinner. There were no restaurants that we could take a dog to, so my mom went to the grocery store and came out with a pack of roasted chicken. We both sat in the car as my mom peeled the chicken off the bone. Then we used one of the food boxes as a table and made ourselves comfy as we ate our meal. Of course Bamboo, who loves chicken was looking at our dinner dreamily, but she was a good girl and didn’t try to take any.
Port McNeill’s ferry terminal is tiny, so if you can’t get in the line because you arrived too early, like we did, you can go down to a cute little rocky beach while you wait. Going from Port McNeill to Sointula is just a short 25 minute ride, on a tiny ferry. Lucky for us, since we were so early we got a good spot in line and had front row seats, with a great view. Once we arrived on the island we drove to the wasabi farm. Kyla showed us around her farm, as Bamboo played with her dogs, Dottie, Jack Jr and her duck, Rudy.
At the farm there are 8 green houses with wasabi in them. She told us that the wasabi root grows out of the ground. The whole plant is edible, but most people eat rhizome. We tried a piece of the leaf and it tasted a bit like mustard but had the kick of spice like wasabi. The wasabi takes around 18 months to grow and you know it’s ready when it is about 7 to 8 inches long.
We set up our tent right next to the wasabi house, which is where they put it in a dehydrator so the wasabi doesn’t go bad. It has a bathroom in it which we were able to use. When it was getting dark out we decided to go to bed. Bamboo was a little confused what we were doing in the tent and she wouldn’t relax and sleep. I think she was on alert listening to every sound coming from outside the tent. She was shivering too, so I’m not sure if that means she’s cold or just nervous. Then my mom and I noticed a smell and saw a fresh throw up on MY sleeping mat! After we cleaned that up, Bamboo plopped down on my mat and started sleeping. So I then had to go in between my mat and my moms mat to sleep. Not my most comfortable night ever.
The next day I was up bright and early…well for me (it was 7 am). It was September 4th which is actually my mom’s birthday, but we celebrated before we left. We went for an early dog walk along the road next to the ocean, and walked passed some alpaca’s which is pretty cool. Alpacas are such funny animals, they just stared at us as we passed by. Bamboo was trying to get a closer look at them too. It was pretty funny! After breakfast, we went up to the greenhouses and helped with planting the wasabi. We planted them in these plastic containers. They had to be separated so that after 2 months you can take the wasabi out and plant it in the ground. At this wasabi farm, they plant all their wasabi in rocks. My job was to pour the dirt into the containers, then my mom spread the dirt and Kyla planted the wasabi in the containers. We spent about 2 hours doing that, it was really fun!
During that time Kyla’s dogs just chilled while Bamboo was wandering around smelling everything, we had to call her back a bunch of times. Eventually Bamboo got an idea of what was happening and lay down on the grass. Jack and Dottie are so well trained that when Kyla tells them to go down they will do it and stay there until she lets them up. Bamboo on the other hand won’t even go down. Since Kyla is really good with dogs she was helping us train Bamboo better. She even gave us a big pack of dog food for Bamboo to try.
After all of that, it was time to go to our next destination “Bere Point” (pronounced bear), which is on the other side of the island. It was a bit of a bumpy drive, so if you’re in a vehicle close to the ground you’ll have to go slow on the road. Once we got to the campsite we were a little disappointed. It was tiny and our car blocked the view of the ocean. But more importantly there was not a spot I could put my hammock! My mom was wondering where the showers were, and Kyla said they don’t have showers at this campground. Plus they don’t have clean drinking water! And there’s no cell service (or wifi) but we knew about that. We didn’t have enough water to last us the night, so Kyla said she’d come back with water and fire wood for us.
The reason we had picked this campground was because it is one of the only spots where you can see orca’s (killer whales) rub on the beach. Only northern resident orcas rub, and no one is really sure why they do it. Scientists say it’s so uncommon that it’s hard study. They normally rub on the beach at high tide, but they don’t do it very often. My mom and I walked down after dinner with Bamboo to the beach where they’ve been spotted rubbing. There were lots of other people just sitting on the beach quietly, waiting for the orcas. Unfortunately after an hour of waiting on the windy beach, no whales showed up, so we left.
Back at our campsite, we opened a bag of chocolate cheesecake that my mom got at MEC to eat on her birthday. She added some water and stirred it, but it kind of just tasted like pudding. We didn’t finish it because it was a little gross. It was starting to get cold and a bit rainy, so we layered up. Still we were cold, so we decided, to warm up, we’d take Bamboo for a walk. As we were trudging down the road shivering Kyla showed up. We went back to our campsite and Kyla brought out fire wood, water, a present and fresh chocolate cupcakes that she had just baked when she realized it was my mom’s birthday. She started the fire while we ate the super delicious cupcakes! Once Kyla left, the fire died down, so we became cold again. We decided to go to bed in our warm sleeping bags. Bamboo was a lot better that night even though she crawled into my sleeping bag and slept, instead of sleeping on her bed.
My mom and I woke up the next morning at 6:30, and got up to see if the orcas were rubbing. We had no luck but the morning beach walk made it worth it to get up that early. After breakfast we weren’t really sure what to do, so we went into the tent to play a game, but ended up just going into our sleeping bags. Finally, my mom said we should go on the beautiful bay trail. Although it was cold, the hike was beautiful! I found the misty sky really nice. It was only an hour long, and when we got back we went into the town of Sointula for lunch. The town is so tiny! It’s very cute though, and there was even wall art, which I liked a lot.
We ate lunch at an awesome restaurant called Coho Joe! We were able to eat on their deck with Bamboo, so that was nice. After lunch we went back to the campsite and sat and watched the ocean. Later on Kyla came with fresh salmon and wasabi and sushi rice for us for dinner! Plus she brought home made chocolate granola bars! Kyla told us that to eat the wasabi you need to grind it in circles. She brought out the thing you grind the wasabi on, and told us that in the old days they used shark skin to grind it. The wasabi looses its spice after it’s been ground and out for 15 minutes which is why they can’t use real wasabi in restaurants. In sushi restaurants what you think is wasabi is actually horse radish, which only has 1% wasabi in it. If you like wasabi spicy you should eat it right after its been ground, but if you’re not a fan of spice you can wait five minutes before eating it.
We walked along the beach to the orca rubbing spot but didn’t see anything but ducks. Kyla had to leave so we said goodbye and thanked her for everything, because we planned to leave and head over to Hornby the next day.
The next morning we got up at 6:20 and packed up the tent, and drove to the ferry line up in Sointula’s town. It’s free to leave the island because they know you must must have payed to get there. We were in the line at 7 and the ferry wasn’t planning on leaving until 7:55, so we went to Coho Joe for a scone and tea! The scone was amazing! So good! This time we left Bamboo in the car and she was crying the whole time waiting for us. We walked back to the car and Bamboo somehow got into the front seat, looking out the window for us to come back. We waited in the car for a bit but then a blue truck pulled up next to us and out came Kyla with freshly baked donuts!
Waiting in the line up I noticed a lot of high school students waiting for the ferry. Kyla had told us that there’s not a high school on Sointula, so all the students have to take the ferry to Port McNeill every day. Our ferry came a little bit late, but once we were back at Port McNeill we drove down the island to Saratoga beach. Kyla suggested that we go there, because it’s a great beach for dogs to swim at. We let Bamboo go for a little swim, while I looked around. I found two dead sand dollars in the water! Well, we were debating whether it was alive or not, but I looked it up and alive sand dollars are a purply colour and have bristles. Very different from what I found.
We ate lunch at the beach, then drove to Buckley bay. From Buckley bay we took a short ferry ride to Denman Island, it’s about a 10 minute ride. Then we drove to the next ferry on the other side of the island to get to Hornby. It looked like a bunch of other cars had the same idea, so we got stuck in a line up and didn’t make the first ferry. The ferry to Hornby is tiny, and we were in the line for an hour until the next one came because they took a break. The ferry ride isn’t that long. It’s around the same length as Buckley bay to Denman.
We had some struggles trying to book a campsite online. My mom tried calling this one place a bunch of times but they never answered. We thought they were probably booked, but we were wrong. We drove straight to tribune bay campsite and there were tons of spots open. We picked one that was way bigger than Bere Point, and it had trees, co I could set up the hammock. This place also had waters and showers, but when my mom came back from the showers she said that the water smelled kind of like sewage. Later that day when we tried the drinking water it also tasted a little off. All of their fresh water is like that, but it’s totally fine to drink. We went into their little town and everything was closed! It was only 5 but there was nothing open! So we decided to eat at our campground.
The next day we were planning on going to the white sand beach, but we can’t take Bamboo there which was a little disappointing. We went into the village at 10 and a little coffee bar was open, so my mom and I both got chai lattes! At 11 everything started opening. There are a few cool clothing shops that we went into. There’s also a cute restaurant called forage that we later ate lunch at.
We went for a hike at Helliwell Provincial Park. It was a nice 1 hour loop going along the coast. Afterwards we went to the Saturday farmers market. It was very small, but they were selling lots of great local stuff. We were getting a bit tired, so we went back to our campsite. I think Bamboo was a little sick of being tied up all the time, plus I was getting sick of using outhouses everywhere, so we packed up and headed home!