Day #33 - The long road to Tofino

We looked outside to see rain and a forecast of bad weather all day put a dampener on our plans to see more of Victoria. The breakfast at Abigails Hotel was very pleasant, there was a set menu in their dining room. I had the omelette and Spencer had French toast. 

We set off for Torino and we couldn't see anything from the car for most of the journey. Spencer drove, and we pulled off the main a couple of times to glance at the architecture in Ladysmith and Nanaimo. Launch was a bite to eat in a Tim Horton's, a Canadian coffeehouse and restaurant chain. 

Every now and then a bit of snow capped mountain would be revealed but on the most part the views were obscured. About 4 hours into the drive we started to go up over a mountain range, the air got colder and the rain started to turn to sleet, then snow. We saw plenty of signs warning that all cars must have snow tyres or snow chains, and we only had all purpose tyres, so snow would be tricky. As we climbed the snow was settling on either side, then on the road and we both started to worry. Thankfully the road started to head downwards again and the snow turned back to rain. We hadn't seen any civilisation for a couple of hours.

Approaching Tofino we saw long golden beaches to the lefthand side and houses start to appear. The sun came out on our arrival and the hotel, Middle Beach Lodge was signposted from the main road. I had no memory of what I had booked for 2 nights in this far reaching outpost. The hotel is situated on a headland between two golden beaches, 2 main lodges and several small stilted bungalows dotted the coastline. All well hidden in the trees. Our room was in the lodge and we had a beautiful beachfront view. 

We headed into Tofino to see what the town looked like and had to offer. It appeared smaller than I imagined, but a good 10 eateries were dotted about the harbour side town. We settled on a lovely 2 storey restaurant called the Wolf in the Fog. Our table was on the heated veranda. It was we found out the poshest restaurant in town, with ribs costing $150 and quite a lot of expensive dishes, we did find some cheaper options. I had the pasta bolognaise $30 and Spencer the burger and fries $26. So we didn't overspend and it was delicious.   

Afterwards we had drinks in our hotel lobby by the roaring fire. We ended up chatting to a Canadian couple for a good couple of hours, discussing all things Canadian, and sipping a lovely bottle of red wine. Both tired from the long drive we called it a night at 10pm and snuggled up in our room.

\