I mostly write about camping and hiking on this blog, but every now and then, I like to do a more comfortable trip. This year for Easter, Seth and I decided to spend the weekend in a nice cabin on Quadra Island, where the goal was more about relaxation than adventure. We invited two of our friends to join us and we ended up having a really nice couples weekend in a place none of us had ever been before.
Quadra is located in the Discovery Islands, which is the region between Vancouver Island and mainland BC. The closest point to Quadra Island is Campbell River on Vancouver Island. In order to get there, we took the ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo on Friday morning, followed by a smaller ferry from Campbell River to Quadra Island. We spent two full days on the island before returning home on Monday.
We decided to make a nice trip out of it on the way there, so we stopped to visit the Oyster River potholes, which are located ~30 minutes outside of Campbell River. I think these are quite popular in the summer, when the river is low and you can swim. It was a bit of a rainy day when we visited, so we were the only people there and the river was definitely too cold and too high for swimming. We parked on the side of the highway where the trail starts and it’s a short 5 minute walk down to a viewpoint of the river. Even in marginal conditions, it was really beautiful.
We had dinner in Campbell River and then took the ferry over to Quathiaski Cove on Quadra Island. Quadra is a decent sized island, but there’s not a lot happening. There are a few businesses in Quathiaski Cove and a few more in Heriot Bay and that’s about it. We stayed at a nice little log cabin in the woods between the two; it had a wood stove and an outdoor bath, which made for a cozy experience. We took our dog Sadie with us, but had to be careful letting her off leash as there are wolves on the island.
On Saturday morning, we decided to start the day with a visit to the farmers market in Quathiaski Cove. It turned out that we were too early in the season for the farmer’s market, but there are still a lot of cute shops along the main road. I was extremely excited to discover a bookstore, so I spent a lot of time exploring there, as well as a surprisingly promising thrift store. Finally, we stopped in to a really nice cafe that had tons of delicious drinks and treats. We liked it so much that we went back twice.
Then in the afternoon, we drove to Heriot Bay to visit Rebecca Spit Provincial Park, which is basically a long spit extending around the harbour. You can walk along the beach and through the woods to the end of the spit and it’s very scenic. we had really nice weather and logged ~5km walking to the end of the park and back to our car. It looked like there was a frontcountry campground located here as well, so it would be a nice place to camp in the summer. There’s not much on the island for restaurants, but we ate at The Clove on Saturday night before going back to the cabin to share some wine and enjoy the outdoor tub.
On Sunday, the goal was to do a hike. The north part of the island is much larger than the south, but there’s really nothing up there except for one road crossing the island and a lot of forestry roads for logging. We drove to the other side of the Island to Granite Bay and did a hike to Newton Lake in Small Inlet Marine Provincial Park. Since it was early April, it seemed like the trail hadn’t received any maintenance from the previous year, so it was in rough shape. There was quite a bit of blowdown across the trail and we took our time climbing over and around dead trees.
I would have liked to hike all the way to the end of the trail at Small Inlet, but that was a bit further than we wanted to go, especially with the blowdown, so we ended up hiking ~6km round trip to Newton Lake, where we stopped for lunch. Newton Lake wasn’t the most scenic lake. I thought it might be a good place to swim, but it’s a bit overgrown and it’s hard to access the water, so we just ate our lunch in the woods before turning around. Sadie had a great time though! Since it was Easter Sunday, we didn’t try to go out for dinner and instead had a big BBQ at the cabin and relaxed for the rest of the evening.
On our last day, we took the ferry back to Campbell River and killed a bit of time there before our ferry back to Vancouver. We went to Meera Bakery Cafe, which had the most delicious assortment of pastries, and to my delight, I discovered a second bookstore called Coho Books. I love visiting independent bookstores and I’m consistently impressed with how easy they are to find in BC, even in small communities. Places like Quadra Island, Tofino, Pender Island, and Sechelt all still have bookstores even though they don’t have large populations. So I always make a point to visit the local bookstores.
Overall, it wasn’t the most exciting trip I’ve taken, but it was the right trip for the occasion. I would still like to go back to Quadra Island because it’s home to Main Lake Provincial Park, which is supposed to be fantastic for kayaking. I would have liked to bring the kayaks on this trip, but since we were with friends and had Sadie with us, we opted not to. But that’s okay, because we still had a really nice trip and now we still have a reason to go back again!
