top of page
Search

Be careful…those rocks are slippery!

Writer's picture: Ruth McbrideRuth Mcbride

If I heard Richard say that to me once today, I think I heard it one hundred times!


On the beach in Lantzville.


Today we left Fanny Bay around 10am for a trip down to Lantzville. After golfing with the folks yesterday at Qualicum Beach, who had just moved here from Calgary, we thought we should explore the area a bit more, since we really hadn’t spent any time in Lantzille. The temperature in Fanny Bay when we left this morning was +3C and sunny, but when we got down to Lantzville 45 minutes later, the temperature had risen to +7C.


Lantzville Beach.


Lantzville is located about 11km north of Nanaimo, B.C. and was formed in the early 1800’s as a coal mining town. Lantzville is named after Harry Lanz an American who invested in a coal mine in nearby Nanoose Bay.


Nanoose Bay across the sea from Lantzville. We walked to the end of the Lantzville beach. and when we got to these stones, the beach just stopped and there was no more beach to walk on. The sandstone formations on the beach were very neat. There were a lot of fossils and erosion visible on the rocks.



These stones had very interesting round holes in them.

It is interesting to see how the waves and winds of time have formed these sandstone rocks.

More interesting sandstone formations on Lantzville Beach.



Of course Richard told me to be careful again as I stood on this rock in the middle of this small waterfall at Lantzville Beach.



Richard taking a photo towards Nanoose Bay.


As we were walking down the Lantzville Beach we saw someone in swimming! I’m not sure what the water temperature was, but the air temperature was only +7C!


If you look closely, you can see a woman walking on the beach in a bikini! We saw her swimming, then she walked back to her towel and into her home, which was on the beach.


After we explored Lantzville we decided we would drive down to Nanaimo for some lunch and exploring the main downtown shopping street - Commercial Street.


Commercial Street downtown Nanaimo. The travel agency sign for ‘Around the World Travel Service rotated. It was so retro, which makes sense since this travel agency has been around since 1959. The Flying Fish store in the background was kind of cool. I went in to browse, but didn’t end up buying anything.


We couldn’t find a place to eat that really interested us on Commercial Street, so we headed over to the harbour in Nanaimo and we found the Lighthouse Bistro & Pub right on the water.

The Bistro was less busy, so we decided to eat there, instead of the Pub.


View from our table in the Bistro. You start to take this view for granted! Water and mountains! On a sunny day there is nothing more beautiful!


Richard had a seafood chowder with PEI mussels, clams, sockeye salmon, halibut, squid and shrimp. The bowl of chowder was $15, but with this much seafood in it, it was a meal in a bowl! I had a nice salad, but we didn’t take a photo of it.


After we had a late lunch, we headed back to The Bay in Nanaimo to buy some Canada t-shirts before we head to the U.S. next month.



I initially went to Lululemon to buy some new Canada Olympic gear, but after seeing the prices, I decided instead to go to The Bay for tshirts.


We’ll wear these proudly down south when we find some warmer weather. We didn’t really pack too many clothes for warmer temperatures, so these easy wash and wear tshirts will help with that issue.


As I wrote the blog tonight, I asked Richard to turn the CTV news on from Vancouver. We were surprised to hear on the news that the Province of B.C. has declared a ‘State of Emergency’ for the Province because of the flooding that happened on the Mainland over the weekend. The Province now has the power to restrict travel and restrict gouging and hoarding because of shortages of goods and services. The supply chain has been so severely disrupted because of the Coquihalla Hwy being destroyed which is a major transportation route in the Province. We are so thankful that we are on the Island because if this had been last year, we would have been cut off from getting to the Island. The mainland of B.C. Is a real mess. There are farms under 6-8 feet of water. Cattle and chickens under water in barns in Chilliwack. Many communities are cutoff from getting supplies. Nearly every major highway has washouts and train service to Vancouver is cut off. Hundred’s of armed services members are being sent to B.C. to assist with this disaster.




On Vancouver Island, fuel shortages are happening in Victoria because of the issue with the Malahat Hwy just North of Victoria being closed from 6pm-6am every day for repairs to the highway. There are long lineups to cross the Malahat and people are losing their tempers at the flag persons because of the long wait times to get through on the highway.


Work on the Malahat, a mountain pass just north of Victoria. The only way to drive out of Victoria, is to take the Malahat. People are being told to take a ferry from Victoria to Salt Spring Island, and then drive through Salt Spring to the port of Vesuvius, to take another ferry to get off Salt Spring at Crofton, which is above the Malahat. Its crazy how there is so much reliance on a single road in Victoria. Let’s hope this road is repaired before we need to cross it in December! It is very strange living out on Vancouver Island, through B.C.’s worst weather disaster ever. We seem to be relatively ok, since the North Island of Vancouver Island was pretty much spared, other than a lot of rain for three days from the ‘Pineapple Express’ and Newman’s roof leaking a bit.





Tomorrow we’ve got a big day coming up! We’re going out for dinner in Courtenay and going to see a live theatre production afterwards downtown Courtenay!



‘O Christmas Tea’ is for fans of Monty Python, Mr. Bean and Dr. Seuss. The UK comedy legends James and Jamesy are bringing their wildly popular holiday classic ‘O Christmas Tea’ to Vancouver Island. We were lucky enough to see this show advertised in the ‘What’s On’ Guide on Monday this week when I picked up the guide, and they still had seats available for tomorrow evening! There will not be a blog tomorrow night since we will be out at the show, but we’ll tell you all about our day tomorrow, on Friday!





We had a good day today. We definitely like to explore and as much as we have already seen on the Island, there is always more places to see and restaurants to try! And I’m please to say, I didn’t slip today on the rocks either, so Richard‘s nattering about ‘Be careful, those rocks are slippery‘ was just that….NATTERING! I know he does take good care of me though, as he definitely doesn’t want to see another broken femur right in front of him, like last year!












72 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Commentaires


Subscribe Form

Thanks for submitting!

4162774248

©2020 by Check this off our Bucket List. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page