Qualicum Beach, British Columbia, CanadaQualicum First Nation
– July 6 – 9, 2017
Why here?
So there are a few reasons why we came here: 1) we never camped here,
2) it’s right at the ocean, 3) there is an airshow and 4) we wanted to check
out the area of Parksville – maybe this is an area we would like to go once we
retire, because it is closer to Nanaimo and has a nice waterfront and is a
small town…
The Qualicum First
Nation Campground
Arriving here – we loved it: ocean front – ok so it is not a sandy
beach for swimming, but the water is super clear with stones and we had an
amazing oceanfront with perfect view camping spot. Setting up and we love it
here – the nice breeze is sure great in the hot July sun.
An evening along the
ocean
Michelle and Tim also came to camp here, so in the evening we were
sitting together watching the sun set with view on Denman and Quadra Island, as
well as the mountains of the main land. Michelle and I even went brave enough
to go into the water. We saw the moon coming up and first nations paddling by
in the canoe…
Good morning ocean
There is nothing like waking up to the ocean and sitting enjoying the
view and a coffee. Afterwards we drove into Parksville and we checked out a
house we were interested in and also to see how the neighbourhoods look like.
An eagle with a broken
wing
On a walk around the campsite Gine discovered an eagle with a broken
wing sitting on the ground, a boy was close by to keep an eye on the eagle
until the rescue team will come… so back getting Paul so he can see the eagle
close up too.
The Big Qualicum River
A walk over to the Big Qualicum River – which by the way separates
Campground 1 from campground 2. And there we even saw a snake!!! Question who
was more scared me or the snake? Also when walking along in low tide you can
see a lot of green plants growing between the stones and the barnicles, which I
think looks super beautiful. Also we discovered the permanent residence here,
as well as the classy A-Class Motorhomes and couldn’t believe it when we saw a
corvette and a Porsche convertible…
Swimming in the ocean
with a lot of waves
no questions as the afternoon comes it gets hot… So Michelle and Gine
decided to go for a swim in the ocean… ok the water is not really hot – it’s a
perfect cool down – so that we can sit again in the sun and relax.
Escorted to the
airshow
Today is the airshow… and Tim said that he will drive us, and even
nicer he dropped off Paul right at the entrance so he doesn’t has to walk and
the first thing we did was setting up our chairs in a cool spot and then we
went to have:
Pancake breakfast
I mean nothing is more fun then having a pancake breakfast and then we
had some time to walk along the planes: some people come by car and some are
coming by plane… so at the moment there are a lot of small planes coming in. We
always walk a few minutes and then Paul gets a break before we venture off
again.
During the day we checked out the air ambulance, the drones and small
play planes, the planes with the wings at the bottom and some at the top of the
body, one had foldable wings and they even had a plane from the Navy – guess
Gine likes that!! A few oldtimers and helicopters were here too… and between we
enjoyed the:
The airshow
And what did we all see: it started out with a plane painting circles
in the sky and the parachuters jumping right throught he circles – it was super
amazing (by the way if looking close I can see them on the pictures) – several planes
doing awesome upside downs, high up and free fall with lots of smoke – gliders and
helicopters – even the toy planes were fun to see especially the doghouse one –
the Navy plane… it was a lot of fun even the snow birds were not here.
Frozen Banana
Did I mention that we had blue sky and it is July and extremely hot!!!
So in between the water was not good enough and so we had some frozen Banana to
cool down…
Warm enough to jump
into the ocean again
After coming back we had to go back into the water and cool down… and
then when sitting and enjoying the nice evening
Cloud iridescence
we saw a real super cool color in the cloud like a cloud rainbow, which
I think looked super cool, so I checked it out and see there it’s not that
uncommon:
- Irisations are named after the Greek goddess Iris: the goddess of rainbow
- It happens because of tiny water droplets scatter light – large ones do not produce it
- The uniform droplets are defracting light: when 10 degrees from the sun
- The cloud also must be optical thin so that most rays encounter only a single droplet
- It is relatively rare: because the cloud has to be thin and have a lot of tiny water droplets
2025-05-22