We had a rare Saturday free without and obligations so Justine and I decided to head over to Galiano Island for the day. The ferry is a quick one hour trip, and the way the ferries were timed you could get over, spend more of the day, and then get a ferry back in the early evening. It gae up lots of time to explore.

The full details of our drive, from leaving home, driving around the island and back.

More of a close up of our driving around Galiano Island.

The ferry was at a very reasonable time, around 9:00 a.m. and we were on the island in no time. We didn't really have an agenda, and thought we'd just drive around and explore. There was an island map on the ferry that gave us some ideas of places to explore. We only had about 6 hours in total, and with the island being ~27 km long, it was going to be a stretch. Not surprisingly, we didn't get to see everything, but we did see a fair bit.

The view out from our first stop of the day

One of the nice things about the island is that there are many places where there is public access down to the water. There are small parking areas, and as it was not exactly prime tourist season, all of them were completely empty. The first one we stopped at lead us along a very pretty little trail, along a small stream down to a great view back towards the mainland.

Heading out on our first little walk.

The view once we got down to the water was really nice.

The little stream we followed, eventually ended up in the ocean.

There were lots of wild flowers about.

We drove a little further up the northeast side of the island, exploring different areas. The island is actually quite hilly, and this stretch took us up high, which provided great views back towards Vancouver. We found another parking area with beach access, and did another short hike down to the ocean.

These trees were quite prominent along our little hike. Very cool, with lots of branches sprouting every which way.

Once again the views were quite nice. The rock face made for some fun exploration.

It’s still pretty early in the spring, so the leaves on the trees were just starting to come out.

Eventually we made our way back onto the southwest side of the island, than drove as far north as possible. It was a longish drive, with may nice sites along the way. At the north end of the island, the 49th Parallel cuts across, so we made a quick stop,

We were at the far northern end of the island, and made a quick stop.

A view back towards Vancouver Island - still a fair bit of snow left.

We made a few stops along the way, exploring a couple of small bays, and the odd pull out or two that provided very nice views over to Salt Spring Island, and further back to Vancouver Island proper. We eventually made our way back almost all the way south to Montague Harbour. This is the other main "village" to the main ferry landing at Sturdies Bay. There's a smallish marina and a pub, so we decided to stop for some lunch. It wasn't warm, but the patio was heated and we had a few fun locals to entertain us.

The Crane and Robin pub where we had some lunch.

There were a number of hummingbirds buzzing around the pub. They had a couple of feeders, and there were a number of different flowers in bloom that were attracting them. This male Rufous was hanging about.

This dumb seagull seemed to have bitten off more than he could chew - literally - with this purple sea star. It seemed like there was no way he would be able to swallow it. But he worked at it for a good 20 minutes, then eventually swallowed it whole! It was unbelievable.

After our lunch, we headed towards the south end of the island, and one of the parks that overlook Active Pass. Again, we had the place to ourselves, and were able to enjoy the amazing views.

We didn't have a lot of time left, we we decided to continue our way towards Sturdies Bay and the ferry dock. We did make a quick stop at Bellhouse Provincial Park, just south of the ferry terminal to walk around for a little while. We hoped that maybe we would get lucky and see some whales, as they pass by this area with some frequency, but there was no luck on that front. We did have some other visitors that were unexpected.

Heading through Active Pass, looking out from Bellhouse Provincial Park.

We spotted a river otter hunting along the shore.

Aunt Tracy had asked me a while back to keep an eye out for a subspecies of chickadees - the Chestnut-backed Chickadee. I have not had any success so far, so was amazed when I saw these chickadees with a flask of brown. I managed to get one crappy picture for proof!

After exploring the park we headed to the ferry dock and parked the car. We had about an hour, so we walked around the small village, had a drink in one of the shops and relaxed. Eventually it was time to head home.