I have once again fallen way behind on posts - it’s been a busy summer, and many days have been way too warm to spend any time in my office working on photos or writing posts. My plan is to try something a little different and do some catching up with theme-based posts rather than time-oriented posts. We’ll see how it goes…
But this post will be a little more traditional. The weekend of August 7/8 we had our friends Katie and John come over to Galiano and stay with us. After months of nothing but sunshine, of course it picked this weekend for the weather to turn a bit. Despite that, we had a great visit, toured the island and even got a swim in.
Arbutus trees ended up being a central theme of the weekend. with the heat, they had started to shed their bark and expose the green bark underneath.
We took the Friday night ferry over to the island, meeting Katie and John at the ferry terminal. It was surprisingly busy, and we were glad to have given ourselves lots of extra time (as we typically do). Katie and John didn’t give themselves a lot of buffer and ended up cutting it close! The ferry was the usual - nothing exciting to report - and it was starting to get dark by the time we got to the cottage. We did a short walk around to shown them all that had changed since the last time they had visited, then we moved inside to have some drinks and enjoy the evening.
We had a leisurely start to Saturday morning, eventually making our way down to the south end of the island to check out the Saturday Market. Katie and John did a tour around the vendors, while we were surprised by a visit with the builder of our cottage, who just happened to be on the island as well! A strange coincidence.
We then wandered around Bellhouse Park, before heading down to Montague Harbour for some lunch. We had an amazing lunch at the Crane and Robin, with a great view out over the harbour.
After lunch, we drove out to Montague Provincial Park. The weather was a bit overcast and blustery, so we held off on the thought of a swim and instead wen for the walk around the perimeter of the small peninsula (Grey peninsula) that thrusts out into the channel.
Our short walk took us around the perimeter of Gray Peninsula.
The highlight of this walk (in the summer anyway - in the winter it’s the birds) are the arbutus trees. There are huge ones, all along the water’s edge. They make sure interesting subjects.
As you get around the far side of the walk, there’s an area where you can get down to the water, and there are some interesting sandstone formations, carved by the water.
As we finished off the walk, the weather made an abrupt change, and suddenly it was sunny and hot, and the wind had dropped off considerably! It was too good to pass up, so we changed and went for a swim. The water was frigid, but fine after you get used to it (i.e. your body goes numb…), and I actually went in three times as we enjoyed the afternoon sun.
Eventually we were getting cold and it was time to head home. We had an excellent dinner outside on the picnic table, and eventually moved inside as it got cold. We played cards in the evening, but did not make it as late a night as Friday had been.
Sunday, we again had a fairly relaxing and low key morning. Some hanging out and relaxing, before we headed a few minute down the road to the Millard Learning Center. This property run by the Galiano Conservancy has some nice trails that we had been wanting to check out for a while.
Our hike around the learning center
The trail goes through a number of different ecosystems, but the best part was in the forest along the channel, where you popped out every once in a while to amazing views of Trincomali Channel.
The trail eventually took us from the top of the cliff down to water level at Chrystal Cove. As the tide was quite low, the cove was accessible, and there were lots of interesting things to see at the tide line.
After the hike, we headed back to the cottage and had a late lunch. Katie and John had to take off a little bit early for our late afternoon ferry, as they had another friend on the island to visit with. That was good for us, as it gave us some time to do some chores around the property, before we headed home as well. It was a lovely weekend and nice to be able to continue to have some friends at the cottage.