Bowen Island

We arrive a couple of hours early from our originally scheduled flight, as there has been a change with Air Canada and we are hoping that Hertz will not change, the extremely good rate we have on a Tesla booking. To our great surprise the Tesla was half price to a regular small car. We are in luck, no problems on pick up but as we check the car over, it has not been cleaned yet and empty pizza boxes and drink cans are inside. It is whisked away for a very quick clean which takes long enough that we miss the ferry we wanted to catch to Bowen Island. We now have 1.5 hours to fill, so why not check out the factory outlet shops next to the airport!

All the fancy brands are there including sports stores which is what we are interested in. We both pick up a bargain on some very warm mitts as we have been told it’s very cold on the river this year where we will be going next. This outlet complex has been built right under the final flight path to the airport , so every few minutes a plane zooms overhead literally 300-400m above us. I guess a very clever real estate decision to build the outlet here and bring lots of people in.

We catch the 9.20pm ferry and 20 min later the narrow channel crossing gets us to Bowen Island, a quick 10 min drive and we are putting our bags into the cabin we have booked for the next three days.

The weather is perfect, we zoom in on the eateries and an amazing “Artisan” bakery where we follow the treat of a breakfast of French Toast with freshly baked crostatas filled with fresh strawberries and rhubarb.

We eye a lunch special of truffle , aioli and Parmesan chips for the following day and a Tex-Mex salad and curry for dinner.

The local organic grocery shop supplies us with the sweetest, mouth watering strawberries locally grown that we have tasted in eons.

The island is full of beautiful hikes and is very easy to navigate around and explore in the car. It has been an extremely dry summer, so a lot of the wetlands here have dried out. We follow the coastline on a walk to Roger’s lighthouse and keep an eye out for orcas.

We only see a harbour seal but that’s OK. No bears on the island, so it’s easy to navigate around.

There are nice little galleries and obviously the island has attracted the slow pace life style crowd, quite a few young families with a medium sized school close to the ferry terminal and a really nice, large community centre that is being built.

This island has been logged in the past so every once in a while we come across a remnant of a cedar giant that has taken, now giving life and supplying nutrients to the next little trees.

It’s an early morning start to catch the first ferry of the day at 6.20 am and André drops me and our gear at the small airport from where we take a small charter flight to our week long grizzly bear viewing adventure.