A weekend up island in Courtenay

We were pretty insistent with my parents that they not give us anything large for Christmas that we'd either have to ship or feel badly getting rid of, so they opted for a weekend away at a bed and breakfast of our choosing sometime before I had to leave. We opted to head up island the first weekend of January to Courtenay, which we visited only briefly on the way back from Miracle Beach around Canada Day. We really liked the city, and wanted to see more of it. Our friends Brandy & Bruce had stayed at a place there that they really liked, the Hobson Place Bed and Breakfast. They also took the train up, which seemed like a good idea as well.

This VIA route, called the Malahat, is part of the Esquimalt & Nanaimo railroad, and it only runs between Victoria and Courtenay, and it only runs once a day. This much I knew. What I wasn't prepared for is that it's only one train car, which has a built-in engine. It's really like a more comfortable bus in terms of capacity. Here you can see Jeremi in front of the single train car just before it left around 8:00 am.
The train ride was spectacular, as it goes along some mountainous terrain, but also near the water. There are tressle bridges over steep valleys with salmon spawning rivers at the bottom, and it being January, well after the salmon have come and died, there were eagles to be seen feeding on the carcasses. Some of the journey was above the snow line as well, which made it all the more beautiful. It really was an old-fashioned romantic version of the train, stopping in tiny towns along the way, some of which they only stop at if someone waves them down.

We were met at the station by our friend Shelley who is living up there now, and we went out for a fabulous lunch, a bit of a grocery shopping, a stop by the liquor store, and then on to the B&B. The ride was much appreciated, especially with the pouring rain on the Friday when we arrived. The weather the rest of the weekend was much nicer, good for exploring. Here you can see the sun on the surrounding mountains, the view from our door when we awoke Saturday morning.

It really was a nice place, with a fireplace and a giant hot tub in the room. We didn't really take any pictures of the room unfortunately, but I did get this one of Jeremi lording over a delicious eggs benedict. Prepare yourself for a topless Jeremi. I know it's not the first time you've seen it, but I thought I'd put in a warning nonetheless.

Taking advantage of the wonderful weather, we borrowed a book in the room with suggested walking tours around Courtenay and Comox, and headed into town. We had a lovely walk along one of the rivers which was full of a wide variety of waterfowl we photographed poorly (I'll spare you), and then through the downtown. After making it to the end of the main downtown section we rewarded ourselves with a substantial lunch of tapas and sangria, and then headed on back on an alternate route.

One of the historic buildings mentioned in the walking tour was this one, the Native Sons of Canada Hall, which is where they hold the farmers' market now, among other community events. It's notable as being the largest building of its sort of construction - a log structure with the logs vertically aligned rather than horizontally. There are huge perpendicular beams running the width of the building, which you can see extending out to the exterior of the wall in this picture.

Oh yeah, and that's Jeremi in the foreground pretending to be a panda, chewing on the bamboo plant out front.

Suffice it to say we had a wonderful time in Courtenay. We ate huge quantities of wonderful food and got to spend a lot of time together before I had to leave, time while we weren't thinking about packing, shipping, visas, and work. And after such a wonderful train ride on the way up we were truly looking forward to the return journey, but upon arriving at the station we were greeted with the following sign:


If you can't read that, it says: "Notice! Train Hit by RockSlide. There will be a bus arriving at approx. 5 pm today, leaving for Victoria shortly thereafter!", signed by the VIA station master. Of course he wasn't actually there, he just taped signs up around the building. Everyone but us lived in Courtenay and had a car, so they all just left to come back in 2 hours (the train was supposed to leave at 3:00), but we were on foot, so we just set up shop in the old-fashioned railway station and tried to learn German for a while. It's a good thing too, because the bus came at 4:20, and didn't wait for anyone else. It turns out the sign was a bit alarmist - the train wasn't actually hit by a rockslide (or a RockSlide), there were just some large rocks on the tracks and the train had to head back to Victoria and send a bus up instead. So instead of the train we went home on the bus. And that made Jeremi pout. (Would you look at that lip of his?)