Cathedral Grove
Cathedral Grove is a stand of Douglas Fir and Red Cedar trees that are estimated to be from 350 to 800 years old. While many of the trees are enormous and obviously very ancient, it is also a living forest. Read More …
Category: 9 Lives Cozy Mystery Series
Researching 9 Lives – Cathedral Grove and Coombs
Today we went to two popular sites in the area, Goats on the Roof and Cathedral Grove. The two locations couldn’t be more different. Cathedral Grove is a protected enclave of old growth forest on the road to Port Alberni, Read More …
Pacific Rim and Tofino Ideas
Whenever we stay in Parksville, we always include a visit out to to the Island’s west coast. The beaches of Pacific Rim National Park are beautiful, unspoiled, and I’ve never seen them over crowded, even in mid-summer. Of course I Read More …
Favourite Pacific Rim Pictures
Pacific Rim and the beaches of Vancouver Island’s west coast are so beautiful that I took dozens of pictures. Here are some of my favourites. Fog and driftwood near the shoreline at Wickaninnish Beach Optimists? Long Beach looking south toward Read More …
Researching 9 Lives – Pacific Rim and Tofino
We took a day to drive out to Long Beach in Pacific Rim National Park. It is about 150 kilometres or a 2 hour drive from Parksville. The road winds through the mountains, but the first half, to Port Alberni, Read More …
Researching 9 Lives – Day 5
A lovely, sunny, and hot day—and a lazy Rathtrevor Beach day. High tide occurred in the morning, which meant deep water…or not. The water rarely gets really deep at Rathtrevor, which is what makes it such a great kids beach. Read More …
Parksville Sandcastle Competition
The Parksville Sandcastle Competition has been a fixture of the community park at Parksville Beach since 1982. The sculptures are made in mid-July and remain up for viewing until the middle of August each year. The sand isn’t from the Read More …
9 Lives Ideas at the Falls
I went to Englishman River Falls park with the idea that the falls could be used as a place to stage a murder. As I stood on the bridge over the river and looked out at the the rock shelf, I watched two people Read More …
Researching 9 Lives – Day 4
After a day at the beach, I was pink—well, to tell the truth close to sunburned—so we decided to visit Englishman’s River Falls and Little Qualicum River Falls. A big reason for this vacation is to do site visits and Read More …