Gabriola Island: A Relaxing Weekend on a Quiet Island

After our success on the previous weekend in Victoria we decided to head to Gabriola Island. As is typical for us, we didn’t check the ferry schedule and discovered in the morning that if we don’t leave within half an hour the next ferry would only be at 1pm. We probably broke our all time record for leaving home, biking downtown just in time to catch the bus to Horseshoe Bay. Luckily there were no other cyclists waiting for the bus. 

The waterfront in Nanaimo is awesome, but for some reason bikes are not allowed to use it for part of the way… Neil rode his bike, and we arrived to the Gabriola Island ferry terminal just minutes after the ferry left, with the next one being a few hours later. I had read the ferry schedule wrong – the summer schedule was only starting on the next weekend. So we had a couple of hours to spare, and headed back to an awesome playground we saw on the way. We all had a good time, enjoying what we like doing, some of us played and some of us napped.

Then Neil hopped into the trailer to take his nap just to be woken by a car alarm on the ferry lineup. He wasn’t the happiest camper thanks to that, but calmed down quickly.

We were surprised to find an almost deserted campground, with only three other tents. Talking to the ranger later it turned out that May is very quiet there, just before things get busy for the summer. We enjoyed the quietness and after setting up camp we went to explore the nearby beach.

On Sunday we hung out at Twin Beaches and we remembered the last time we were on Gabriola was exactly two years before. Neil had just started walking and the sand was challenging for him to walk on. Now he’s biking by himself on a pedal bike, time just flies. We also remembered a family we met on that beach that had just moved from Vancouver to Gabriola with the aim of escaping the rat race of the city and trying a quieter lifestyle. We wondered how it worked out for them.

Our next stop was Malaspina Galleries and since the road leading there was so quiet we let Neil bike on his own. I noticed some goats in one of the yards and when Neil stopped there to take a look, the guy in the front waved us to come in to look at the goats. Of course, that was the exact same family we were just thinking about! It turned out that the move really worked out well for them and they love their life on Gabriola.

We had lunch at the galleries and walked around, always a nice and interesting place to explore. Then we kind of debated what to do next, I wasn’t so keen to ride around the island again so Gili decided that we’ll go visit a beach we hadn’t been to before, at Sandwell Provincial Park. Once we started going down to that beach we remembered the reason we had never been there. The grade was 18%, so of course going uphill wasn’t too much fun and we had to hurry up to catch the ferry.

Back in Nanaimo we got take out from a very slow Fish n’ Chips place, to avoid the ferry food and lineups. Neil was excited about another ferry ice cream though, which one doesn’t need to wait in line to buy!