A  Tour Group’s Brief visit………………….. Guten Tag!

      by Angela Pitts

   Snow, sunshine and rain greeted the group of 14 Austrians and 1 German when they dropped in for a visit to Nanaimo, B.C. on May 20 – 22.

    This group, under the leadership of Robert Walzer had landed in Toronto and slowly made their way to the West Coast and Vancouver Island.

    While in Nanaimo the Bastion City Wanderers played host to them and we took them on some of our favourite YRES.   The freak snowfall of over 23 cm that we had received the day before quickly melted away and the first day of their visit turned out to be a nice sunny day.  Great day for a 12 km walk in town along the water front, through a park and around a marsh.

     The following day a convoy of 4 vehicles  driven by some of our Club members took the whole group up to Ucluelet and Tofino, our newest seasonal walks. Two very lovely Lighthouse Walks.  Ucluelet with it’s boardwalk in the woods was a great way to show the group the pounding of the waves of the Pacific ocean from a slight distance.  No migrating Grey whales were seen that day but we knew they were there. The Lighthouse is the best location to see them. Lots of stops for picture taking during this walk!  After the walk we met at a little restaurant called Driftwood and enjoyed a lovely lunch.  At Tofino’s YRE the fantastic view was from right on the beach itself…..Chesterman Beach to be exact. The group’s first reaction upon seeing the beach was a lot of exclamations of “ohs” and “ahs” and they headed straight for the water’s edge!  A little tennis ball, probably discarded by a dog, was found on the beach during the walk and a little game of kick the ball along was started by some of the fellows as they walked along the beach. Other’s joined in as the ball came near them. At the turn around point a big black cloud showed itself in the sky and became menacing. We hoped the rain wouldn’t come while we were on the beach. We were fortunate, the rain waited until we had gotten into the vehicles!  We headed for the town of Tofino itself where the walk continues with a heritage route. Lots of postcards and stamps were purchased at the local store!

      We were all hoping to see a black bear on the way home and we were not disappointed!  Mind you most of us didn’t have our cameras ready and the bear wandered off before we could take a picture. One fellow was more then happy to share the picture that he managed to take.

       The next day consisted of two more 10 km walks, one along the waterfront  in Nanaimo and the other down in Chemainus, a little town of famous murals.  Another nice sunny day and more wonders for the group to see.  And then they were off to the next part of their trip, Victoria and the IML/IVV walks in Vancouver Washington.  Gone as quickly as they came.  Auf wiedersehn!  We enjoyed your visit!