The orange glow of campfires light up the night sky. Along the long sandy beach, surf boards are propped against logs, waiting for their owners to take them home. It’s Labour Day weekend, the last long weekend of the summer, and we are not at the cabin. We are visiting our friends in Tofino, the surf capital of Canada. I have deferred this visit the whole summer and now I am wondering why.

You see, I am the type of cottager who can’t wait to get to the cabin. Once I arrive, I do not want to leave, not even to get groceries. I froth at the mouth when Bill insists on stopping at Canadian Tire, or worse, Home Depot, to pick up supplies. I clock our travel time from door-to-door, anything more than four and a half hours and I start to get fidgety.

When summer rolls around, I am pretty much parked at the lake every weekend until Labour Day. My only exception is family commitments, they get first priority, but even then I try to arrange them around my precious cottage time.

While most people would kill to hang out on Chesterman Beach in Tofino, I struggle. Ocean versus lake. When it comes to ocean activities I am pretty much a spectator, lake activities I am an instigator. Horne lake is cold, but here on the west coast, the Pacific is a cool 52 degrees Fahrenheit. Brrrrrrrrrrr.

But as I stand on this long flat sandy beach, with not even a pebble in sight, I can’t help wonder why I resisted. It is absolutely beautiful here. The waves crashing over the jagged rocks, the flock of sandpipers sweeping over the water in perfect unison, and the old growth rain forests with their boardwalk trails are nothing short of spectacular. This is nature at it’s finest and while it is slowly becoming developed, there are still vast tracks of untainted wilderness.

Tomorrow I am even going to join the masses and try surfing - who knows, maybe there is a surf dude in me dying to get out.

Regardless of where your spending your weekend, I hope you are making the most of it - it’s the last one of the summer.

Cheers,

Julie

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 at 5:54 am and is filed under Road Trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.