Sunshine Coast
Another Summer Weekend Trip!
Helen works every sixth or seventh
weekend. Normally we have a regular weekend rhythm - actives
like gymnastics or Chinese class and a variety of birthdays and
play dates. In the summer we get less of that so when Helen
works for a weekend, I can take the kids and leave the city for a
little adventure! Our first Adventure weekend was to
Spences Bridge for a single night.
Last year we made it a
multi-night
weekend in Lillooet. This year we booked a place in
Davis Bay on the Sunshine Coast.
Trying to figure out what to do when you are no where near a place
often relies on luck - you just stumble upon an event or an
attraction. I was really happy to find "Pender Harbour Days"
on some website. There are a number of things going on in a
small place - a wood boat festival, a lunch BBQ and face painting
to name a few.
The first thing the kids wanted (because
the line was short) was face paint. They had two artists
working and the wait was only a few minutes.
Next up is boat building! There is a
Wooden boat Festival in Vancouver at Granville Island so they kids
have built boats before. The kids get hulls and masts and
they use a pile of wooden blocks and other supplies to make up
their boat.
They also had paint and sails so the kids
could spend lots of time customizing their boats. They had a
small wading pool where kids could try out their boats to see how
well they worked. A fully clothed toddler came by and sat in
the pool when he was too warm.
There were several other activities at
Pender Harbour days. There was rock painting station where
you could color small animals onto rocks. They had plenty of
examples and lots of colors to paint with.
Being a wood boat festival, you could also
visit local wooden boats! This was a small festival so many
of the boats were open to tours.
My surprise for the kids was horseback riding. Before we
left, I booked a trail ride for the kids at "Farm Ventures"
roughly between Gibsons and Sechelt. They have briefly
ridden ponies before, but never for longer than minutes.
This ride was booked for an hour with a 15 minute extra ride if
they were doing well. The farm was well setup - we had two
walkers to go with us and they had kids appropriate helmets and
stirrups.
There was lots of smiles.
After we got back to the farm, the kids
looked at some of the animals. The farm had a newborn rabbit
which Claira really liked a white horse which also Claira's
favorite colour of horse. I'm pretty sure Claira would have
been fine if I left her here all day.
We grabbed lunch fixings at the local IGA and prepared lunch at
home. We rented the bottom floor of a beachfront home so we
had lots of beach in front of us. Kids played on the patio,
played on the logs and chased bugs.
About four minutes from our house was a wharf in Davis Bay.
The wharf always had something going on.
One half is reserved for swimmers and
there were lots of university aged kids jumping and
swimming. The other half was reserved for fishermen who were
pulling up crabs and fish. You can see a large number of
lines hanging from the left side.
When the crab traps
came up you would get a mix of creatures. Lots of crabs,
most of them under sized. Many pulls had sea stars in them -
I didn't realize that sea stars moved fast enough to get into a
trap.
Across the street were some restaurants that did well with the out
of town clientele. We went to the Wobbly Canoe for dinner
both nights, but I had to ban repeat ordering of the macaroni and
cheese. On Monday morning we had breakfast waffles at the
Gourmet Girl Cafe. The kids went shopping at the Mosaic
store where they both found small trinkets they loved.
After a days outside and lots of
activities, the kids fell asleep pretty quickly. The sunsets
were quite spectacular (you could see people coming out from other
cottages to take pictures). The night sky had obvious blooms
of light from Sechelt and Nanaimo, but quite a few stars were
still visible. You can just barely make out the Milky way on
the left side of the panorama below.
Our weekend was too brief. We
checked out at 11am and drove south toward the ferry terminal.
Being a holiday Monday most of the artist studios were closed but we
did find that Molten Spirit was open. I really enjoy art mixed
with west coast nature.
We arrived in Gibsons, found parking and went to the wharf to have
lunch with a view.
After
lunch, we explored a few galleries. We made our ferry reservation
with only 2 minutes to spare and were back in Vancouver in time for
dinner! A great long weekend out of the city!
Tags: Sunshine Coast(14), painting(4), panorama(3), boat(3), rock(3), art(2)
People: Nara(12), Claira(10), John(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > John's Overnight Page > Sunshine Coast
From: John Harvey Photo > John's Overnight Page > Sunshine Coast 2 > Sunshine Coast
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2024 to 2005 > Sunshine Coast 2 > Sunshine Coast
From: John Harvey Photo > Sunshine Coast
Last Modified Sunday, January 22nd, 2023 at 00:02:20 Edit
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