Life On The Coast: Month 2
- Kelly McKenna
- Sep 30, 2021
- 6 min read
Hi from Prince George, BC. Once again it has been far too long since I've written any stories and we are now in our third home of the year!
Since my last post we have been very busy - not only moving house, but also taking two mini vacations in our beautiful province.
Our second month in the beautiful coastal town of Sechelt was filled with many more exciting adventures, so much eating and drinking and an absolute abundance of visitors. As BC eased its way into a gradual re-opening plan, we managed to catch up with friends that we hadn't seen in well over six months. Here's how it all went down...
Food And Drink
We definitely didn't ease up on the overindulgences as we moved into June. We welcomed three visitors to our coastal home and we were keen to show them all of the places we'd already fallen in love with, as well as find some new favourites to add to the list.
This brewery is located between Gibsons and Sechelt and has both indoor and outdoor seating. It is located on the Sunshine Coast highway, so if outside it's a little on the noisier side, but it's a great place to stop off after collecting someone from the ferry if you don't want to stop in Gibsons itself.
We stopped in on our way back from picking up our friend Ian and ordered paddles so that we could try pretty much all of the beers they had on tap between us. This was great for me and Ian, not so much fun for Richard who was our designated driver!
101 is another brewery on the BC Ale Trail so as an added bonus, we got to tick another one off the list. We still have a long way to go to get them all though!
Located overlooking the water at Sechelt Inlet, this sports bar with a patio is a great place to have a drink and take in the incredible views. Seaplanes regularly take off and land in the inlet and this is an awesome viewing spot to see them as the pub sits above the harbour.
We took our friend Allison there on our first visit after a recommendation from some friends in Vancouver, and we were so impressed that we swung by again the following night after we dropped her back at the ferry!
The Lighthouse is one of our favourite eateries on the Sunshine Coast and I don't think I would ever get bored of sitting on the patio watching the water and the world go by.
This pub sits about halfway between Sechelt and Egmont, in the Madeira Park area of the coast. We had previously visited on our first visit to the coast in February 2020 and were very keen to return.
The main selling point of this pub is the insanely beautiful view over the bay from both the patio and the indoor seating areas - they have cleverly built floor to ceiling windows in the pub so virtually no matter where you are seated you will see something amazing.
Also in the style of a sports bar, the food is predominantly light bites and sharers. It's definitely not a place to go if you are trying to be healthy, but the food is delicious and the service is normally pretty good. As above, the thing that always draws us back to this pub is the scenery and it is somewhere we will continue to return to for as long as we live in BC.
As well as enjoying some new places to eat and drink, we also spent a fair bit of time at some old favourites too, including; The Bricker Cider Company, The Gumboot Restaurant and The Porch Restaurant.
Exploration
About a 45 minute drive north of Sechelt and roughly 5 minutes south of the Earl's Cove Ferry Terminal, is the beautiful Dan Bosch Park. On the shoreline of Ruby Lake, this small park has a soft sandy beach, dedicated swimming area and some picnic tables.
We visited just the once during our time living on the Sunshine Coast, as you have to get there early to secure a spot. We set up a couple of blankets under the trees and soaked up the sun during a crazy heatwave that saw temperatures in the high 30 degrees Celsius.
It felt like it was too far to go to risk not being able to get a parking spot, but it would be a great place to waste some time before getting a ferry across to the northern sunshine coast and we will definitely visit again in the future.
To get to the Sunshine Coast you need to take a 40 minute ferry ride from Vancouver's Horseshoe Bay to Langdale Ferry Terminal. A roughly 10 minute ride from the ferry is the small, quaint town of Gibsons.
We hadn't spent much time in Gibsons, preferring to drive on to our destinations on the coast, but when we had visitors we decided to make the most of it by exploring a bit more. My favourite place to visit is definitely the harbour and marina area of town.
From there you can take in the views of the Shoal Channel, Keats Island and the mountains back on the mainland. There are also a variety of restaurants, breweries and shops nearby. A perfect way to pass an hour or two.
Located roughly halfway between Gibsons and Sechelt, Roberts Creek is kind of a blink and you'll miss it town, but I would definitely not recommend missing it. Home to The Gumboot Café and Restaurant, Roberts Creek is a small, quiet community with wonderful food, drink and exceptional scenery.
A five minute walk from the heart of Roberts Creek, you will find Roberts Creek Pier. With incredible views over the Strait of Georgia and amazing multi-million dollar houses along the shoreline, this is a great spot to stroll along the pier with an ice-cream, try spotting seals or whales, or just sit on a wooden bench and soak up your surroundings.
Sechelt Inlet
After six months living inland, and both being water babies, we were very excited to once again be living on the coast. Our Airbnb had an incredible view overlooking Sechelt Inlet and though we were a little too far out of the town to walk to the beach, we were close enough to be able to walk through the neighbourhood to a small private marina where we spent time drinking a few beers, paddling and making friends with the local wildlife.
Tuwanek Beach Marine Park
One of the wonderful things about BC is that some parts of it are unreachable by road and, therefore, it forces you out of your comfort zone. As mentioned in my previous post, we finally got to spend a bit of time in our kayak in May, and in June we took that one step further and made our longest trip to date.
Launching from Lamb Bay, we followed the coast line around for about an hour around Tuwanek Point and landed on Tuwanek Beach. We spent some time soaking up the sun and swimming in the brisk waters before heading back to shore.
Tuwanek Beach is a sheltered area, with a campground and many people in the area choose to explore the inlet further, either by boat or kayak, stopping overnight as necessary. We definitely don't feel ready for a trip like that yet, but hopefully we will be back to Sechelt to do it one day!
In The Kitchen With Kelly
With the influx of visitors and some spectacular weather, I didn't spend much time in the kitchen in month 2 on the coast, but I did have a few small successes.
I perfected my pandemic banana bread and stacked lovely pancakes, but my mug cakes left little to be desired... With some incredibly high temperatures, I didn't feel much up to cooking so lots of meals at home were easy to make salads and picky meat and cheese boards.
Definitely progress, but mostly baking myself instead of cakes!
And Finally...
With everything I've described above, you'd be forgiven for thinking there wasn't room for us to do anything else, but I have a couple of extra titbits to squeeze in here...
We finally got our first vaccinations against Covid-19... Despite being eligible for our shots much sooner, we wanted to wait until our Canadian Permanent Residency was all complete and our healthcare information was linked to our new residential status in case the government decided to introduce vaccine passports at any point (spoiler: they did).
We were delighted when we were finally able to get vaccinated as it meant we were one step closer to "normality" and being able to reunite with family and friends all around the globe.
A bear wandered into our garden... We'd gotten fairly used to deer strolling through our garden whilst we watched from the deck, especially as they often had their gorgeous little fawns with them. We were, however, exceptionally surprised one evening to look up and see a small black bear just casually meandering past. He seemed pretty unbothered by our presence in his space, but being the big scaredy-cats that we are, we took a few quick snaps and rapidly retreated inside!
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