That’s right, jet-set me was off on another adventure this past weekend!
Florencia Bay
We went camping in Ucluelet (close to Tofino) and surfing and to the music festival Otalith. Jam-packed weekend, if I do say so myself!
I drove myself and a friend up on Friday, where we picked up the tix to Otalith and scoped out our camping situation. We decided to go see ‘Bear Mountain’ that night performing at the main stage in Ucluelet. It was chilly!! Summer in Tofino is like winter everywhere else, unfortunately.
The next morning we were up bright and early to go surfing. We rented our gear, loaded up the surfboards on my little Honda Fit and headed out to Long Beach. Surfing was great! I am reallllllly bad at it. I couldn’t get up at all, only managed a few times to really clamber on and try to stand. We surfed for hours too. My friends were pretty good at it, I was super jealous. I stopped surfing when I got ‘rocked’ ie- knocked head over heels into a wave twice and got clonked on the head HARD by my surfboard. OUCHHHHH and it happened twice, one right after another. ARGH.
Got water up my nose, and out my mouth. My sinuses cleared riiiight up. Haha.
We had to pack it in to return out surf boards by 4pm and get ready to go back to Otalith for some more music! A short (long) hot tub visit later, and a few drinks and we were ready to go. We caught the shuttle bus for the venue and enjoyed listening to Ages and Ages and Wake Owl (actually I really disliked Wake Owl) and the Allah-lahs (were okay…kind of boring). We cruised into town to grab dinner after Ages and Ages performed.
Otalith music festival
Dancing at the last act – Allah-lahs, a girl approached us and asked if we wanted to dance with her guy friend, she said it would ‘really make his day!’ if pretty girls danced with him. I was feeling pretty generous and laid-back so I was like sure, why not. We danced with Steve, her friend, and you know? He was a fine guy, nice and not a weirdo or a creeper. He seemed pretty shy but wasn’t grabby or strange or anything! Just seemed happy to say “hi” to some pretty girls and dance for a bit. On the way back, on the ‘party bus’ (shuttle) he high-fived me haha.
Fun times in Ucluelet
I was flirty (why not?) and when we left the bus I said ‘have a good night Steve’! and tapped the brim of his hat. My intentional flirting only extends so far, I guess. Hahah!
The next morning we headed out for a walk with some friends to the Pacific Coast Trail near the Black Rock Resort and then grabbed soup at a little bakery in Ucluelet (Zoe’s). Then we packed up the car and drove home- not without some peril, as I would soon find out…
Driving along the road back from Tofino is tricky. It is windy, twisty and I was tired. Near the river, a lot of people stop to take a break, and check it out. A car pulled out in front of us with NO room and NO warning. I was driving like 70 km/hr or so.
I SLAMMMED on the brakes and held the horn as hard as I could. It was like HOOOOOONNNNNKKKK.
The trailer behind us could barely brake in time. I could hear the brakes squealing. It was SO scary. There were horns and cars slamming on the brakes for awhile behind us. OH man.
Phew. A bit of adrenaline and a near-smushing to get the heart rate up. Yikes!
To cool down (actually to warm up) we cruised into Sproat Lake, put on our bikinis and chilled in the sun for an hour or so. It was soooo gorgeous. So hot. Such a nice end to a cool weekend- literally- it was clammy and wet and cold the whole wknd! Even though it didn’t rain once! Ha, so crazy.
So, that’s my weekend in a nutshell. A fun girl-power adventure!
The adventures of Mr. Oats 