Visiting UNIQUE Beaches on Vancouver Island! (Sombrio Beach, Mystic Beach, & Botanical Beach!)

Our next adventure on Vancouver Island is all about beaches. We're currently in Jordan River which is on the west coast of Vancouver Island and over the next couple days we're going to be checking out three beaches from here to Port Renfrew all of which have unique things to see and explore. First we had to stop by Cold Shoulder Cafe which is a super cool beachy shack right across from the water that serves food and coffee to get ourselves a little caffeine so we can conquer our first beach of the day, Sombrio Beach. Sombrio Beach is located 30 minutes from Jordan River and we hear it's just a 10 minute walk to the beach. We have made it down to Sombrio Beach and it's a gorgeous beach but it's not the beach itself that makes it unique. It's something you can get to from the beach, a hidden waterfall and a gorge. It's one of those spots that if you did not know it was here you would never find it so we read some blog posts on how to get to it as well as talk to our friends who live on the island and got some directions from them so we're hoping it shouldn't be too hard to find. Our first step was get down to the beach, turn left, we'll keep walking until we get to this rock formation and then we'll go around that. So we think that rock behind us is the formation we were looking for and we read that it's easiest and safest to access this waterfall at low tide or at a falling tide because during high tide the water hits the rocks and it can be really unsafe to pass it so we couldn't get here at low tide because we need to be at our next spot for low tide but we're here at a falling tide and it was super easy to get around. The next step was to find this little creek running out from the trees into the ocean and we're supposed to follow this into the gorge to get to the waterfall. Wow this is so unique and cool. This is unreal. It reminds me of the spot we went to in the Columbia River Gorge many many years ago called the Oneonta Gorge I believe is the name. This is one of the most unique waterfalls we've ever been to and it's so fun to get to. I can't get over this island. Everywhere we go just makes me happy. I just can't wipe the smile off my face. This beach and the other two beaches we're visiting are all located along the Juan de Fuca trail which is a popular 47 kilometer wilderness trail that goes along this part of the island's coastline. It can be backpacked or you can do it in smaller day hikes. You can also actually camp on this beach for ten dollars Canadian per person which we definitely want to do next time. For our next beach we're headed to Botanical Beach which is located in Port Renfrew and similar to the last beach this one does require a walk to get to but it's only about one kilometer down to the beach. What makes Botanical Beach unique is that it's known for having amazing tide pools. They have all these kind of circular outcroppings in the rock where a lot of sea life congregates during low tide so we made sure to get here close to low tide so we have a good chance of seeing some. My number one goal is to see a starfish because I've maybe seen a starfish once in my life but so far we haven't had any luck so we're gonna keep looking. So far we've seen tons of blue mussels, little crabs, anemones, and then also a bald eagle was just flying over and then he just landed up in the tree right up there. Well we never found a starfish and I'm a little sad about it but we saw tons of other cool things including a mink out in the water which kind of looks like a little ferret and apparently that bald eagle we saw was trying to lift him up and take him with him but he failed at that mission and then we eventually saw the mink running across all the rocks with a fish in its mouth. It was insane. I think my favorite part about this entire beach was just seeing all the colors. All the tide pools have this beautiful green and pink colors. It was just very beautiful to look at and it was just like a scavenger hunt. We just kept looking at every single one trying to find stuff and it's really hard to leave because we just want to keep looking. Tonight we're staying at Jordan River Regional Park which is located right on the beach. It's a first-come first-served campground that costs 15 Canadian per night. We're here midweek before the summer rush and the two nights we've stayed here there's been plenty of spots available. It's not the most nature-y campground and it's not very private. All the sites are right next to each other but you cannot beat this view out your back window. You can see the Olympic Peninsula and Washington across the way and we're also picking up Verizon signal on our cell phones which has been really nice after this last week of struggling with the international data. Before we head to our final beach we're having breakfast at Shirley Delicious which is a popular cafe that's in an a-frame tucked in the woods. It is just the quaintest little place. Oh man. So I got the brekkie bun which is a cheese bun, a house-made cheese bun. There's bacon on there, lettuce, there's onion mayo, tons of cheddar cheese. Oh my gosh. And then dripping with cheese. Yeah and then there's a big tomato under there. Oh yeah. Heck yeah. Oh my goodness yeah. All right. Whoa. And I forgot to mention the thing that makes it brekkie, there's an egg buried under all this cheese. The veggies are so fresh tasting. The bacon is nice and crispy and then check out this cheddar bun here. Look at that. That is the definition of pillowy. And I got their corn fritters which are kind of like a corn pancake. You can see the kernels of corn in here. Oh baby. This looks so good. It's also gluten-free and it comes with feta on top, some avocado, and then normally it comes with pico but I got their tomatillo salsa instead. That is delicious. It's kind of like a pancake and cornbread had a baby and I'm all about it. The feta gives it a nice kind of like tangy flavor. You get a little bit like the sweetness from the corn. Oh this is so incredibly fresh tasting. It's so hearty too. Like I'm gonna be really full after this. They're dense. Also this salted caramel latte is one of the best ones I've ever had. This place surely is delicious. We had to wait a few hours for the tide to go down so we could get to our next beach, Mystic Beach. To access this beach we parked at the China Beach Day Use area and we're gonna be walking four kilometers round trip on the Juan de Fuca trail to get to it. First fun feature of this beach, you get to go on a suspension bridge to get to it. This one's super bouncy. Kona, you did such a good job on the bridge. I'm so proud of you. Wow this beach is gorgeous. Look at this water. It is so blue. So we've got a fun feature going that way and two fun features over here to my left. Which way should we go first? We decided to go towards the right when looking at the beach first to check out the swing and there's some caves you can explore back here and that's why we had to get here at low tide because this isn't accessible during high tide and same with the other spot we'll check out next. That swing was so much fun. We could not stop giggling and laughing and smiling as we swung on it and we hear that for a while there was not a swing here so we're really glad the swing is back and now we're headed down the beach to the other side to see one of the most iconic features of this beach, a waterfall that crashes down onto the beach. This is awesome. It's kind of like the Canadian McWay Falls. That's going to do it for our time on this part of the island but we have one final stop here on Vancouver Island, the city of Victoria which is the largest city on the island and the capital of all of British Columbia. We've been once before and loved it and we cannot wait to show you guys. Kona hates the swing. Kona hates the swing very much. I'm not gonna lie the first time I was talking about those flowery looking things under the water I called them anemones. We've seen lots of anemones, little anemones, yeah and then later I was informed that it's called anemones. I guess he's never seen Finding Nemo because that's how I know how to pronounce that word. You live in what kind of home? Anemones.