What to do around Parksville BC. Our Van Isle Roadtrip Comes to an End.

Hello everyone! We are in the Parksville and Coombs area and we have a lot to show you today. Yeah, we've got some trees, some beaches, some goats, some cheese, and even a milk dispenser. Parksville and Coombs can be found just north of Nanaimo on the eastern coast of Vancouver Island. It's a bit of an angle. Hello up there. So what's the big attraction to coming here to Cathedral Grove or now known as Macmillan Park? Old Growth Forest trails. It's what it's all about. There are two trails on either side of the highway. Make sure you check out both. And basically it's about looking at some really big trees. It's very accessible. They've got this lovely wide brand new boardwalk and it's one way as well. So don't walk the wrong way like we saw some people doing. Mel is going to attempt to climb through and go across on this little log bridge. I feel like I'm in that scene in Dirty Dancing where they dance on the log. Whoops! All right so why do we care about these big trees? Well these are western red cedars and very few areas of them have actually been really protected. It's pretty rare to get an old growth forest still around that you can actually go and see. All right now we're on to the other side of the street and this is the big big tree loop. They're douglas firs mostly on this side of the road and they're really big. Some of them are up to 800 years old. Yeah so when you're doing this loop make sure that you hit the tallest tree which is kind of in the middle of like a figure eight. So that's what we're going to do. There's a little loop and then the big loop around that when the tallest tree is on the little loop. Is this the little loop? It might be. This was not it. Okay so this is the largest tree in the park. It's a giant douglas fir. It's over 800 years old, 76 meters tall, and nine meters round. Just to put that into perspective it was over 300 years old when Christopher Columbus came to North America. Douglas fir is one of Canada's oldest living tree species and can live to be over a thousand years old. And to compare that in height the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Europe is only 56 meters tall so this one is 20 meters taller than that. I'm gonna take you to the cutest little village ever called Coombs and they have goats on a roof. As you can see from the parking lot it's super busy here and there's a little goat right in there. All right here's a little insider's tip. If the goats are not on the roof at the market, come up the road past the Cuckoo Italian Trattoria and along the back side of this patio. And here they are. There's two here. There they are hanging out. That was goats on the roof in Coombs and the little village which is just booming with tourists. It's really grown since last time I've been out this way so it was kind of fun to explore. Can't forget our suntan lotion for the beach. The parking lot is great they've even got RV parking. We're at the Parksville Community Park and they have just an amazing beach. At low tide this stretches out super super far with warm sand and then when the tide comes back in it's actually one of Canada's warmest swimming beaches because the hot sand warms up the water. At high tide the water comes up somewhere around this area so you can see that you lose quite a bit of the beach so if you're planning a trip to this beach you've really got to watch the tide tables and make sure that you're here kind of during low tide or mid tide to have the most sandy beach access. We're gonna check out how warm this water actually is. It's pretty warm. Yeah that's really warm. It's warm enough that even I'm in it. We've got a nice campground here right by the beach. Might have to try and stay here next time. They've got a beautiful long boardwalk that you can walk along to. There's some food trucks along the way and just a really nice view. They've got like seven beach ball volleyball courts too. It's pretty sweet. We're at the Little Qualicum Cheese Works at Morningstar Farms and it's a working dairy farm. I think they even have a milk dispenser. If you're visiting here know that they are closed on Mondays. They've got a self-guided tour and a scavenger hunt for kids or for Mel. Oh the age group for the prizes only goes up to 14 years old. Voluntary milking system. One stall robotic milking parlor is working 24 7 365 days a year. One robot will milk up to 60 cows up to six times a day depending on the cow's individual needs. Okay this is like high tech. And they have a cow spa. Well someone just finished using the cow spa. Now it's the next one's turn. I'm sure you're tall enough. There's nothing eh? Nothing here. Oh, oh, hi. Whoa. This is turning out to be a great little stop. There's a lot more to see here than just cheese. It's awesome. There's the farm animals, the scavenger hunt for the kids of course, they have a little museum about the history of their farm. All right, I got my glass jar from inside the store. It was about $4.25 I think. I also bought a token to be able to fill up my milk jar here at the dispensary. And so this was $2.25 for the liter. But is this glass jar like not so beautiful? I love it. You might want to be on this side. I've got to press the buttons over here. All right, press start. All right, so we've made it back to the trailer and now we got to taste test this milk. Cheers honey. No cheers. Jinx. That's tasty fresh milk. That tastes a bit different than the store-bought stuff. Yeah, it almost tastes like halfway between cream and milk. Oh, that's good. But it's like got like this little bit of sweetness to it. And that's good milk. All right, now I wish I just had a But this morning we have to do the ultimate test. Milk and cookies for breakfast. So we found some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and that's what we're gonna have this morning with our milk. Thank you. Yeah, open carefully. Yep, that's decent. That much? A little more. That's good. Okay. All right, cookie cheers. The milk glass isn't quite big enough. I got the end of my cookie in. You're gonna have to do half and half. Good. Mm-hmm. Breakfast of champions, folks. Well, they're oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. So, you know, that's a pretty healthy breakfast. Yep, that's really good. Milk from Little Qualicum Cheeseworks. Thumbs up. Well, folks, our Vancouver Island trip has come to an end. And on our last night on the island, we spent it just outside of Nanaimo at a boondockers welcome. Yeah, and that's where we met Steve and Denise. And it turns out they have a YouTube channel too. So we just wanted to give a big shout out to Van Life Midlife Rocks. Definitely check them out. We've linked them below. Yeah, they were amazing hosts. We had a wonderful stay. Yeah. Thanks, guys. Thanks. You seem to know what we're showing them. No, I don't. Okay. All right. Ready? Trees, beaches, goats. No. Trees, beaches, goats, and cheese. Milk. Okay. We're at the... Is that real? Did you look that up? Yes, it's real. I didn't just make it up. Okay, and now we can have that. You could always try that. I'm sorry, honey. Right, so this is... No, no, you just open it. Oh, all right. Cookie cheers? Well, we've got to pour the milk first. Then why am I holding a cookie? Well, make sure you don't miss the next video by liking, subscribing, and turning on notifications. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you in the next one.