July 25 - 31, 2015 – Nanaimo, BC (cont)




Saturday we had a wonderful evening with friends Heiko, Barb and Doris.   Doris owned a park model across the street from us in the RV resort in Arizona and Heiko and Barb rented it a couple of times.  She lives in Kelowna, BC and was visiting Heiko and Barb for a few days.  We have not seen Heiko and Barb for a couple of years so we enjoyed catching up on their lives.  Doris sold her park model in January and went back to Kelowna so it was wonderful seeing her again.  She took this great picture of Barb, Rex, Nancy and Heiko enjoying steaks and wine.  We had a delightful evening and thank Heiko and Barb for their hospitality. 




It started raining Saturday night and continued into Sunday morning which cooled the temperature down a lot.






Monday morning we visited Morningstar Farms a dairy farm that is home to Mooberry Wine and Little Qualicum Cheeseworks that is west of Parksville.   We were able to walk around the dairy farm and when we were walking past the maternity pen we saw this cute little calf.  He was only a few hours old as he still had the umbilical cord attached and mom still had after birth hanging from her.  The calf was a little wobbly on his legs but still tried to jump and run – we had a great time watching him for a while.  There were a couple of other cows in the pen that looked like they were ready to give birth any time.
 





After we walked around the farm we went inside the store where we tasted some great Qualicum cheese and delicious Mooberry fruit wine.  Needless to say we left the farm with several packages of cheese and some blackberry and blueberry wine.







After our fun and tasty visit to Morningstar Farms we stopped in Qualicum Beach for lunch at the Shady Rest Waterfront Pub.  We were intrigued with the fruit covered vines over the entryway and discovered that they were kiwi - we had never seen Kiwi growing before.  We enjoyed a great lunch along with a wonderful view from out table.
 














 

After lunch we drove north to Deep Bay where we could see a lighthouse on a small island in the bay.  We turned around here and drove back to Nanaimo – another wonderful day!
 











Wednesday was our 26th wedding anniversary and we planned to celebrate with David and Colleen by having lunch at the Dingy Dock Pub on Protection Island.  But, while we were waiting for the ferry to take us to Protection Island we were told that the Dingy Dock Pub was closed because of problems in the kitchen and it would be at least a couple of hours before it would be open again.  As the Dingy Dock Pub is the only place to eat on the island and we were hungry we decided not to go to the island.  Instead, we had a great fish and chips lunch at Trollers Fish and Chips – a floating restaurant on the Nanaimo waterfront.


Thursday we had David and Colleen over for a cookout and a walk along Westwood Lake.  We said goodbye to them and we thank them for showing us around the Nanaimo area and for their wonderful hospitality.  We picked more blackberries and made more blackberry crisp.



Friday is the last day of August and our last day in Nanaimo – we spent the day getting laundry done and packing up to leave tomorrow morning.  Rex picked more blackberries to take with us.  Tomorrow we are heading to Port Hardy on the north end of Vancouver Island.   We really enjoyed our month here in Nanaimo, seeing the area and visiting with friends.
 










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