Shirley not again?

Today we tried again to eat at Shirley Delicious, in Shirley, B.C. for lunch...about a 40 minute drive, West along the coast from where we are staying at Pedder Bay RV park. We were finally meeting up with my son Josh and his girlfriend Alicia and we were very excited to be seeing them. The plan was to meet for takeout at Shirley Delicious around 11am and then head to a nearby beach to eat our lunch. Unfortunately Shirley Delicious was closed again today so we didn’t get to have our lunch on the beach....

After leaving Shirley Delicious we drove up the road further West to a place called Jordan River. The roads are very hilly and windy in Vancouver Istand and Richard is handing Jerry’s 5 speed manual tranny like a champ! I wish I had my Z4 here. It would be so much fun to drive these windy, hilly roads with a roadster!

We found parking on the side of the road just outside the Jordan River Regional Park. Jordan River Regional park is a 187 hectare mixed coastal, forest park along the Juan de Fuca Strait. The nice thing about the parks in B.C. is there is always a composting toilet before you start your hike! Much better than trying to find somewhere to go in the woods!

Alicia led the way down to the beach through the coastal hemlock and cedar forest to Sandcut beach. On this hike unlike the ones we had done earlier in the week, there were actual steps, albeit very steep ones, carved into the side of the terrain. The spots where there were no steps, were still quite steep with tree roots though and the ground was quite slippery as it had rained heavily overnight last night.

Tree roots and hilly terrain

When we got down to beach level on Sandcut Beach, the sun was shining off the Pacific Ocean and the views were stunning! Across the way we could see the fog on the Olympic Mountains in Washington State. GORGEOUS!!!

The beach was very rocky and the noise that the surf made as it receded to the Ocean over the beach pebbles was almost like it was playing an instrument. I stopped and mentioned the noise to Richard as it was unusual but intriguing to hear.

We were trekking along the cobbled stone beach to see the Sandcut Beach waterfalls.

The shoreline was really difficult to walk on and the tide was coming up so we had to be careful where we walked to make sure we didn’t get taken out with the tide! Josh and Alicia handled it like pros though! Leading us to the waterfalls with no one turning an ankle!

This mussel shell was stuck to a huge piece of driftwood on the beach. Obviously someone had dinner already!

We finally made it to the waterfalls and they were beautiful! I don’t think I’ve ever been to a beach where there has been a waterfall in the middle of the beach!

A pretty good iPhone picture from Richard, freezing the water droplets!

As I went to take this photo the gang (in the distance) were signalling to me to come back because the tide was coming in and they were worried with the undertow, that I would be swept out to sea. Luckily I didn’t ignore them as the very next wave came crashing in and I definitely would have got my boots wet!

After hiking back up through the forest we decided to find a spot for lunch we had passed in Shirley called “Stoked Wood Fired Pizzeria and Market”. We ordered two wood fired, freshly made pizzas and because It was such a beautiful +9C sunny day we were able to sit out on some boulders in the back parking lot enjoying a perfectly social distanced lunch with Josh and Alicia. It had been 21/2 years since my last in person visit with them both and unfortunately we didn’t get to meet up in Scotland this year for my brother and his fiancé’s wedding in June as we had planned. Instead the wedding was postponed and the same day as the wedding, I slipped and fell on a mat in our sunroom that evening and broke my femur. 2020 has been so unbelievably hard for everyone....

We were wonderfully surprised with 2 beautiful bottles of wine from Josh and Alicia as a welcome to Vancouver Island gift! They have both been reading our blog and challenged that the wines of the island were just as good as the Okanagan that we’ve been tasting! We’ve got the red wine decanting now as we are about to BBQ the rib eyes we bought at the Market on Millstream in Colwood. Richard is really looking forward to the white wine as well which he says has notes of “butter” in it which is his favourite type of white wine...a buttery chard!

Alicia says this is similar to a chard and is her favourite white on the island!

I can attest that this is a beautiful red wine!

For BBQing we have 2 options for this evening...our charcoal Biolite BBQ or our Napoleon scissor ”Q”. I think since we have all the time in the world and we love the taste of the charcoal Q, we will use the Biolite tonight for the rib eyes! Ron and Lenore too bad you couldn’t be here to enjoy them with us!

Notice the Big Green Egg back of charcoal which we lugged across Canada in the basement of Newman to be able to BBQ using charcoal! It will be worth it!! MMMM...my mouth is watering already!

And tomorrow we golf! Can’t wait to finally get out golfing on the Island with Norm and Jo!