Hitting the Pavement: Nanaimo, Vancouver Island

Hello from San Francisco! We're many weeks behind I know, but we're working on it. I'll just continue from where we left off

We packed up our things in Wya Point and headed on up the winding road back to the east side of the island. It was about a three hour drive to Nanaimo. We spent a fair bit of time at the visitor’s center sorting out accommodation, activities and directions. There was a lot we wanted to do here!

We booked into a campsite the Nicol St. Hostel close to downtown and we were delighted to find how homey it was with an amazing view of the Georgia Straight.

After setting up camp, we promptly headed to the grocery store to get supplies for a stir fry and pork chops. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a full kitchen to use!

After dinner we walked around town and found ourselves at Pirate Chips for dessert. They make a mean deep fried Nanaimo bar and we just had to try it. Afterwards we went for a stroll along the lovely harbour font walkway.

Dessert at Pirate Chips

Deep fried Nanaimo bar with ice cream

We took advantage of the wifi and complimentary desktop to catch up on our neglected blog. Hopefully we'll be able to stay on top of it now that we wont be in such remote areas all the time. While we worked, the hostel filled up with other travelers whom we exchanged stories with.

The next morning we got up early and were excited to do another tasting day. The first stop was the Thirsty Camel for Middle Eastern food where we shared the Persian Chicken Plate with rice and eggplant. All though neither of us were crazy about the eggplant, I have to say that the chicken and rice here was my favorite thing we ate today.

Sitting outside the Thirsty Camel

Next was Gabriel's cafe on Commercial St. where we shared a pulled pork sandwich to go which we ate at the lighthouse.

We then took a break to explore the Nanaimo Museum to cool off in some AC and learn about the local history. There was a small exhibit on the history of Nanaimo bars. The attached cafe, Serious Coffee was selling traditional style Nanaimo bars so we stopped in to order one there afterwards.

Museum exhibit about Nanaimo's famous annual bathtub race

A Nanaimo Bar exhibit

We popped into 2 Chef's Affair on Commercial St again and ordered 'The Cheating Heart' which consisted of roasted red pepper soup and Bill's favourite of the day; House-braised beef with Monterey Jack cheese grilled on fresh sourdough bread.

At Two Chefs Affair

Public chalkboard

Full of tasty food we walked it off on our way to Wolf Brewing Co., a half hour walk up the street from our hostel. There Bill tried a flight and we chatted up the staff.

Sample flight

I really love the artwork on the Wolf Brewing Co bottles

Lots of walking and eating in the sun had us tired out so we went back to the hostel to relax for a few hours, I took a short nap. In the evening we were ready to hit the town again and walked back down to the waterfront to catch a ferry over to the Dingy Dock Pub, a floating pub just off an island.

View of Nanaimo from the floating pub.

Funny story, we actually got to the ferry too late in the evening. The driver informed us that we would be getting there just in time for last call. Seeing that we were dissapointed, he offered to let us come along for the ride for free while he picked up passengers. En route to the pub one of the three other passengers decided to strip down and jump overboard. All of us were so busy looking out a tthe islands that we didn't notice until we heard a big splash.

The ferry driver was super unimpressed as he had to turn around to fish the guy back out and then stop him from trying to jump over again or throw his shopping bag of clothes overboard. The rest of us were dropped off at the pub and waited while the guy was escorted back across to town with the ferry driver and the pubs bouncer.

Because of this strange turn of events we actually had time to look around the pub. The staff, amazed by our story, let us buy drinks even though we had just missed last call. Our return journey back was far less eventful by comparison.

The floating pub

The next morning we decided we weren't done with Nanaimo and carried on sampling small dishes at multiple restaurants. We started with sushi at the Firehouse Grill, a stylish restaurant in an old fire department building.

Sushi at the Firehouse grill

Another Nanaimo bar at Mon Petit Choux

We stopped in for another Nanaimo bar and a ham and cheese croissant at a French bakery called Mon Petit Choux

Nanaimo waterfront skyline

Back down at the waterfront, we walked out onto one of the public piers and caught a few sighting of a seal. Apparently this friendly local seal is called Lucy, and is often spotted along the waterfront.

Lucy the neighbourhood seal

There were plenty of families on the public pier crab fishing. In order to keep the crabs, they have to be male and of a certain size or else you have to throw them back. We watched one grandfather teach his grandson how to catch and measure the crabs