Now that summer is winding down, I thought I’d share this watercolour I did one morning on a friend’s birthday card. It depicts Chilliwack Lake, where we’ve gone camping a few times in the past year. We love this scene – it is such a tranquil, beautiful lake. The campsites are wooded and well-spaced. When we camped in May, campfires were not yet banned, so we enjoyed sitting around the fire. Our baby, 3 months old, enjoyed his first camp out there. The campground only has pit toilets, which weren’t too bad in shoulder season (not so pleasant in summer!). Besides going to look at Chilliwack Lake, we also love hiking up to Lindeman Lake. It is attainable for moderate/easy hikers; I did it last year when I was four months pregnant.
In July we camped in two provincial campgrounds on Vancouver Island: Miracle Beach and Rathtrevor. We liked both of them. Even though we could only get away for three nights, it was beautiful! Miracle Beach at low tide was an amazing place to take the baby swimming for the first time in the ocean. The tidal pools were warm and calm. Our kids loved looking for crabs and other sea life. And we enjoyed visiting the Cumberland Brew Pub with our friends. Next time, we’ll have to stay longer so we can visit Campbell River too!
Rathtrevor had a great playground and bike track, and a long trail for jogging. As for the beach, it was incredibly windy the day we were there. The wasps were bad, but I don’t think anyone got stung. The other odd thing that happened there was that in the night, our clothes line got cut in two places.
I’ve got lots more photos on my instagram page. But I’d love to hear how your summers went – where are your favourite places to camp?
