Well, in the Continental United States and Canada anyway according to Travel & Leisure Magazine’s 2014 World’s Best Awards but that’s still pretty good. It’s too bad the secret about our beautiful, quiet, temperate weather island is getting out. The nearby San Juan Islands came in 2nd in this category with the #1 ranking going to Santorini, Greece. Still, Vancouver Island made it into the Top 10 in the world at #9. It should be noted that Hawaii placed 4 islands in the world’s Top 10.
Travel & Leisure Magazine 2014 Best Islands – Continental US and Canada
Apparently, Travel & Leisure has been ranking the World’s Best destinations for close to 20 years now. As I understand it they conduct an annual poll of their readers and use those votes to come up with their rankings. It’s interesting to note that I’ve read quite a few blogs about the San Juan Islands, Prince Edward Island and also Mackinac Island in Michigan and they are all definitely beautiful spots so maybe this magazine is following our blogs to help them rate places! Ya think?
We ventured into Vancouver Island’s rainforest yesterday morning
There’s nothing like going for a hike in our nearby rainforests on a warm, sunny, fall day after a few days of heavy rainfall. That’s exactly what we did Wednesday morning when we took the short drive over to Glenora park on the Cowichan River.
The morning temperature was close to 60F but felt quite a bit warmer when in the sunshine. Unfortunately for us after we entered the forest with its high canopy of trees blocking out the sun it became quite a bit cooler. Luckily, we dressed for it with warm jackets.
Our first sight of the raging Cowichan River was really something. It’s really wild right now as the heavy rains have done wonders. The salmon are eagerly swimming upstream and we were able to see lots of them jumping out of the water as they swam against the current. I wasn’t able to get any clear enough pictures of the salmon though as they refused to jump when I wanted them to. Dumb fish!
The paths and boardwalks were covered in wet, slippery Maple Leafs so we really had to be careful while walking. A soaking wet leaf on top of a wet, slippery rock is an accident waiting to happen but we made it through our 90 minute hike without one slip and fall.
These Maple Leafs are very slippery to walk on
I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to go deep into the rainforest for hikes this year before the wet conditions make it too difficult. We’ll keep taking advantage of days like Wednesday though for as long as we can. It was perfect as we were able to get home just a little after 12 noon.
Looking down at Holt Creek from the old Railway Trestle high above
The only sour note for me Wednesday was that since the sun was shining and the grass in the back yard was about a foot long, I had no excuse to put that job off for another day. After mowing the grass I’m not even sure if that will be the last time this year. A few more days of warm weather and sun and it’ll be up around my knees again! Just in case, I went and filled up my plastic container with gas.
Thanks for visiting!
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