Hornby Island makes a great 1 day get away

 By Keith and Heather Nicol

We just returned from a great day trip to one of our favourite islands -Hornby Island - with some of our xc ski buddies - Steve and Marg. They hadn't spent much time on Hornby so we decided to show them  some of the places we like to visit. On Thursday, June 22 we caught the 900 am ferry from Buckley Bay which put us on Denman Island 10 minutes later. We then headed directly across the Island to catch the Hornby Island ferry which left at 9:40. Ten minutes later we were on Hornby Island heading toward one of our favourite hikes on Vancouver Island- the Helliwell Park trail.

                     Along the Middle Bench Trail on Hornby Island with Denman Is in the background

We usually go to Hornby to sea kayak but Steve and Marj don't paddle so we stuck to dry land and started with the very scenic 4 km hike at Helliwell Park to start. This is a must do trail since it is right along the ocean for the most part on a dramatic cliff face that gradually gets lower as you head east. It took us about 80 minutes to do the hike, with frequent stops for pictures, and by now we were thinking about a spot for lunch.

                                Heather walking along the scenic Helliwell Park trail overlooking the ocean

We had  packed sandwiches so decided to be by the water at Tribune Bay Beach which has one of the nicest beaches on the east side of Vancouver Island. A few people were wading in the water and so we decided to check it out and managed to get up to our knees in the chilly water.  From Tribune Bay we  then headed to Sandpiper Beach to see a different type of shoreline with its tipping layers of shale and sandstone. After that we decided to go to the end of the road to show Steve and Marj Ford's Cove and then it was back to do a short hike along the Middle Bench trail which has the most amazing views of Denman Island and the Beaufort Mountains of Vancouver  Island behind.  We caught the 400 pm ferry off of Hornby which put us back in Courtenay by 5:15 or so. Even though we had been gone only 6 or so hours it seemed much longer since we had seen so many different landscapes. And Hornby also has great mountain biking and sea kayaking so you can easily spend several day here. But for us a 1 day get away was just the ticket. Check it out before the summer tourism season begins in earnest. 

                                                          Checking out the cool water of Tribune Bay