Stage Three - Parksville

We could have made it up island in one day but it's June, the weather is lovely, and we don't get up island very often (i.e., never!) so why not spend a night at a resort overlooking one of the best beaches in the country?

We are very familiar with Rathtrevor Beach, which is just outside of the town of Parksville.  My family used to stay at Beach Acres, a family-happy series of cottages dotted around a wonderful old  house that sometimes was a restaurant, sometimes was a bed and breakfast and sometimes it was just a nice old house, built in 1921.  Designed by Samuel Maclure in a Scottish hunting lodge style, it was owned originally by Evelyn and Matthew Beatty.  At one point, a guest of the house was nobel prize winning writer Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book and the Just So Stories.  When this place was a bed and breakfast in the 1990s, one of the bedrooms was named after him.

Another resort overlooking Rathtrevor Beach is Tigh-Na-Mara, which is comprised of proper log cabins with wood fires and cosy bedrooms, condo units with jet baths and balconies, and newer suites near one of the country's best spas.  We booked one of the condo units, deluxe suite 129d, which had a wonderful view.

We were situated just one unit away from the path that wound down to the beach.  As soon as we checked in we dumped our things, grabbed a blanket and some magaizines and found a sunny spot on the beach to laze away the afternoon. We ate fruit and watched the tide make its way across the swathes of sand, and stood up to leave just before the lapping waves washed over bare toes.

Our years of travelling on the cheap have made us that much more appreciative of staying in a hotel or resort of this type, and we try to make use of all amenties for the time we are registered.  Although we didn't go to the spa as that  required a little more cash and time than we had, we did go for a work out in the little fitness room, then had a swim in the pool, and finished off with a soak in the hot tub.

Showered and dressed, we went back down to the beach and followed the high tide line to Beach Acres, a few hundred metres along the way.  The Samuel Maclure house is now a pub, The Black Goose, and we drank loccal Merrydale cider and ate a couple of ploughmans plates, sitting in the garden and looking out to the sea as the light softened and the air deepened. 

There's a wonderful window of time between the dusk after sunset and the pitch black of night, and we used it to get back to our room by following the foamy tide line without injury, especially as there was not a lot of moonlight tonight. The dark was just beginning to settle itself like a thick blanket over all when we found the path back up the hill and on our way to bed.