Mystic Beach Camping

Last weekend, Adrienne and I packed up her little car with sleeping bags, backpacks, enough food to feed a small army, and her big black dog, Dig.

We drove west of Victoria for a couple hours... past Sooke and Jordan River... Dig stood with his nose pressed up to the crack in the window the entire way, snorting and snuffling in the new smells.

At China Beach, a popular campground, we parked the car and unloaded half our gear. Mystic Beach is 2.5km down a rooty / muddy / up-sie downsie trail. But Adrienne insisted it was well worth it. We had to make two trips for the gear... in total, a good two hours of hiking.

Was it worth it, you ask?

Yes. Most definitely.

We set up our tent in a small clearing just off the beach. The day-visitors were clearing out by the time we settled at our campfire with the essentals: wine (a bottle all to myself!! WINO ALERT), bananna-marshmallow s'mores, and of course some good gossip magazines :)

We watched the sunset and lamented about how hard it is to find dry wood on the west coast.... when I noticed a rugged looking guy trudging up the beach. I nudged Adrienne: "Who's that guy?"

Turns out it was Adrienne's friend, and were we ever glad to see him. He set down his big backpack and started pulling out logs of wood! There is such a thing as a firewood fairy!!

Nothin' beats a good roaring fire!

It was so cool to fall asleep to the crashing waves, which were not more than forty feet from our tent door!

In the morning we fried up some bacon!

A curious seal watched us... maybe he wanted a taste?

Dig the dog loves the water. LOVES IT. He also loves fetching and will bring the ball/stick back to you every single time.

We threw him the stick just as a large of a wave was coming into shore....

And boy did he run like crazy to get away from it!