in today's video we continue our Vancouver Island road trip in
partnership with trover this time doing a little exploring along the Comox area
this was another exciting day that featured our closest bear encounter to
date a chance visit to a winery owned by a famous Hollywood film director and
some fun at a beach with a name that will make you chuckle all that and more
in today's episode well good morning good morning guys
morning guys from goose spit Park yeah if you're in Comox Vancouver
Island I know that's the best name ever oh man we were so amused by in here yeah
yeah it's another day when we woke up this morning it was so foggy yeah like
the fog started rolling in the clouds and we could not see the mountains from
our balcony it was just like a complete whiteout and then then it lifted for a
bit but it started raining again and again the carts are coming down it
started pouring rain so we thought like oh man what are we gonna do today but we
got down here and it's cleared yeah so the plan so the plan today is we're
gonna walk along here it's a beautiful beach by the ocean then I think we're
gonna do a little bit of hiking and there's also a vineyard and a winery to
visit so we're thinking of having a picnic we've already grabbed some
sandwiches and the coolest thing that we've seen so far today as we were
driving down from Mount Washington we had
an intimate encounter with the bear on the side of the road yeah he was just
grazing on berries and oh my gosh we got so close to it rolled down the window
and the bear was just in its own little world then yeah I just going about his
day he didn't mind that we were lying over him yeah and obviously obviously
for for safety's sake you when you're that close to bear you never never jump
out of the car stay in the car yeah so the telephoto lens came in very handy
for that and anyways yeah we're just at this beautiful beach here and there's a
lot of families out with their dogs there's a lot of people walking around
let's see yeah we're just gonna have a nice relaxing time here to start off our
day so how did we end up at this beach you asked well as usual we started the
morning scrolling through the trover app using the near me feature to find things
to do that's when we noticed a photo of this beach was named that just begged a
visit we can't say we saw any spitting geese on the beach but it was a nice
place for a morning stroll plus we met some friendly pups
so you got to see a bear on the ski lift but this is the first time to be really
close to it on the side of the road what did you think that was a beautiful
encounter yeah it was an encounter of the first kind that's amazing
look at that I'll put my window down
oh wow I'm getting so close up now I have to ultrazoom Roger this is amazing
wow it's getting away from the berries now yeah look at them go
pretty good there's worth coming back
I've got to see the black bear it's the second one that we see in this trip one
yes a cub and this one was a grown up adult and it was nice because the way it
happened is that that we were coming down the hill I saw it through the side
of the window I saw this big black ball fur and I said that's a bear but we
couldn't swing around so we had to go to the next place where we could make a
u-turn and we came back an amazing he was still there huh he was eating
berries huh his own little world in the only world he ignored us royally and
then he looked at us and we got to film him really nice and it was just amazing
you know like I mean wildlife at his best that I thought that made my day I
mean the rest of the day is a bonus yeah now we're looking for the elusive elk
we're hoping that we're going to be able to see one once we do then on the trip
we've seen everything we've seen the bear within six deer and now we saw
another tool and the only one left it would be like the elk we still have a
few days left on we're confident right we're confident yeah we're gonna see it
so yeah we're gonna enjoy the the beach with the gooses name you know name yeah
we're gonna have some lunch here and then we will keep going on now we'll
bring you along okay so let's go check it out let's go yeah
now time for a little bird-watching we're seeing lots of Canadian geese and
we'll see what else it's the boost loose the goose is loose
there's a lot of loose oh my gosh guys
this little pond area actually you know where the official observation deck is
but safer there you know what we're seeing the same birds just from a
different vantage point exactly exactly nice little pit stop and I think we're
gonna go get some wine with our food come be known
guys how lucky are we there's it's a seal the seal is like
swimming and splashing around and we've got to paddle boarders as well how lucky
right place right time it's a loose seal
any other fans of Arrested Development I think that's my favorite joke from the
whole show when looking for things to do in the
Comox area we were surprised to find that there were several local wineries
to visit we chose one at random and ended up at Beaufort vineyard and Estate
Winery which is owned by the Cameron family as in James Cameron the film
director with movies like Titanic avatar and Terminator 2 his name we decided to
do a wine tasting while we were here and paid $5.00 to sample five wines which is
an excellent deal if you ask me so we're taken grape but it grows really
well on Vancouver island we grow a lot of Ortega we make a lot of this
what are we doing guys today we are doing a wine tasting at
Beaufort here in the Comox Valley and we are starting off with a German grape
it's called Ortega it was named after a Spanish philosopher and yeah it has a
lovely fruity aroma I would say pine apples and pears to describe it
my dad hates wine being described I'm gonna cover my ears I I don't hear that
yeah I I don't go for the berry the strawberry the Apple they leather the
wood nice is like a good wine I know it
tastes for the wine what do you what did you think of the first one I thought I'd
you know it's a it's a good table wine that would be good for like whitefish or
something light like that you know and we we're gonna be having I believe five
five tasting only $5 per person great great beautiful setting and we're gonna
probably buy a bottle of wine to take back home so let's go in for round two
and the word borealis means true north so on Vancouver Island we are the most
northern commercial vineyard so the grapes we grow here are ones that do
well with a shorter growing season we get a lot of rain here so they have to
be horrible to a lot of rain and we don't get the big hot heat that
Argentina gets or Okanagan gets or California gets okay round two next wine
another white one this one is called borealis and it's actually a blend of
three different grapes and has been genetically modified to be able
to deal with the rain and the weather here on the island yes pacifically
design so very unique wine sweet I like it yeah the sweeter than the other one
and very very very soft to the palate so how we made this rosy is the main grape
is show number which is a white grape and then we've added 7% marichal foix
grapes which is a dark red grape so the white and the red next makes a lovely
pretty rosy color number three we are moving on to a rosy looking back color
they were telling us you can leave this on the counter for three to four hours
but then your bubbles will start to disappear so enjoy it quickly or with
friends this is similar to like what would be a blush or what's called the
Zinfandel Zinfandel is kind of a very very late you know white grapes you can
grow but red grapes have a thicker skin so when Susan and Jeff vandermolen
decided they were gonna plant this vineyard and she asked all her friends
what she should grow here and they said just stick with whites don't go anywhere
but she did a lot of research and found three Reds that had thinner skins
shorter growing season and were taught with a lot of rain first for years she
we bought grapes made wine fourth year we had enough if we put all our grapes
together we could make one batch of wine so she made this batch blend of Marichal
Foix Cabernet foix and Leon Merlot these grapes have a thinner skin after a
fourth year when she made to the first batch she thought was the best wine she
ever made entered into all Canadian Wine Festival in Toronto and won a double
gold medal like the Best in Show so she named it sabotage and I don't look at
the spelling of the word sabotage against all your friends
don't do it alright so we have moved on to the fourth one the red this is our
first red they've named this one sabotage beautiful colors like a ruby
red so different tastes something
it's your favorite one so far this is my favorite yes it reminds me that I'm
drinking a South African smoky wine oh I love those the next one I have for you
is not our bag the first part we're all grapes either from our vineyard or from
both sides of Courtenay area these grapes we brought from the Okanagan so the
Okanagan a very hot part of BC it gets 30 days of 30 degree heat these are
grapes that we can't grow here so it's a 50/50 bank Cabernet Franc from a town
called Oliver and the merlot from near Matt a pension content alright last but
not least these are grapes from Okanagan this is a mix of odd cover nephrite and
I'm never alone he should be up my alley let's say favorite one what at the end
I'll stay with this saving the best for last is always a good strategy I'd say
this was a really fun activity so of course we had to add this place to
trover and geo tagged it to help you guys find it so if you ever find
yourself in the Comox area now you know where to try five wines for five bucks
at the end of it all George bought some wine for us had Frank we're gonna be
enjoying this one tonight I imagine oh yeah that was a really fun wine-tasting
super affordable as well five dollars per person and if you buy a bottle of
wine they take off the five bucks that's amazing
beautiful setting and I think not a lot of people know that there is wine
tourism on Vancouver Island so guys if you're in the Comox area you can
definitely visit one of these places so keep that in mind if you're visiting the
central part of Vancouver Island in the Comox area definitely recommended from
there we decided to hike a wooded trail that was just down the street from the
vineyard
the attention all the attention on me
Seal Bay Nature Park when you did to do a little bit of wobbling after all that
night all that wine in the food actually wasn't that much wine but it's just
enough that uh five little glasses a little tasting a smidge Cesar yeah so
now we've hit up one of the trails here in the park when the middle of the woods
basically it's beautiful it's beautiful brain is holding off which is a great
I know we've really looked on the weather I thought we're gonna get quite
a bit more rain today yeah so cool seeing the moss there's a
lot of bearded moss growing yeah trees we've got ferns various various kinds of
trees we've seen perch we've seen what else cedar Douglas fir Douglas fir I'm
learning to identify trees this has been a good trip for learning types of trees
that grow here indeed and yeah I'm fine so we're just kind of enjoying a bit
more of a chill day today we've had a go go go schedule since we've come to the
island and today we're just enjoying things in and around kind of the Comox
Valley area which is where we're staying so this has been great
we have a couple of fir trees here that are pretty well the same age as all the
other ones around this and these two right here this one in that one had a
better start and they haven't slowed down the fact
that they still have the branching on the on the outside shows that maybe they
were a little bit more open grown than what they normally are used to growing
in a stand most of those branches would be off
there now but the fact is this one here is probably maybe 10 15 metres above the
rest of the because they haven't slowed down they have any missed a beat the
Rings would be quite a bit wider than all the other ones and these two trees
will be some people call them super trees because they they've had the best
of conditions okay there's no lack of water no lack of light bulb or a head we
got rained out while we were on the trail so we've retreated back to the
apartment for an early dinner and also started packing for the following days
adventure which would take us further north on the island alright guys so we
are we are back at home we're having a familiar meal we love the
salmon and the corn so much we're literally just replicating it again same
meal we know it's gonna be fantastic and we picked up a wine what do we go
Cabernet Franc we got the a cover new Frank that George went and bought from
this vineyard I like that it's a 2016 from the beautiful island
Vancouver Island salut salut yeah we stole the James Cameron's place yeah I
mean it's no joke it's the venire from director of Titanic
an avatar okay I am okay that's easy they make some really
nice wine lots of different varietals of grapes and so we got a beautiful meal
we're ready to eat this is our last day here in Mount Washington but tomorrow we
go to Port Alice so we'll hope you'll join us for that and with that we say salut ciao bye