RV Camping Victoria & Goldstream Park, BC in our Roadtrek Zion Campervan!

Hi everyone! It's Saturday, June 22nd and we're just heading off to Vancouver Island for a few days. We're going to be driveway surfing at one of our friend's houses in Victoria for the first night and then we're going to head over to the Goldstream Provincial Park the second night. So hope you enjoy the trip with us! That's what happens sometimes when you forget to secure the cupboard. We're not expected at our friend's till this evening so we're just going to drive around a little bit. It was really cloudy over on the Vancouver side but it always seems to be a lot sunnier over here on the Victoria side. So here we are, downtown Victoria near the harbour. Stuck in traffic because it's a weekend and it's busy. Yeah, Victoria has some great restaurants and shops. Well good morning! We're in Victoria. I'm just down at the beach near our friend's home. It's about 7 o'clock in the morning. Beautiful spot, a bit cloudy. We'll head out today and go to Goldstream Park where we're looking forward to camping. I grew up in that area so it's kind of interesting to go back. I've never actually, though I've spent time in the park, I've never camped there. So it'll be fun to just stay over. I'm not too sure whether the weather is going to hold. It could rain or possibly just be cloudy. But it's just nice to be out. Beautiful spot here. Happy camper beer again. Yeah, we did a nice little, it was kind of a light hike. Maybe 10k down to the falls, a little, what was it, Goldstream Falls. And then we scooted around and ended up through some beautiful forest up onto an old railway trestle. So much steeper trail than we expected and now we're on an old railway line. Big trestle that way, Mount Finlayson over there. Probably won't get to do both today. It's a little late. It's interesting, when you don't know the area and you start exploring, you inadvertently sometimes take the wrong routes up. And we actually ended up taking a really steep route. I got a little panicky because of my fall a few weeks ago. So I was really worried about coming back down the trail. It wasn't a regular park trail. People had made a steeper route up. It was really steep. It all worked out well. Yeah, we found another route down and there's a bunch of people at the trestle. So it was neat to get up there and see all of these new things. And then down came past an old gold mine which I went into. I don't know how far it goes. I went in probably 10 metres or so. I couldn't see the back. We didn't have a headlamp with us because we were just out walking during the day. It's about as far as we're going to go. I don't know if if I had a headlamp I would have gone any farther in. Yeah, it was nice and it's kind of cool though. It's what, 10 to 6 or something. I bet you the temperature is only... It's nice and sunny now but it's probably maybe 16, 17 degrees here in the forest. So a little cool. It's gorgeous. It's a really nice park. Just having a little snack. And then we're probably going to test out the showers here at Gold Stream Park. And then we'll make dinner. And then that'll be it for the night. Someone's not happy this morning. Good morning everyone. So we just finished our breakfast and we're enjoying our morning coffee and tea. And you can hear our friend the crow. There's two crows. One has food, the other doesn't. And they're somewhat fighting over it. Yeah, so they're making a bit of a racket. It's a little loud. So we really enjoyed our stay here at Gold Stream. I think our spot is just probably one of the best ones. Because when I was booking it a few weeks ago, they said the privacy was excellent and they didn't lie. That's pretty much it. No one across from us. No one on one side. A creek behind us and the other side quite a distance to the next RV. So yeah, really nice. Spot 60. It was nice. Yeah, we have the washroom and the garbage. Not too far away. Not too far but it's far enough away that we don't see them. What's nice about this spot too is there's a creek you can walk down to the falls that we were at yesterday within probably five minutes. And then you've got access to trailheads to probably 10, 15, 20 kilometers of trails depending on where you want to go. I think it's 16 they said. Is it? Altogether, totally. So that's nice and it's all within a few minutes walk of the campsite itself. It's a funny campsite when you drive in because you go through kind of a quasi-residential and light industrial area. And I know I was kind of wondering where the heck were we going to end up. But the campsite's very nice. Big old trees, a couple creeks, and of course it's part of Goldstream Park. So we're kind of at the south end of Goldstream Park and all the park is to the north. So the hiking trails tend to go to the north and Mount Finleyson's a little bit to the north. So it's just gorgeous. One other advantage is I think there is a pub within walking distance of the campground. Yes, there's a pub called Maughan Millers. And I think it would probably take us about 15 minutes, 10 minutes to walk there from there. So if we weren't interested in making dinner last night or if we felt like burger and fries or whatever delicacies Maughan Miller may serve, yeah, it's maybe, what, five minutes from the gatehouse and just across the street. And yet nothing to hear because we've got a creek and a bunch of trees in between there. So yeah, it's kind of nice. Overall, it's a great campground and it's very convenient to Victoria as well. It's probably only like a 30-minute drive from downtown. Yeah, 30 minutes if the traffic's good. I think if you were to go in the morning at 8.30 or something on a weekday, it would be busy. But yeah, nice and close to Victoria. And it's a good stopping off point if you're going farther north on the island as well. So today we're going to probably do a hike up Mount Finleyson if we have enough time. You would have seen that in our video yesterday. We took a picture of the mountain. Neither of the trips that we're doing are hikes or long ones. Yesterday, Mount Doug was about 1.8 kilometers up one of the trails. There are several trails you can take to get up to the top. Mount Finleyson, my guess is, is probably 30 to 40 minutes at a decent pace to get up to the summit. So it's not a particularly high mountain. But it should have some nice views. So it should be a good day. And we don't have reservations for a ferry back, so we're going to wing it. We'll either go back via Victoria Way at Schwartz Bay or we'll go back via Nanaimo at Departure Bay. So we'll see what happens. Hopefully the crow will stop making a bunch of noise. And hope you enjoy the day with us. Okay, precious. We have to go. Let's go. Let's get you in your carrier. No, we know you don't want to go in there. But you have to. Come on. Nikki's elected to stay back in the van. Just explore a bit of the park down by the creek. And I'm going to head up Mount Finleyson. Should be a short jaunt up until a nice little mountainous peak. So it's not a long trip. I think it's probably only about 2 kilometers at the most up to the summit from the parking lot. You can kind of see it's steep. And it gets a little steeper. So just a good short workout. Nice trail. Reasonably steep. My heart rate's at about 85% of my max. Which is about where I'd most like to take it. You can see some development over there which is called Bear Mountain. When I was last here, which was probably about 30 years ago. Nothing but trees. That's another way out that winds its way through the forest. But you have to go back several kilometers on a paved road. So I'm going to go out the way I came in. Alright, I'm just past the summit. And if you can see over there, I'll try to zoom in with my camera phone. But that's the trestle we were on yesterday. So we were camped kind of over there. You can see some housing and the campsite's more in that valley over there. The summit's just behind me. I didn't stop there simply because there's probably 5 or 6 people having lunch there. OK, so that's where we were yesterday. Directly ahead, that's Mount Doug. We did the hike with our friend Gordon yesterday. And just gorgeous. Mount Tomi you can barely see. The city of Victoria's there. There's the golf course and all the housing development around it. And of course you can see the ocean. And directly across the ocean is Washington State. And that's the Olympic Mountains somewhat shrouded in cloud right now. Just gorgeous. So it took me about 42 minutes to get up here at a modest pace. I stopped, took a few photos. Just beautiful. Nice little lake down there. Vancouver you won't be able to see, but it's back that way. A bit of the Gulf Islands, and then the majority of the islands you see there are actually the San Juan Islands. Gorgeous views up here. Maybe you can see the mountain peaks over there. Again, the Olympic Mountains nicely covered in snow. Beautiful. Time to head back. Mickey's probably getting worried. Alright, on my way down. It's a popular fitness hike. There's half a dozen people up there. Mostly tourists I think, but some other people too just I think came up for a quick workout like me. You can see I got a little sweaty. It's not that warm today. Just gorgeous though. Come here. You're a pretty gal. We're just waiting for Gordon to come back from his hike to Mount Finleyson. Aren't we? We're just patiently waiting. You had a good hike? Yeah, it was nice. Was it really busy? Not too busy, but it was getting busy as I was coming down. A lot of people coming down. Going up as I was coming down. You can see the parking lot's full now. Yeah, there's lots of people on the way up. Yeah. Gordon's new shirt. Yay. Yay, not all who wander are lost. Life is good. And Gordon wanders around a lot, so very appropriate. And I'm rarely lost. Yeah. So he says now. Thanks so much for joining us on our trip to Vancouver Island. If you enjoyed this video, please be sure to give us a thumbs up. And please subscribe if you haven't done so already. So we'll see you next time. Until next time.