Salty granola

(Leah) We had a recommendation from Steve to travel over to Salt Spring Island, and we had only planned our trip up to Protection Island…so what the heck, we popped over. The ferry was a quick one on a small open air vessel, much like the ones in the inland. I’d called a campground that said they would have spaces available after 2pm. We had a bit of time to kill so we stopped at a local coffee shop for re-fuelling first and then to the campground that was very close to town. We managed to wrangle one of the nicer “drive-in” campsites typically reserved for larger RV’s. The sites were fenced on three sides, giving lots of privacy and had some nice greenery around them. My biggest complaint about this campground was the washroom facilities. The outhouse style toilets were basically a couple of toilet seats set up on top of a septic tank. There was nothing to counteract the smell. Oi! It was RANK. There, that’s my princess moment for the trip. I was grateful that our site was well out of the smell-zone. I checked my odometer as we were unloading and setting up the trailer, we had travelled a mere 55km for the whole day. LOL, a light riding day to say the least! Naturally, we had to check out the rest of the sites (read: breweries) on the island so we set out to explore. First stop was Salt Spring Brewing. The parking lot was loose gravel and set up on an angle, so Keith was very happy to not have the trailer in tow. As is, I had to jump off and help Keith to back up, I was having troubles so a gentleman from the parking lot jumped in to help out. Safely parked, we headed upstairs to sample their wares.

We noticed a few signs of interest on our way to the brewery, one of which read Salt Island Shine. One guess where our next stop was! The small distillery makes, vodka, gin, and an apple pie flavoured moonshine. The barrel aged items are in the works, but need more time. Mental note for our next visit to the island. We left with a couple of small bottles, then stopped at a Cidery just down the road. Ciderworks sources 90% of the apples for their cider from the location they are at and 100% from Salt Spring Island. We had a little pizza, Keith had a large flight of ciders and I had a small one. All were excellent! They had a beautiful patio overlooking the ocean.

By the time we were back to camp our total mileage for the day was only 81km. A light riding day to say the least. I decided to hop on the passenger seat of Keith’s bike for our ride into town for dinner. We happened to park by a place right on the ocean called the Oyster Catcher. Theme of the trip: restaurants with oyster in the name = all the yummy food! They had a special feature of locally caught Dungenous crab, we simply couldn’t resist. The meal was amazing! Oh, I almost forgot to mention that it is a seafood and cocktail bar. I had wine with my meal and an Old Fashioned after, it was a little slice of heaven. I typically use the crab claws to dig out the crab meat (a trick taught to my by my Uncle Ken) and I maaaay have been a tiny bit focused on my task. Keith ate his crab as he broke it up, but I stockpiled mine into a pile and then gorged. It was a pricy meal, but so worth it! Highly recommend this spot to anyone passing through.

Overall, Salt Spring Island had a chill / hippy / granola vibe to it. It was a really enjoyable stop and we’d like to return to explore it more one day.