After many years of working endlessly, this Good Friday, I finally got the day off! Hence, I decided to pack my bags and to travel with the family. Coincidentally, Earth Day was also around the corner. Why not visit a nature-inspired place? Therefore, I decided to go to Sooke on the Vancouver Islands!

Where is Sooke?

For those unfamiliar with the geography of British Columbia, Vancouver and Vancouver Island are two completely different locations. We need to travel by the B.C. Ferries between these locations. The travel time takes a couple hours. Interestingly, my AirBNB host mentioned that some out of town guests often thought that Whistler was very close to Sooke! Uh oh!

What to Do at Sooke?

To be honest, I originally was planning to just put my legs up and rest the whole weekend. But then, I received some travel tips from my AirBNB host. As Sooke was located by the coast of the Pacific Ocean, the beaches were covered in smooth pebbles and tons of seaweed. This seaweed and kelp were harvested by local entrepreneurs for human consumption and then, added to beauty products!

Another great place that actually helped to inspire young minds was the sea salt farm. We were given a wonderfully educational tour by the owner. First, he showed us the truck he drove to pump the sea water with and brought back to the sea salt farm. Then, he explained how he hoped to reduce his carbon footprint by switching to electricity in the near future. One very amazing byproduct of the reverse osmosis of the seawater was the pure water left after they remove the sea salt. A local Health Authority suggested that the salt farm could bottle up the the aster and sell it. So, they did!

The next place that I visited was a honey farm. Personally, I visited honey farms in the past and just went to buy some local honey. That was it! Surprisingly, I learned something new this time! I learned that many centuries ago, humans discovered that when empty bee hives had water in them, this water and leftover honey fermented. This fermentation made an alcoholic drink called mead. I was visiting a very famous meadery!

This Easter long weekend we also participated in the local Easter egg hunt. However, all the chocolate the children collected could not compare to the wealth of knowledge and nature interactions of our beautiful landscape.