On yesterday’s drive to Strathcona Park, we saw signs for Elk Falls not far out of town from Campbell River.  With some quick internet research, we concluded this was worth a stop and did just that on our way out of town today.   The trail for Elk Falls was a short loop and took us by another waterfall as well on the same river.

While the drive to Nanaimo (where the nai rhymes with rye) is not that long, we break it up with a distraction to the Horne Lakes Caves Provincial Park (and I assume that, like in Sooke, the “e” is silent).  There are three caves in the park, although the most interesting one is only open to guided tours (mainly so that the guides can ensure that none of the cave formations are damaged or vandalized by visitors).  We have some time before our guided tour so we take a quick peak in the cave with the waterfall and plan on returning after our guided tour. 

The tour is interesting and unlike many caves, this one has no manmade conveniences like ramps, railings, or lighting.  All light is from headlamps atop of our helmets.  As a whole, there are some neat cave formations, but nothing that I thought were really spectacular.  Other caves require far less scrambling and yield far neater formations.  Still, it’s an enjoyable trek and the guide is informative (and L got to introduce herself by her school nickname of Trouble).   After our guided tour, we enter the other cave on our own and end up trailing a guided tour of that one.  We turn around at the waterfall (which is really just a trickle) and return to the car to make it to Nanaimo. 

We arrive at the B&B in Nanaimo without any trouble and clean up before heading out to to an average quality dinner at Acme in downtown.

View all the trip photos here:

http://sanjoseabrams.com/photos/VancouverIslandAug2011/