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