Maggie Outside

A spring weekend at Goldstream Provincial Park

After many weeks of backpacking, this car camping trip was a dream. Despite the chilly weather, I had a blast at Goldstream Provincial Park, just 20 minutes from Victoria!

Goldstream falls!
Fire potatoes!
I love the ferry
Bird!
Draw bridge from the kayak
Defrosting from a sub-zero night
Mossy trees + cool breeze
Sea kayaking in Victoria
mmm campfire feast

Trip Breakdown

Friday

Take the 7pm ferry from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay

Drive to Goldstream Provincial Park

Set up tents, campfire and marshmallows

Saturday

Breakfast

Walk to Goldstream Falls

Lunch

Walk to Goldstream Falls again

Drive to Victoria for 2 hours of sea kayaking in the harbour

Cook a car camping campfire feast

Sunday

Hike the Gold Mine Trail to see Niagara Falls

Pack a lunch

Take the 2pm ferry home

Trip Details

Friday evening started with taking the bus with my 65L backpack, and it ended with marshmallows. There’s not much else to say, except that I LOVE the ferry. I love going out on the deck and getting attacked by the wind. I love sitting in the comfy chairs and watching the islands pass by from the window. I love eating snacks and listening to the ship horn when passing through a peninsula with other boat traffic. Once on the island, we drove to Goldstream Provincial Park and found an empty site to set up our tents. And of course, broke in our fire pit and ate marshmallows. 

The next morning, I ate breakfast, spent some time in a hammock, and walked to Goldstream Falls. It was sunny and peaceful. After lunch, we went back to the falls before heading off to Victoria for some sea kayaking! This was so much fun. I saw two blue herons, the draw bridge raise and a large cargo ship pass through, and cool boats. 

Back at our campsites, we cooked a huge car camping campfire feast. This included tin foil fire-baked potatoes, roasting pans of onions, peppers, eggplant, mushrooms, and more potatoes, sausages, Pillsbury croissant rolls, and melted jujubes. Don’t get me wrong, I love ramen and instant mashed potatoes, but this change of pace was amazing.

On Sunday, we hiked the Gold Mine Trail to see Niagara Falls – not the famous Ontario ones, but still impressive nonetheless. After that, packed lunch sandwich in hand, I headed back across the ocean to Vancouver.