Healthy activities, interesting detours and bright memories are part and parcel of the Parksville and Qualicum Beach, Vancouver Island experience. The region is home to a delightful array of unique attractions. Laugh uproariously with friends and family on tricky mini-golf courses. Refine your green thumb and get inspired at a renowned garden estate. Snap photos of roof-top goats before browsing a unique cluster of country shops.
Take a tour of Little Qualicum Cheeseworks and sample their award-winning creations. Stare in wonder at hundreds of rainbow-hued parrots, beautiful freeflying butterflies and over 800 exotic live orchids. Visit an ER unit dedicated to wounded wild animals. Sroke an alpaca. Filling the days here is not only an education, it's also entertaining and pure pleasure for the whole family.
Cultivating Green Gardens
Just as England is renowned as a green and pleasant land, a similarly temperate Vancouver Island climate and year-round growing season has made Oceanside a gardener's paradise.
Ray Milner, and his wife Veronica (a distant relation of Winston Churchill and the late Lady Diana Spencer) built their Qualicum estate circa 1930 and dedicated the surrounding 70 acres to a mix of wild gardens, rolling oceanview meadows and old-growth forest. Malaspina University College now runs it as a teaching garden. Milner Gardens & Woodland is a splendid outing during its March-to-October season; stroll the fragrant grounds for an hour or three, enjoy afternoon tea and scones in the charming, Ceylon-style tea house, or attend a seasonal special event. Qualicum Beach and Parksville are perennial winners in Canada's Communities in Bloom beautification program, which awards medals for floral displays, heritage conservation, tidiness and community involvement. Just take a drive through downtown Qualicum Beach and enjoy the flower boxes, street-side gardens and hanging baskets. Take home a bouquet; flowers both cut and potted are available at farmer's markets, garden shops and roadside stands.
Family Fun begins with Mini-Golf Action
Nothing says fun in Oceanside like a round of mini-golf. Paradise Adventure Mini-Golf and Riptide Lagoon Adventure Golf (both in Parksville) and Riverside Resort in Qualicum Beach all have themed courses. For a watery change of pace, try Paradise Adventure's bumper boat ride. Or simply get active as a solo adventurer, romantic couple or family.
The Birds, the Butterflies the Bugs and the Orchids
A remarkable menagerie of airborne creatures inhabits Coombs, west of Qualicum Beach. The World Parrot Refuge is the largest free-flight parrot refuge on the planet and is home to some 500 previously owned or abandoned parrots. Some 40 species of rainbow-hued birds of paradise take flight in huge indoor and outdoor aviaries. An educational facility, this remarkable haven for happy squawkers is run by the For the Love of Parrots Refuge Society.
Nearby in Coombs are the equally colourful inhabitants of Butterfly World & Gardens. Housing a veritable United Nations of species, the kid-friendly facility allows one to wander amidst hundreds of free-flying butterflies (including one fragile creature that's as large as an adult's hand), tropical birds and hummingbirds. Discover the new BC Orchid Garden where over 800 exotic orchids flourish amidst waterfalls, ponds and gardens. The creepy-crawly underworld of the Big Bug Jungle features tropical bugs, among them an exotic Bird Eating Tarantula, the world's largest spider.
Country Living & Wildlife
Errington is farming country. While exploring make a day of it at Tiger Lily Farm. In a delightfully rustic setting, youngsters can mingle with lambs and chickens, milk a goat and, if the season is right for newborns, bottle-feed a calf. On the outskirts of Qualicum Beach is Blue Stone Alpacas, where kids can enjoy petting and feeding these friendly animals.
A somewhat wilder version of the furred-and-feathered set are temporary guests at the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre, also near Errington. The centre tends to injured, orphaned and sick wildlife, and the residents may include birds, wild cats, owls, hawks, deer, even black bears. Tour the museum or take a nature walk a
The Salmon Journey
With the future of west-coast fish stocks a hot topic at the moment, the Big Qualicum Hatchery offers fascinating educational insights into how science is stepping in to preserve and protect the wild salmon. Millions of juvenile salmon are raised at the hatchery year-round and released into the wild. Obeying their ancient instincts, thousands of adult salmon return every fall to spawn the next generation, struggling upriver in one of nature's most remarkable displays of courage and resilience. There's nothing fishy about this experience, not with an underwater viewing area, shoreline hiking trails and picnic grounds.
Walk, ride, swim or build a sandcastle
Sporty families will want to drop into the Parksville Community Park. The myriad options here include tennis, skateboarding, kite flying, reading a good book, post-barbeque napathons or whatever else active (or happily relaxed) minds can imagine for parkland or beach.
Playtime for the Inner Child...
Oceanside attracts kids of all ages who enjoy everything from mini-golf to monster fish. When the young ones are back in school, adults have free reign to exercise their own inner child. Mount a mini-golf tour and play all four of our whimsical 18-hole layouts. Consider a pleasantly jolting spin in a bumper boat.
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