Brav Web

Ammonite Falls on Vancouver Island, Nanaimo, BC

Brav — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:34:43 +0000

This past weekend I went for a hike to find Ammonite Falls. It is located on the outskirts of Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island in beautiful British Columbia. On the left you can see a picture of Ammonite Falls that I took while I was there. As you can see it isn’t a downpour of water, in fact, the water was minimal. Not really surprising since it was in the middle of a hot summer.

Ammonite Falls is a small falls that you can access by parking at the end of Jameson St, hiking up a logging road then down a little trail to the right for about 20 minutes. At the end of the trail you need to go down a steep slope to get to the base of the falls. There is a picture of the rope on a slope included in the gallery. When you get down to the base of the falls you are in a nice little hide-away surrounded on two sides by cliffs, one side by the falls and then the last side is the continuation of the creek (I believe it is Benson Creek). It is a great place surrounded by nature, I could have stayed down there all day.

Here are some more pics I took that day. There is one picture of there that may seem out of place. It is a picture of this tree growing out of an old stump. It is what it is and I took a picture of it because it looked cool.

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Here are some great directions to Ammonite Falls:
(as of August 12, 2008) Thanks to Nanaimo Information

Drive - From Jingle Pot Road, turn onto Kilpatrick Road. Take the first right onto Jameson Road. Follow Jameson to the end. There is a paved sideroad to the right called Creekside which goes into a new development. Continue straight on Jameson onto the gravel. You can park a few hundred feet up the gravel, near the yellow gate.

Hike up the logging road, past the yellow gate, through the Malaspina University-College woodlot. This is obviously a tree farm. Keep going straight. At the Y junction in the road stay right - do not go left up the steep hill.

You will cross a bit of a clear cut, then an unmanaged forest, where the road narrows into a single-wide trail. About 100 feet into the forest, there is a rough looking trail that branches right off the main trail UP a small bank. On April 7, 2007, there was a small wooden sign on a tree with “Ammonite Falls” faintly but legibly written on it.

Take this trail and follow it over the hump and down the other side of the hill. After it levels out, you will see and hear Benson Creek to your left. You will continue on out of earshot of the creek, and then come to another fork in the trail, where there is a blue “No Littering” sign on a tree. Stay to the the left, past the sign. This will soon lead to a ridge above the creek and on to a firepit and an old road. Just across the road (don’t follow the old road) and to the right is a trail that will lead you in about 75 feet to the top of the falls. There are fairly secure knotted ropes to help down the last, steep, muddy slope to the base of the falls.

A little bit of nature at Englishman River Falls

Brav — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:25:35 +0000

It was a beautiful day out today so I decided to go for a hike at Englishman River Falls in Errington on Vancouver Island. The picture to the left was taken off of the bridge that crosses at the ‘upper’ falls. It is a great view and a popular location. When you follow the path after the bridge it takes you down to a little beach area great for swimming or just soaking up some sun. Below are a couple of more pictures of Englishman River. The one on the left is taken from the same bridge that the above picture was taken, but this one is looking downstream. The one on the right was taken further up the trail, a little ways off of the maintained path.

Here is a picture of a of a little white spider that we came across when we were hiking farther up the river. I almost walked right into it as it was hanging down right around face height, when we approached it quickly scurried up its web. The spider was tiny, no larger then a dime. I’m not sure what species of spider this is but I thought it was pretty cool looking. If any of you know, leave a comment and let me know.

Anyways, the weather was great today and the walk was awesome. If any of you make it to Vancouver Island and are in the area you should check out Englishman River Falls. Other great places to check out in the area are Little Qualicum Falls, Horne Lake Caves and of course Rathtrevor Beach (or Parksville Beach). Great views, good trails to walk and lots of nature to check out.

Almost forgot, here are a couple other pictures I took on todays hike. Just a couple things I thought were interesting or looked pretty cool. The one on the left is just a moss covered tree that I thought looked pretty cool. The one on the right is a small stone pillar we came across on the rivers edge.

10,000 BC… an excellent weekend rental

Brav — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 06:24:38 +0000

I rented 10,000 BC the other night off of Shaw On Demand and I have to say I was impressed. I do wish that I had gone to see it in the theater though, it is definately a movie that needs to be watched on a big screen.

10,000 BC is a prehistoric epic set back when Mammoths shook the earth and Saber-tooth Tigers (called Spear Tooths in the movie) were near the top of the food chain. We follow along as a young hunter travels through unchartered to secure his tribes future and rescue his true love from a band of evil four-legged demons, otherwise known as warriors on horses. As we follow along with the hero, he battles the warriors, fights off killer birds, befriends a Spear Tooth and kills a mammoth before we reach the end where he tries to save the girl.

I think I will be buying the Blu-Ray of this movie and watching it on a High-Def TV. That is how a movie like this one is meant to be watched. If you missed watching this movie in the theater, or even if you did get to see it, this is a great movie to rent one weekend when you have no other plans.