We woke up bright and early and grabbed some brekfast at the Old Dutch Inn. Surprisingly good food and got a good meal in before heading out to Horne Lake.

The paved road ended and we traveled a dirt and gravel road for a good 15 minutes to reach the Horne Lake Adventure Camp. Our tour guides gave us a description of what our tour consisted of, donned our helmets with headlamps, and grabbed some coveralls to bring along so we didn’t mess up our clothes. After another short drive and a 10 minute hike, we reached the cave entrance. It was a small, square-shaped grate that is usually locked when no one is inside. We put on our coveralls and entered the cave. It was an amazing experience. We got to see incredible natural formations inside – “soda straws”, white calcite that looked like ice cream, stalagtites and stalagmites everywhere. We had several crawlways that we had to get down on our belly and crawl through, and one area had a pump that removed a pool of water so that we could get through to the other side! We also were able to do some rapelling, rock climbing, a few ladder climbs, and lots of hunching and ducking throughout the cave. It was a blast. We took lots of pictures inside with a disposable camera so there should be good documentation!

After emerging from the cave, we headed back to the car and drove back to Qualicum Beach to grab some lunch at “Lefty’s”, and then back out to a park about 20 minutes away called Cathedral Grove. Huge trees with some trunks at least 10 feet in diameter surrounded a short path through the park.

We then headed back to catch the ferry to get back to the mainland and to Downtown Vancouver to our hotel, the Hampton Inn. After unloading our luggage and setting up our last “home base” of the trip, we had a simple dinner downstairs at the hotel restraunt, “Zachary’s“. I had a decent steak and Krissy had a halibut & salmon linguini dish. We had a small slice of cheesecake to end the night.

Next, we head to Whistler to go on the ZipTrek tour.

Tags: camera, Catherdral Grove, cave, caving, cheesecake, dirt road, downtown vancouver, food, Gravel, Hampton Inn, hiking, Horne Lake, Horne Lake Adventure Camp, Krissy, Lefty's, Old Dutch Inn, picture, Qualicum Beach, rappelling, soda straws, spelunking, stalactites, stalagmites, steak, tour, trip, vacation, Vancouver, Zachary's