Vancouver Island Bed & Breakfast in the Cowichan wine region

Bed & Breakfast innkeepers not only provide accommodation and serve delicious breakfasts, they also often serve as ambassadors for their community and assist their guests with all kinds of information to enhance their stay. The question we are probably asked more often than anything else is “where to go for dinner”.

Fortunately the Cowichan Valley is home to a number of very fine restaurants so it is very easy to recommend these to our guests. We always ask them afterwards “how was dinner” and almost always the recommendation has led them to a great dining experience, often featuring locally grown or harvested foods.

Just around the conrer from Cobble House B&B

In Cowichan Bay, just a 15 minute drive away, you will find The Masthead Restaurant, another favorite with our guests. They specialize in seafood, but have something for everyone’s taste. All their entrees are served with “pot au feu” fresh vegetables and duck spuds, and they have a great wine list.

Back in Shawnigan Lake Village is another of our recommended restaurants, Steeples Bar & Grill, an “adventure in casual dining”. Located in a converted church, Steeples is a big part of the community as well. They have just launched their new fall promotion “Mediterranean Nights” and had a very successful Asian fusion promotion this spring.

While the bistro at Merridale Cidery is mostly open just for lunch, they offer hugely popular pizza nights on Sundays during the summer. Currently they are open on Saturday nights until mid December for Field to Table 3-course dinners. We met some of our guests at Merridale at one of the last pizza nights of the season and they really enjoyed the food and the ciders there! La Pommeraie Bistro is another popular choice with our guests, and it too, is just around the corner from Cobble House B&B.

While in a very rural location, Cowichan Valley restaurants are among some of the best restaurants on Vancouver Island. We’ll happily book a table for you when you come to stay, so you too can enjoy really fine dining in the Cowichan Valley.

Vancouver Island British Columbia is blessed with a mild climate and many golf courses, so you can enjoy the game of golf for a large part of the year. Cobble House Bed & Breakfast is centrally located in Cobble Hill, in the Cowichan Valley about halfway between Victoria and Nanaimo, and the Valley has a number of golf courses for every level of golfer to experience.

Just 10 minutes away from our Cobble Hill Bed & Breakfast you can book a tee time at Arbutus Ridge Golf Club, 18 holes, par 71. The Club has a four star Golf Digest Rating and has a 10 stall driving range and practice putting green. Daytime green fees are in the $45-$64 range.

Arbutus Ridge Golf Club

The Cowichan Golf & Country Club on the south side of Duncan is the oldest golf course in the Valley. It has been in its present location just off the Trans Canada Highway since 1947, and is an 18 hole, par 70 course. Green fees generally range from $42 – $52. The Mount Brenton Golf Course in the mural town of Chemainus, which calls itself the Island’s “friendliest golf course”, is almost as old, having been around since 1948. This is a par 71 course with green fees ranging from $25-$45.

The newest course in the Cowichan region is Duncan Meadows on the northwest side of Duncan, along Highway 18. It has a reputation as a player’s course, with many lakes and ponds. Green fees are in the range of $40-$55 for this par 72 course. This past July, Duncan Meadows hosted the 2011 Royale Cup Canadian Women’s Amateur Championships.

If you continue west on Highway 18 around the south side of Cowichan Lake, you will reach the 9 hole March Meadows Golf Course in Honeymoon Bay. This is the home course of LPGA professional Dawn Coe Jones who still sponsors the junior golf tournament held at the club each year. Green fees for 18 holes are in the $33-$42 range.

Whichever Cowichan golf course, or courses, you chose to experience, you’ll find unique and different challenges on each one. Another thing you’ll find is beautiful scenic views of the Cowichan landscape, be it ocean or rolling hills and mountains. Come and play the game of golf in the Cowichan Valley, and find your choice of Cowichan Valley Bed & Breakfasts nearby to complete your stay.

June is a great month to take that trip to Vancouver Island you’ve been thinking about as you’ll get the best ferry rates to the Island.  BC Ferries is offering a Coast Saver Seat Sale on all scheduled sailings to Vancouver Island on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from June 2nd to June 26th.  Sailings from the Vancouver area to Victoria or both terminals in Nanaimo qualify for the Seat Sale rates.  You can make every weekend in June a long weekend and explore different parts of Vancouver Island!  The rate for a car and driver will be $39.95 one way, and the rate for an adult passenger will be $9.95, which works out to an approximate 30% discount.

Another great BC Ferries deal which is available year round is the CirclePac ticket which offers a 15% savings on a circle route between Vancouver, the Sunshine Coast, and Vancouver Island.  Your CirclePac ticket is good for 30 days, and you purchase the ticket at the first terminal you sail from and then show it at subsequent terminals.  You might depart from Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver and sail up to Langdale on the Sunshine Coast.  Spend several days exploring the Lower Sunshine Coast and then take the ferry to the Upper Coast and Powell River.  From there you’ll sail across to Comox on Vancouver Island.

You can easily spend several weeks exploring Vancouver Island if you have the time, but you’ll at least want to take several days to get a taste of Island life.  Recreational opportunities abound whether you’re interested in golfing, kayaking, hiking, mountain biking, surfing, horseback riding, spelunking or swimming, Vancouver Island offers it all.  There are world class attractions, beaches and provincial parks, historical and cultural highlights, fine arts and crafts, excellent dining and an ever expanding wine region centered around  the Cowichan Valley.  As a Cowichan Valley accommodation, Cobble House Bed & Breakfast is a great central location from which to explore not only the wineries and specialty farms in the Valley, but Victoria is only an hour away, as is Nanaimo, and both are departure points for the next stage of your CirclePac route, which will take you back to your Vancouver starting point.

Hope to see you in the Cowichan next month!

High school rowing has a big profile in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island in April and May of each year.

On the last weekend in April, April 29th through May 1st, the 41st annual Brentwood Regatta will take place at Brentwood College School on the open waters of Mill Bay, BC.  Brentwood College rowing is well known internationally and the program has produced numerous Olympic rowers and Olympic medalists over the years as recently featured by the Rick Mercer Report on CBC Television.

The Brentwood Regatta is the largest athletic event hosted by a single high school, and I’ve heard mention that it may be the second largest  high school rowing regatta in all of North America.  It is an official event sanctioned by Rowing  BC.  Typically there are about 1500 athletes participating, plus coaches, plus parents who come to watch their kids and help out with the teams.  Numerous teams come from the Vancouver Lower Mainland area, but also from Washington State, Oregon, California, and of course Vancouver Island.  Over the years teams from Australia, Bermuda, Ontario, and the UK have also participated.  This regatta is probably the biggest event of the year taking place in the region, with Cowichan Valley Bed & Breakfasts and hotels/motels in Mill Bay, Cobble Hill, Shawnigan Lake, Cowichan Bay and much of Duncan all filling up for this exciting sporting event.  At Cobble House Bed & Breakfast we’ve had the pleasure of hosting parents from Eugene Oregon, St. Georges School in Vancouver,  Sammamish Rowing, Green Lake Rowing and Everett Rowing in Washington State.  We’re looking forward to welcoming some of last year’s parents back to this year’s event!

near the finishing line at the Brentwood Regatta

Two weeks after the Brentwood Regatta the focus shifts to Shawnigan Lake where Shawnigan Lake School will be hosting its annual regatta.  Rowing is also a flagship sport at Shawnigan Lake School, making for some real competitiveness between the two private boarding schools, which are located just a few kilometers apart.  While the Shawnigan Regatta is a much smaller and more BC centric event, it too offers high caliber rowing, a sport practiced year-round on Vancouver Island.  Canada’s national rowing team trains primarily at Elk Lake in nearby Victoria, but also comes up to train on Shawnigan Lake.  There are several regattas held at Elk Lake every year and also on the Gorge, and a small regatta at Maple Bay in the Cowichan Valley on April 16th.  The relatively mild climate on Vancouver Island is definitely a factor in making this area a prime rowing environment.

If you’re in the area for either the Brentwood or the Shawnigan Regattas, do come out and check out some terrific Vancouver Island rowing!

It may surprise you to hear that on Vancouver Island, and in the Vancouver area, dozens of small farms are making maple syrup.  Traditionally, areas of Quebec and Ontario are known for making the famous Canadian maple syrup from sugar maple trees, but in the last decade tapping big leaf maple trees, especially on Vancouver Island, has become a growing agroforestry business, boosted by the “100 mile diet” and niche food production.  Many farmers involved in the production of maple syrup are hobbyists, but the business is growing and demand is far outstripping supply at the moment.

Big leaf maples are a different species than the sugar maples in eastern Canada.  There are some differences in the sap and how it can be collected.  There is a lower sugar content in Big Leaf sap and the syrup that can be made from it varies from golden in color to a dark chocolate tint.

On Saturday February 5, 2011, the BC Forest Discovery Centre in Duncan will host the 4th annual Big Leaf Maple Syrup Festival.  Events run from 10 a.m to 4:30 p.m.  Visitors are invited to participate in workshops featuring tapping demonstrations, presentations and displays.  Cooking with maple syrup will be featured, as well as maple food.  There is also a maple syrup competition, judged by celebrity chefs from Vancouver Island, awarding ribbons for Judges’ Choice, Best in Show, and light, medium and dark syrup.  More than 2000 people attended the 2010 event and all the syrup available for sale sold out.

Vancouver Island maple syrup is obviously becoming a very popular local food product.  Spend a weekend at Cobble House Bed & Breakfast in the Cowichan Valley and explore this new industry.  If you have time left over, visit one of the many award-winning wineries and enjoy fabulous gourmet dining at several excellent Cowichan Valley restaurants such as Amuse Bistro, The Masthead, Steeples or the newest addition to fine dining in the Valley, the Stone Soup Inn.

A new deer family, June 11, 2010

This was a scene I managed to capture a few days ago on our acreage at Cobble House Bed & Breakfast in the Cowichan Valley.  Fortunately and unfortunately at the same time, deer are a regular sight around our  house. 

The fortunate part is that we very much do enjoy seeing the wildlife around our place.  It’s still a pretty special feeling seeing wildlife on your own property.  We come from the Netherlands originally and it’s pretty mind boggling that this kind of space and wilderness directly around your home is possible.  Since I took this photo a few days ago, I’ve seen another mother with one fawn and the fawns have been playing and running around on the back lawn several times, in between nursing with their  moms.  It’s hard to resist baby animals!

The unfortunate part is that the deer can decimate your garden.  We used to have a couple of beloved dogs who definitely helped keep the deer at a distance.  Since they’ve been gone, the deer are coming closer to the house, even up the front steps or on the deck in the back!  We can’t be watching for them all the time with a busy B&B to run among other things, so we’ve been forced to protect our deck with portable fences that we can roll in and out, and put chicken wire around some of the summer plants in front. 

The rest of the garden suffers from deer browsing, so shrubs tend to be bare on the bottom up to a certain level.  I enjoyed some lovely irises for a few days until one of the deer found them!  At least I enjoyed them for a few days, which is better than the daylilies we never see once the bud has formed!  Last year I talked to a neighbour down the road and she said she hardly ever sees deer around her property.  I guess they must all be at Cobble House!

Come by and check us out again soon.  We’re still tweeking the format and the bells & whistles on this blog, but we hope to show you around the area and the B&B in the future.