Vancouver Island Bed & Breakfast in the Cowichan wine region

Cowichan Valley Tea Farm

We finally made it out to the Cowichan Valley’s Tea Farm a couple of weekends ago on a rather dark Sunday afternoon.  Our friend and I had talked about checking it out last year, but we never did make it, so recently we made a point of setting a date so we would actually go.

The Tea Farm is on Richards Trail, which runs between Herd Road and Westholme Road, a very pretty, scenic drive in itself.  Before we bought our property on Cameron-Taggart Road we actually almost bought one on Richards Trail, so I enjoyed the drive there very much.  We spent a lovely couple of hours at the farm, enjoying a pot of tea of our choice and some delicious cake and chocolate truffles, locally hand made by Pearl Chocolate.

Owner Margit Nellemann, who was our hostess, took lots of time to tell us about their product.  The Tea Farm is an organic farm and is the only place in Canada where tea is being grown.  Two hundred tea plants were planted and are now in their 4th year.  So far so good, only one plant has been lost, although when we visited the deer had just gotten into the tea!  Deer are a fact of life in the Cowichan Valley, and regular visitors around our property too, so tea plants are obviously not on the “deer proof” list either!  While the tea plants are maturing to a first harvest, Margit and partner Victor bring in organic teas from around the world and make their own blends with herbs, plants and flowers grown on their property.  The tea of the day was Pig Tea, and we had a sample of that, and I then tried horse tea, a herbal tea from their Zodiac tea line, while our friend had an earl grey tea blended with lavender.

What was also really appealing is that the tea cups and pastry plates and some of the teapots are all made by Margit, who is also a potter.  A little rectangular container made by Margit with branches and flowers from the gardens was the table centre arrangement, very simple but effective, and added a lovely touch.  It all went together really well with the rustic west coast style building.

Spend an afternoon at the Tea Farm

The wood stove was going, a little music was playing, while outside the tea room the skies were clearing and all the different fresh greens of spring were opening up.  People were relaxing and taking their time.  What a great way to spend an afternoon!  You are able to smell the teas from sample tins displayed, so while I liked the horse tea and took some home, I also brought home a tin of the rooster tea, which I’m really enjoying.  It’s a more spicy tea, but still herbal, and has a lovely aroma.  I’m sure I’ll be back to pick up some more!

There are so many unique specialty food and drink products being grown and created in the Valley, it’s a pleasure to find out about them.  I’ll definitely be telling our guests at Cobble House Bed & Breakfast about the Tea Farm, another great Cowichan Valley attraction.    They are open from Wednesday through Sunday 10 am – 5 pm and check their website for special monthly events.

We had the pleasure of attending the world premiere of the film “Once upon a day…Cowichan” on March 7th at the Cowichan Theatre. This film, produced and directed by Nick Versteeg, fellow Dutchman and internationally known videographer, and citizen of the Cowichan Valley, was created to promote this great place that we call home.

“Once upon a day…Cowichan” features a community effort by musicians, artists, fresh food producers, wineries, restaurants, and community leaders all coming together to share their love of the Cowichan Valley and the reason why it is such a great place to live and work. The mild climate allows you to grow just about anything here, the ocean offers a bounty of seafood, the scenery is beautiful and stimulates creative minds, and the community of people thrives on what the area has to offer. This film is a celebration of the charm, diversity and bounty that is the Cowichan Valley.

The “Once upon a day…Cowichan” presentation was followed by “Once upon a year…Cowichan” a full journey through the four seasons of life in the Cowichan Valley. You’ll meet some of the fresh food providers, the award winning wineries, the world class chefs and restauranteurs, the adventure seekers, the community leaders, and take a journey through the entire Cowichan region from historic Ladysmith, the world famous murals in Chemainus, the exhiliration of wind surfing at Nitinat Lake or tackling the West Coast Trail, the totems in Duncan, the beauty and rural ambiance of Cobble Hill and Shawnigan Lake, and the funkyness of Cowichan Bay.

As citizens of the Cowichan Valley of almost 20 years, we too love this place. We fell in love with it when we first came on a visit. The film made us very proud to be Valley citizens. As Cowichan Bed & Breakfast innkeepers, we are already ambassadors for our region, and this film only inspired us more to share the richness of our home with visitors from far and wide. We hope you are planning a trip to our Cowichan Valley soon. Here is a taste of what we have to offer!

July 28th was a day many people on Vancouver Island had looked forward to over the last several years. It was the official opening, or actually the re-opening, of the historic Kinsol Trestle near Shawnigan Lake in the Cowichan Valley. There was a great crowd in attendance at a well organized event.

Almost a year ago I blogged about the trestle when the rehabilitation work had just started and I took a trip to have a look. A construction cam was installed and allowed you to see the progress over the past year, and it was great to see things coming together. Funds for the rehabilitation were supplied by many individual donors as well as both the federal and provincial governments, the Island Coastal Economic Trust, the Cowichan Valley Regional District and the Trans Canada Trail Foundation. A major missing link in the Vancouver Island portion of the Trans Canada Trail is now complete. The trail now runs continuously from the south end of Shawnigan Lake up to Lake Cowichan and from Duncan to Ladysmith. The section from Duncan to Ladysmith was opened just a few weeks before the opening of the Kinsol Trestle.

There is still work to be completed around the trestle, including a pavilion listing all the donors to the project. A completed walkway takes you down all the way to the river on the north end of the trestle. Looking up at the 44 meters high trestle from the river is pretty awe inspiring, especially if you consider how the trestle was built back in 1920, without any of the huge cranes or other equipment now used for the rehabilitation. The rehabilitation created local jobs, used Vancouver Island lumber and the project was led by a local Cobble Hill company.

We have hosted numerous cyclists at our Cobble Hill Bed & Breakfast over the years, as they cycle and visit the wineries, or pass through on their way up-Island. The completion of the Kinsol Trestle on the Trans Canada Trail will definitely be an added attraction in the Cowichan Valley for both cyclists and hikers as well as visitors who are interested in seeing this piece of Vancouver Island history for themselves.

On Saturday June 25th, 2011, our village of Cobble Hill on Vancouver Island is having a Community Celebration to mark a century of operation for the Cobble Hill Market. A variety of community organizations will be hosting entertainment and stage events open to the whole family.

The building that houses the Cobble Hill Market was built in 1911 by Tom Walton, and was therefore initially known as the Walton Building. When the building opened it was operated as a grocery store downstairs while the upstairs became a popular dance hall as well as a meeting space for clubs and a gaming parlour. There are apparently lots of local stories about the dances held there in the evenings! During the day, the upstairs space was used by Mrs. Walford Gosnell to teach art classes.

Eventually the upstairs was converted into living quarters and many families lived there while operating the downstairs store. The current owners immigrated from Hong Kong and have operated the store since 1995.

Quiet Cobble Hill village was once quite a busy community and a center for shipping goods via the railway. The current Cobblestone Inn Pub is on the site of the former Cobble Hill division of the Cowichan Creamery, around which many community events revolved until the 1940′s. There was shopping at the Bonner Block, and the village also boasted the busy Wilton Place Hotel. The Cobble Hill Post Office and Bank building is still in existence as the Black Coffee restaurant at nearby Whippletree Junction on Highway 1, on your way to Duncan BC. Whippletree is a funky collection of specialty shops and restaurants in historical Cowichan Valley buildings moved there from around the Valley.

At our Vancouver Island Bed & Breakfast in Cobble Hill, we had the pleasure several years ago of hosting the grandson of one of the two families our road is named after. We live on Cameron-Taggart Road and if you travel south on our road you’ll come across two farms now owned by the Wikkerink families. Orginally, however, these were the Cameron and the Taggart farms, with the Cameron farm on the west side of the road and the Taggart farm on the east side. Our guest was Bill Taggart who was showing his grandson around the area where he grew up. The Taggart children attended the Sylvania school at the end of Cameron-Taggart Road. This building is now a Lions hall.

Every area has its interesting history. Mr. Taggart shared with us some old photos and a book “At the foot of the hill” about the history of Cobble Hill and it was so fascinating learning more about the history of our immediate area and being able to relate it to the places you come by on a daily basis while operating our Cobble Hill Bed & Breakfast.

As another year draws to a close, I like to reflect on the guests that stayed with us this year.  We met wonderful folks from all parts of BC, and from most Canadian provinces; from all the way down the US west coast and from several eastern states and from Florida.  Travelers arrived from the UK, from Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, New Zealand and Korea.  It’s wonderful to share the Cowichan Valley and Vancouver Island with these visitors and help to make their visit as interesting and comfortable as possible.  We had guests for weddings, reunions, birthday parties, the wineries or just to explore the Island or visit friends or family in the area.

It’s also a pleasure every year to see some of our “regular” guests.  Some come for specific events in the area, such as the Brentwood College Regatta at the end of April, or the Shawnigan Regatta two weeks later, some come to visit their children who are attending any one of four private boarding schools in the area, and some come just to relax and rejuvenate, or because they love visiting the Island.  It’s very rewarding to see them return to Cobble House, and to catch up on how things have been going in their lives.

Because some of our guests have taken the time to share their experience of staying at Cobble House on TripAdvisor, Cobble House B&B was given a certificate of excellence by TripAdvisor, based on a TripAdvisor rating of 5 as given to us by our guests.   We thank all of you who have taken the time to write a review, and appreciate it so very much.  We strive to offer the best Bed & Breakfast experience that we can, and after 17 years in business here in Cobble Hill we’re still learning new things every year to help make your stay with us the very best that it can be.

We hope to see you back with us, and would like to wish all of you a wonderful Christmas or Hanukkah, a happy holiday season, and health and happiness in 2011!

Last Sunday I took a drive out to Keating Farm Estate, a property acquired by The Land Conservancy about 5 years ago.  The farm is located on Miller Road near Duncan and is only open to the public on Sunday afternoons between 1 – 4 pm during the summer, until September 19th.

The property is about 32 acres with a number of heritage structures, the most important one being the farmhouse.  The original house was quite small, but was doubled in size when Andrew Keating bought the property around 1888.  Keating hired architect John Gerhard Tiarks who designed a huge addition in the form of a great hall.  The hall has a vaulted ceiling supported by carved beams that arch across the hall.  It is intricately panelled and built with first growth cedar and fir, which maintains its original 1894 finish.  There is also a massive 10 ft. tall fireplace. 

There are numerous outbuildings on the property including the hay barn which may have been built in 1894, and the attached dairy barn built by the last owner, Hugo Tews, in 1949.  There is a orchard with many heritage apple varieties as well as a nut orchard.  At the south end of the property are a creek, a wetland and a wooded area.  The old CNR right-of-way spur to Cowichan Bay runs through this part of the property and connects to the Trans Canada Trail.

Keating and two of his sons died in 1901 in the shipwreck of the S.S. Islander.  Strangely enough architect Tiark also died that same year, from a fall off his bicycle in Victoria.   The farm then had a number of owners before Hugo Tews, from whom TLC bought the property.

TLC has started restoration work on the farm house, as there currently is scaffolding in the Great Hall.  Much remains to be done, but the farmhouse is also still occupied by a descendent of Hugo Tews.  Tews farmed the property and won many awards at Duncan’s Cowichan Exhibition with the grain that he grew on the property.  The dairy barn that he built is closed up as it is home to a rare colony of blue-listed Townsend’s Big-eared bats.  After the bats migrate in the fall, TLC will install a webcam to monitor their behaviour when they return in the spring. 

The farmland is also being put back into agricultural production through the Keating Community Farm Cooperative established by TLC in 2006, to create a multi-functional community farm and heritage site.

It’s great to see this slice of Cowichan Valley history saved for future generations.  As a Bed & Breakfast innkeeper in the Valley, I appreciate all the interesting history in the area which I’m then able to share with guests staying at Cobble House B&B.

Earlier this month rehabilitation work on the historic Kinsol Trestle was finally begun.  The trestle is the missing link in the Cowichan Valley Trail, the local section of the Trans Canada Trail.  A local Cobble Hill company is the timber specialist contractor on the job and has started work on the core structure, replacing timbers to make the trestle safe once more.   The completion and official opening is scheduled for late spring of 2011.

The Kinsol Trestle was originally completed by Canadian National Railways in 1920.  It was officially named the Koksilah River Trestle, and the more popular name “Kinsol” came from the nearby King Solomon copper mine.  The trestle is the highest and largest surviving timber trestle in Canada and reportedly one of the four largest wooden structures in the world.  The last train crossed the trestle in 1979 and a year later it was abandoned.  In 1988 a fire burnt part of the trestle.  In recent years the Cowichan Valley Regional District conducted several studies to decide if the structure should and could be saved.  In 2009 a fundraising campaign was launched, and $3.8 million dollars in provincial/federal government funding was announced, as well as $1.0 from the Island Coastal Economic Trust.  The public campaign to raise the remaining $2 million is ongoing even as the work has begun.

I took a drive out to the north access of the trestle this week, as the south access from Shawnigan Lake is closed for the duration of the project.  You follow Riverside Road, off Koksilah Road, for about 10 km.  The road is paved for the first several kilometers and then becomes sand and gravel.  Just when I thought I must have missed a turn off I arrived at the parking area.  The main trail to the trestle is blocked off and you take a little path through the woods to get there.  They are still working on putting in box steps on the actual path, and have also just started constructing the viewing platform.  I was able to get down to the water and look up at the trestle, but it involved crossing a steep slope with lose gravel, so a bit of tricky manoeuvring was involved to get close.  Even in the state of disrepair the trestle is in, it is an awesome sight and it’s going to be so exciting to see this historic structure repaired and open to the public.  The new completed Kinsol Trestle will include landscape improvements, a walkway down to the canyon and an information kiosk.  At the same time during the project, the area will be carefully managed to maintain the important heritage elements of the trestle.

The Kinsol Trestle will be an added reason to visit the Cowichan Valley.    Bring your bicycles when you stay at Cobble House B&B, and cycle the completed trail next summer.  For now, keep an eye on the progress of the rehabilitation, and if so inclined, support the fund raising campaign to make the Kinsol Trestle complete!

Come and celebrate Canada’s birthday in the Cowichan Valley with a stay at Cobble House B&B, and check out some Canadian artists and artisans during the Visions Cowichan Valley Summer Tour & Sale from July 1 – 5.  This annual tour is now in its 26th year and invites you to visit 20 artist studios from Mill Bay in the south to Saltair just north of Chemainus.  The artists work in every medium and range from potters to painters, fabric arts to jewellery, photography to woodturning , painted glass to lampshades, and everything in between.  Studios are open from 10-5 daily during the tour and brochures are available throughout the Cowichan Valley or you can find them online at the Visions Art Tour website. 

26th annual Visions Summer Art Tour

The Cowichan Valley is a wonderfully relaxing place to wander around, either by car or on the bike.  In between artist studios, you can check out the Saturday market in Duncan, and tour some of the Cowichan Valley wineries.  Enjoy a glass of award winning wine while relaxing over lunch at Merridale Cidery’s La Pommeraie Bistro, Cherry Point Estate Wines Bistro, Thistles Cafe at Glenterra, and Vinoteca at Vigneti Zanatta.  Locally grown produce and products are featured at many of the local restaurants, and we’re very fortunate in the Valley to have access to so many specialty products grown at home.

What better way to celebrate Canada and Canadians than a relaxing weekend in the beautiful countryside, tasting some canadian grown goodness!

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.