I tend to take pictures of “stuff”, a general category that includes anything I find interesting that isn’t an animal or scenery picture. One advantage of photographing stuff is that it is a broad category – so I’m most likely to be able to always find some stuff to photograph where ever I go. Yes, my stuff could be categorized more finely, like architecture, urban decay, trees, but then I’d have too hard a time explaining what I take pictures of other than it being a lotta different stuff.
My daily walks around Living Forest Campground revealed a bunch of stuff that was new to me, and some things in a new light or situation. It could be something as simple as moss on a rock.
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| Moss grows everywhere |
Moss fascinates me for its ability to grow almost everywhere, and the patterns it grows into. The overall effect of this moss is of leaves, yet zoom in and it is more like ferns, zoom in to the max and it is like little frills. Having grown up in a drier part of the continent, I wonder if I would find moss so fascinating if I’d grown up with it as a common sight.
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| Dolphin frame – not the fish, the mooring body |
On the other end of the size scale we have this dolphin (on its side) left behind. Being the land lubber I am, I had to look up what exactly this mooring structure was – basically a set of pilons to protect structures from big boats. The smaller ones are just a set of pilons. The big ones, like this frame of one, would be a circle in the water (flipped 90 degrees), with pilons within. This dolphin is left over from when the land here was industrial, with the company here building docking structures. Now, the land has hints of its former industrial nature poking out, but nature has reclaimed most of the rest.
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| Nice graffiti |
Of course, abandoned industrial means graffiti will be painted on it. This dolphin is no exception.
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| Not so nice graffiti |
Even the rude stuff isn’t really that rude. Does the ocean front climate mellow out the graffiti artists here, or what?
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| Some graffiti |
I’m surprised it isn’t more covered in graffiti though – this out of the way spot would be easy to hit up at night when you don’t have dog walkers all over the place.
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| Stencil art and drippings |
There are stencils about, and additional details like letting the paint run down, like a rain effect, interesting technique.
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| Mine ventilation shaft |
Coal was the initial driver to Nanaimo’s growth. There are remnants of that about too, if you know what to look for. The city itself has mines right under it, and so does this campground. This is the vent shaft you are looking at. I found the mine entrance as well, but it was much more overgrown, little to see there. This isn’t even fenced off properly – only a couple of minutes walk down a good trail from the campground. Me thinks a few warning signs would not be enough to ward off a lawsuit should someone fall into this thing.
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| Geese fencing, keep out geese! |
Occasionally, I find stuff that I don’t know what it is. I thought at first that this was a recreation of the old native fish traps setup in tidal areas to catch salmon, but no, this is actually fencing to keep the geese out. The geese eat sedge, ripping it out with the roots. The fences keep the geese from landing in these spaces – so the sedge can hopefully re-grow and keep erosion in the estuary down.
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| Wood carving in the woods |
Then there is the miscellaneous little bits, like this wood carving someone has donated to the trail by the view point. Nice little touch.
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| Water up to the Gazebo |
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| Nanaimo river floods out beach |
In other errata, we have the flooding that has hit the southern coast of BC while I’m here. Nanaimo was lightly hit, but it did really swell the Nanaimo river. While I was down there taking pictures, people were coming by to look at the massive amount of water flowing past.
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| Double Rainbow |
But rain ends, and the sun returns, at least briefly before sunset. A stunning double rainbow over the estuary was the reward for having been hunkered down for two days of straight rain.
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| Boats line up under the rainbow |
The freighter and the Gabriola ferry line up for me under the rainbow, a nice little cherry on top of a great end to the day. I know my time in Living Forest Campground is coming to an end soon – time to adventure further north on the island. No more glamping for me, at least not three weeks worth!
