this day we had breakfast with the other guests again, then checked out of the hotel, bought a bandage for nina's ankle, and finished our "wild pacific trail" hike on the other end of the trail, the lighthouse[001-008]. it's easily accessible by car, and the lighthouse is not far from the parking lot, as nina's foot didn't get significantly better over night, and still hurt. but at least with the help of the bandage she was able to walk short distances without too much suffering. then we drove to the ucluelet aquarium[009-069], as we thought it's more like a big attraction in ucluelet. but the place itself is very small[009], but, it has some very cool features. first of all, you can touch most of the animals, so for the first time we touched all kind of star fish[010,013], sea anemone[023-026], sea cucumbers[027], and sea urchins[028]. really fascinating and surprising, how some of those fellas feel like. and then there's this community thing going on with the pupils of ucluelet and the aquarium. each year, around october, every kid gets one animal, and will release it back into the sea. so the guys there expect a big fight over who will be allowed to release the kraken. i think that's a really wonderful thing, as children get to know what is going on in the sea, and get to touch the animals. also every display tank was donated and sponsored by a local company (like the fish&chips guy had one too). another thing we really liked about the little ucluelet aquarium. then we started heading north, and soon drove on the pacific rim highway[070-114], where we took a short break to explore a place that people used for cooling down and swim in a cold river. so we also stopped and saw some nice rocks shaped by the river in thousands of years, and crystal clear water. absolutely beautiful. a little later we stopped at the little qualicum falls[115-188], that were surrounded by woods full of lichen, moss, and again so many shades of green - i totally like the woods here, especially in the warm afternoon and evening sun, then all the colours get even more intense. very carefully and even slower than usual we walked along the trail, trying not to put too great a strain on nina's ankle. a few hours later we finally arrived at campbell river[189-204], just as the sun began to set. again tremendously beautiful. then it was time to drive the last few hundred metres to the bed & breakfast, where we had booked our stay for the night at the "purple starfish b&b", like the one we had touched in the morning at the aquarium. track for day 09.