Mayne Island - A Relaxing Getaway in the Gulf Islands

We had a couple of weeks off from our Queen's math courses, so decided to do 2 short trips to places we are "allowed" to travel to.

Our first stop was Mayne Island. Why Mayne you ask? Well, we'd never been, and like to see new things. Even though Covid foiled our plan of seeing many new countries there are still many beautiful places we can explore close to home.

The Mayne Island Welcome Statue carved by local First Nation's artist John Aitken.

We decided to stay at the Mayne Island Resort. There are not many choices on Mayne, and this one was oceanfront and looked nice. For the first two days we stayed in a King room in the main hotel. This was built in 1912 (and smells like an old house... you know what I mean right?) The rooms were perfectly fine, but small. Nothing fancy, but you do have a balcony overlooking the ocean. Here's a view from our hotel room over Bennett Bay... you can't complain about that!

After the first few days we switched to one of the cabins. Turns out we are princesses and wanted more space and more luxury... no surprises there. The cabins are terrific... but not cheap. We paid $300 per night... in June... during the week. But it had a huge bathroom with separate tub and shower, a bedroom, a kitchen, a living room... and an even better view if you can imagine!

We would definitely recommend this resort if you are willing to fork over $300 per night 😊.

Mayne is a small island with a population of 995 people. It's only 21 square km, and you can find it in the southern gulf islands between Victoria and Vancouver. It has regular ferry service (a few per day) so is easy to get to.

There were lots of great little places to explore and eat if you aren't looking for anything fancy or exciting. This is definitely an island to get away from it all.

They are happy to have visitors, and claimed on some pamphlet I read that everyone was happy to have tourists over for a visit. We found this to be true except for the one lady who yelled at us to slow down because it was a school zone (we were actually stopped at that point because she was walking on the road and a car was coming the other way... also we weren't in the school zone yet). We decided she was just cranky and not to judge everyone on her yelly episode!

Here are a few of our favourite places we visited:

1) The Lighthouse at Georgina Point - when you are on the ferry from Victoria and Vancouver and see the lighthouse on the right just as you leave Active Pass... that's this lighthouse. There was a nice park and shoreline area here as well. We actually saw a sea otter scampering across the beach to hide under the driftwood to eat the large crab he had pulled out of the water. Neither of us could get our phones out fast enough, and had to settle with listening to him crunch and crack the crab shells hidden somewhere under the logs!

Fun Fact: This lighthouse was built in 1885!

2) Kadonaga Bay

We enjoyed the view from this bay which is at the end of Horton Bay Road. There is also a walk here at St. John Point, but somehow we missed the part where you start the walk, and only ended up at the beach.

3) The Japanese Gardens at Dinner Bay Park

The community works together to build and maintain this beautiful Japanese Garden in Dinner Bay park. The idea for the park was to commemorate the Japanese families who lived and worked on the island between 1900 and 1942. In 1942, their land and possessions were taken from them by the Canadian government under the War Measures Act.

The garden is quite beautiful and bigger than you might imagine on such a little island. The pictures of course don't do it justice... you should come see it for yourself!

4) Disc Golf

Dinner Bay Park also has a public (free!) disc golf course. At first I wasn't sure how it would be because it criss crosses across the park, but it was actually quite nice. (It doesn't compare to Pender's disc golf if you are a serious player, but definitely fun for regular people like us!)

Me and my wolf friend howling together at hole 6 or 7????

I almost forget that as well as playing disc golf here you can also play horsehoes or use the putting green. They even supply putters!

5) Plenty of Beaches

There were plenty of beaches and bays to enjoy... and honestly we rarely saw another person at them. I suspect it will be different once school lets out for the summer... but probably not too busy.

This one is Piggott Bay. I think it was my favourite!

At Dinner Bay

Bennett Bay

Look at this cute chair you could sit in to enjoy the view at our hotel!

Now, I'm sure you are wondering about food. On an island this big how many choices do you have? Surprisingly, more than I thought. There is of course the "Tru Value" grocery store in the "town" if you like to cook your own meals but we also tried out the bakery, the farm store and two restaurants.

The first restaurant we tried out was Bennett Bay Bistro. It was fine, but not terrific. The view was amazing, the staff were friendly and the food was okay.

The second restaurant we tried out was called Springwater Lodge. The view was terrific, the drinks were fantastic and the food was better than the Bistro, but not amazing :)

This is the only photo we remembered to snap here... which I now realize does not give you much information... but this would be my first choice for restaurants.

We also tried the bakery, which had a variety of delicious treats and some sandwiches and soups. Most people LOVE this place. We thought it was good, but not exceptional (are our standards too high?). Here's a sampling of tasty treats from the Sunny Mayne Bakery Cafe.

Ah! Now that I look at the photo I remember that I did love the "croissant donuts"!

The final food place I will mention is the "Farm Gate Store". This place had the most amazing sandwiches. If I wasn't going to miss a food place on the island it would be this one!

Here is a photo of the Farm Gate Store so you'll know it when you see it. It is conveniently located right next to the book store. So while you wait for your sandwiches (or while your husband waits for the sandwiches to be made fresh) you can sneak off to the bookstore (which I did!)

There are other things you could do on Mayne, that we didn't get to. Remember it is important to leave some things undone so that you have a reason to come back. Two things of note you might like to try out are renting kayaks from Bennett Bay (we wanted to but didn't get around to it) or hiking up Mount Parke (I just didn't want to 😜 because I'm lazy!)

The other thing we did a lot of was drive around and just enjoy the scenery. We saw a few interesting things I'll show you here... you'll have to come discover the rest on your own!