Paddle & Swim at Elk/Beaver Lake

A warm little swimming lake with a sand beach 200 metres from the car, wrapped in a 3.9 km forest loop with water views most of the way.

Short, steep and just sketchy enough at the top that you'll naturally steady each other on the slabby rock.

Old-growth firs, a waterfall, a trestle, and in late autumn the river runs red with salmon while eagles watch from above.

The lesser-known flat rail trail where you can talk the whole way, ending at Sidney's bookshops and waterfront patios as your reward.

A Heritage Grove of Douglas fir around five centuries old, reached on a flat boardwalk that a wheelchair or a stroller can manage.

A lantern-lit guide leads you through the shadowy alleys of Canada's most haunted old town for an hour of murder, hauntings, and harbourside history.

A 5.3 km loop through 300-year-old Douglas fir and a Garry oak meadow to Pickles Bluff, looking over farmland to Haro Strait.

85 trails and 46 km of singletrack on Mount Work, from gentle green runs to double-black drops, twenty minutes out.

A First Nation-owned outfit with two decades on the water, launching into the calm island maze where orca actually live.

A 1.2 km mossy stroll to a 30-metre waterfall and a sandy beach with the Olympic Mountains thrown in.

Paddle a sheltered tidal inlet past heritage homes to Western Canada's only reversing rapids, then sensibly turn around.

Ocean River's guided paddle from Oak Bay to a wild marine-park island where seals shadow your hull and the city completely disappears.

Earned by 2 km of dripping rainforest trail: a wild cove with a cliff waterfall, sea cave and rope swing.

A wide Central Saanich beach where low tide uncovers enormous sand flats, with James Island offshore and Mount Baker on the horizon.