Gabriola Island Lifestyle Blog

We had the luxury of getting a week off this summer and we went to Hornby Island. Many people looked at us rather oddly when we said we were going to another Gulf Island for a holiday but we so wanted to spend some time in a quiet place where we were totally anonymous. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and headed to the lovely cottage we had arranged to rent for a week. The property was beautiful and equipped with a zipline in the backyard much to our 4 year old daughter’s delight. Hornby is a beautiful island which you can reach by taking a ferry from Buckley Bay on Vancouver Island to Denman Island and then driving across Denman to the Hornby Island ferry. The ferry ride to both islands are a short ten minute jump and the connections are quite good.

Hornby has a wonderful shopping area called the Ringside Market where there are 2 clothing stores, a coffee/ice cream stand with the best americanos, cafe, restaurant, book store, pottery store and of course the Hornby Co-op Grocery/Everything you need Store. While there we made trips to many of the local artist studios, beautiful beaches, farms, and of course the Cardboard House Bakery which has the best almond buns and cream puffs. It is also the home of Pizza Galore which beats any pizza place I have ever been to, fantastic!!!

Hornby is also home to two wineries and a meadery which we managed to visit without our kids thanks to our wonderful friends/travel companions. Middle Mountain Mead is an artisan honey winery combining the best of ancient and modern techniques to create small lots of premium handcrafted mead. We left with 3 bottles of Mead which we are eagerly awaiting to try. Visit their website at middlemountainmead.com.

We had such a fantastic and relaxing vacation that we will definitely be back next year anxiously awaiting anonymity and almond buns:)