A Weekend on Pender Island, BC

Alyssa Russell
Oct 10
4 min read

Pender Island is the collective name for two Southern Gulf Islands located in the Salish Sea. Consisting of North Pender & South Pender Island and have a combined proximity of 34KMS. There is a ton of beaches, several lakes and small mountains. If you would like to know what to do here and where to go, keep on reading.

To get on to Pender Island you will start from Swartz Bay near Victoria. It's about a 40 minute ferry ride to Otter Bay. We took our vehicle over and I believe you cannot reserve this ferry. Here is where you can find more information on times and conditions. Your cost of ferry is also including the way back.

My friend Allyssa had scored a campsite at Prior Centennial Campground and the next night at Shingle Bay. The first thing we did once we got here was go to our campground and set some things up so we had a nice spot. Then we hiked to Mount Norman which was the longest hike of this weekend. It's not super long and has 204M of elevation and we got beautiful views of the other islands nearby and the Olympic Mountain range.

This island has an abundance of deer as there is no natural predators to eat them. Beware at night and make sure to drive slow around corners lol.

We drove around and saw Poets Cove, I have been here when I was young and on a boat. We swam at the pool once and it's super nice at the restaurant. We checked out this little viewpoint nearby called Arbutus Point Lookout. Then to finish the day off we checked out Brooks Point Regional Park. We went back to our campground had a lovely charcuterie dinner and had a real fire as the fire bans had lifted finally!

The next morning after a good nights sleep in Allyssa's car we checked out this cute cafe called Coffee Kitchen. They had the best lattes. After our little breakfast we hiked up to George Hill, it was a 2K roundtrip hike with 123M of elevation. It had beautiful views of the Gulf Islands as well as plenty of ferries going by making it very scenic. I wanted to check out Magic Lake so I could go for a swim. It was not too cold and someone was actually fishing there! Where we went it's called Swimming Hole Park, there is a dock where you can jump off from.

Running into to more deer we hiked up to Oak Bluffs. This was probably the best view as it was the most open looking outwards.

We decided to check out the Sea Star Vineyard & Winery, this is a beautiful area. They make a ton of wine here and I got a flight of all of their different white wines. We had spent quite awhile here and the sun came out which was lovely. Afterwards we went to check out the Port Browning Pub. There is also camping here but it's a random field. There's a swimming pool however and the beach is right there. So it' probably a nice little spot during summer.

After some chicken wings and a cold beer we made it to the parking lot of where our next campground was. It's about a 3 minute hike down this hill. So we had to pack all of our stuff down to our camping spot. Which was a mish not going to lie. I wasn't prepared to pack light or had a backpack. I even packed our cooler down here. However the campground is quite nice as it's right on Shingle Bay beach. We had some beverages and danced on the beach until we came back to campsite and almost witnessed someone's camp go into flames. Thankfully they got it out and nothing was damaged. We talked for a while and went to bed.

I got a pretty good sleep and bonus it didn't rain. The first thing we did was check out Vanilla Leaf Cafe. They had all sorts of baked goods. The coffee as OK, I felt the other place was way better for that. Before we left this Island we checked out the Mortimer Spit. I'm really glad we checked this place out, it was super cool to drive right on it. The signs were hilarious as they said ROUGH ROAD. It wasn't that bad, just go slow.

Got into the ferry line up and made our way back, it was cool to check off yet another Gulf Island. Slowly but surely I will go to them all. I hope this inspired you to check it out. We really are so lucky to be able to Island Hop. Even if it's just a day trip - it's worth while.