Duncan and Cowichan

Duncan Road Trip  |  Duncan is about half-way between Nanaimo and Victoria, and can be found just off the Trans Canada Highway along the eastern coast of the island. Downtown Duncan features a number of heritage and vintage buildings, and a large array of small, exquisite shops and restaurants catering to all tastes. Among the small shops, there are big shops with big names too. What would one do without the supermarkets of Canadian Superstore, Safeway and Save-On-Food? And all three are located within three blocks of each other. There is also a small movie theatre within a three minutes walk from our motel. We did patronize the movie theatre one evening. It's either Mama Mia or the Dark Knight. It's easy to figure out which one we chose.

This year the North America Indigenous Games has decended on Cowichan. Hotel and motel rooms were fully booked for months. This was why the tournament shifted forward by a week or else it would clashed with these games. After an exhaustive search on every available accommodation in Duncan, I thought I'll try the Phoenix Motor Inn again ten days later. This is the place in downtown Duncan we had stayed a few of times before. Two rooms became available. Lucky for us. Many people from the mainland and even a second group from Washington State were left high and dry this time around. Russ Hartley, the head pro at the Vancouver Lawn and Tennis Club mentioned to me they managed to get accommodation at the last minute after a new motel finally opened up for business in Nanaimo. Draw sizes suffered a little, but still managed to provide amble diversity and a high level of competition. Our own number of juniors had been reduced from 9 to 4 then 3 due to someone had fallen sick the day before we left.