Sooke Pot Holes - Camping

We made it back safe and sound and another camping trip under our belts. We went to the Sooke Potholes camp ground for the week-end and our experience there was not what I thought it would be. The major complaint that I have with this campground was that people were camping on top of each other. The camp sites, I kid you not, were less then 3 feet apart. So if you want privacy here, you can forget it. The campground did have some good stuff about it to, such as cell phones don’t work, no reception what so ever. I thought my husband would go into with droll, but he survived. The other good point with this camp ground is the rules are strict; you cannot pass the campground gate if you are not camping. You must put friends on the guest list if you want visitors and quiet time is enforced with off duty RCMP officers and firefighters’ volunteers. How about that!

We were lucky that our camping neighbors were not that bad. They tried hard to ignore us and we did the same. The other site next to us was a no show, most likely because of the rain and did it ever rain. (Rain is our camping curse; it rains when ever we camp) But more about our camping neighbors. We were so close to them that we could not help but notice that the insurance decal on their license plate had expired almost a year ago on their camper, October 28, 2007, to be exact. There was some small talk with them, such as they are from Langford, their kids’ age, stuff like that. However, we were not too happy with how close they were to us. So when Sunday came around, my husband and I decided that we were going to pay for an extra night so we can stay in the campground longer to burn the rest of the fire wood that we had bought and let the kids run loose. We went to A&W for breakfast, went home for a shower and then went back to the campground. We were a little disappointed with our camping neighbor; he was still there. Now the one thing that Sooke is good for is Road Blocks. We have them every Friday and almost every Sunday on Sooke River road, the road that one must take to get to the potholes. They start from about 2:00 in the afternoon and end about 6:00 in the evening. My husband and I are Sooke natives and we know this but our camping neighbors don’t. So when our camping neighbor made an appearance, I walked up to him and told him that they should be careful when they leave and pointed to the plates. The guy looked at me and said “I noticed that to, I have the papers in my glove compartment; just forgot to put the decal on!” I just looked at him said “Sooke has two Road Blocks, one on Friday and the other on Sunday – just for the Potholes.” His face went white, he herded up his children and wife, got into his camper and peeled out of there so fast, he made dust clouds, and he didn’t even let the camper warm up!! It was funny. My husband looked at me and asked what I said to him. I looked at my husband and just said “Road Blocks.” We just started laughing.

But you know what, after our neighbor had left, we were the only ones left in the campground and it was just pure heaven.

Again, I forgot my camera!