Newcastle Island Pictures

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Newcastle Island's Midden Bay has a nice beach if your expectations are in the right place. The name of this place derives from its having been piled high with pre-historic mounds of discarded shells. So, that means it's not a sandy beach, but it's certainly nice to look at, and the palpable historic value is a draw.

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There's a really beautiful spot on the Georgia Strait side of Newcastle Island, just north of Kanaka Bay. The view form here is panoramic to say the least, including views of Gabriola Island, Snake Island, the coastal mountains, and some of Vancouver.

The sea hits this shore pretty hard, with the result that there are bizarre sandstone shapes and small tunnels full of creatures' poop. A small hill here with huge Garry Oaks has a bench to sit on.

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The southeast corner of Newcastle Island is the site of most of its human activity. The campground and old buildings are here, as well as one of the old sandstone quarries, and a lot of shoreline with interesting sandstone. Huge trees watch over this sunny area, and downtown Nanaimo is right across the water, as is Protection Island.

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Here's a cross-section of a midden! Fascinating.

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This was back in the winter of 2004/05.

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Along the south-western shore of Newcastle Island and ending just south of Midden Bay, there is a long rocky "beach" that is crawling with weird animals, slick with algae, and dirty from its industrial neighbours across the channel. It's really neat!

Here are a couple of views of Nanaimo from lookouts above the shore on this part of the island:

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Here's the old sandstone quarry - or rather, it's one of them. Another is to the south, near the docks. This spot is really cool. There are rose bushes galore!





Here's a huge column, such as would be used for a huge government building or a temple. There's a sign that says the column is 40 tonnes.



The girls were talking about conceptually splitting the column into 40 coins and how you could imagine a tonne that way.