Stocking Creek and Elliots Beach Park are two lovely places to explore near Ladysmith on Vancouver Island in Canada. Stocking Creek Falls was the highlight of our walk through the lush forest in the park. But as we visited on a hot day; We also needed a swim and ice-cream to cool us down after the walk. The area around Ladysmith is perfect for this! There are several beautiful beaches, but we opted for a family-friendly comminuty beach at Elliots Beach Park. The Town of Ladysmith itself has a lovely, historical vibe, and really good ice-cream.

Stocking Creek Park Loop Map

Stocking Creek Falls – The Basics

Distance: 2.4 km
Elevation gain: 35m
Time: 30-40mins 
What to bring: The 10 essentials.
Facilities: Drop toilet and picnic benches at the trailhead. 
How hard is it? Easy. This is a short, easy trail. Not great for folks with limited mobility (there are steps)
Extra notes: The waterfall is more of a trickle in summer. It’d be more impressive in springtime.

The loop trail around Stocking Creek Park is perfect for stretching your legs on a road trip. Or it could be a good walk for children that don’t want a long day in the forest.

The trees in this little park are incredible! See below one growing out of a nursery log, so it looks like the tree is standing on stilts! I also loved some of the moss covered trees that had grown together. Gorgeous.

There are a few places that have easy access to splash around in the creek if you have kids that would enjoy that!

Visit the waterfall

To reach Stocking Creek Falls you need to climb down some steps. There is a viewpoint of the falls right at the bottom.

Then, you can walk around the park in a loop to return to the trailhead.

Elliots Beach Park – The Basics

Facilities: Picnic area, drop toilet, accessible ramp to the beach
How busy is it: This beach is sheltered, so pretty popular with families. Still there was space to park and plenty of room for everyone.
How to get here: This beach is opposite Ladysmith, but out on a peninsular. From Ladysmith, take Highway 1 north, then turn right onto Breton Page Road. This road turns into Shell Beach Road which you should take right to the end. Then Elliot Way will lead you to the beach.
Divers: There is an underwater rockwall on one side of the beach that is a popular area for scuba diving.

Marc and I are not really big beach people. We tend to walk along beaches, or spend hours peeking in rockpools, rather than sitting on a beach. So take this with a big pinch of salt, but I LOVED Elliots Beach Park. It was such a calm, beautiful place to swim. It is quite sheltered and shallow, so the sun can warm up the lagoon. There were a lot of oyster shells at the shoreline, so it was nice to have swimming shoes, but I saw plenty of peoople without them.

Most Canadian families seem to visit this beach armed with floaties or kayaks – so there were plenty of people lounging in the sunshine.

Ladysmith

After a lovely swim, we headed back to Ladysmith to search for ice-cream. The Old Town Ice Cream is next to Old Poppy Market, and both of them are worth visiting! They serve either Island Farms ice cream (which you can find all over Vancouver Island) as well as gelato and sorbets. The hand-made sorbets we tried were fantastic. Old Poppy Market is also great for baked goods, picnic lunches and treats.

Ladysmith is such a sweet, historical town. There are plenty of buildings from the early 1900s, and they even have two heritage walking tours. One for historical buildings, and one for historical artifacts. We stocked up at the local supermarket before heading north (as we stayed near Qualicum Beach.)

It was really nice to explore a little around Ladysmith. I loved the lush forest in Stocking Creek Park and the beautiful, warm waters in Elliots Beach Park. Finishing with ice-cream in Ladysmith made this a lovely, relaxing afternoon. If you are exploring this part of the Cowichan Valley, I hope you like the look of these mini adventures.