Transportation & Maps
Sooke's character and charm is founded on its relative isolation.
However, the community is a featured stop along the Pacific Marine Coast Circle Route. Vancouver Island's major population centres track the multi-lane Trans-Canada Highway west from Victoria to Nanaimo and beyond. Although Sooke is just 50km/30mi from Victoria, it is accessible only by a single-lane, s-curved road. This route is known as Highway 14 or the Sooke Road (until it reaches the centre of town at Otter Point Road. There it becomes the West Coast Road the rest of the way to Port Renfrew).
Car Travel and Scenic Drives
Meandering past exposed slabs of rock and forested hillsides, Highway 14 offers a beautiful drive that turns spectacular a few kilometers past the 17 Mile House tavern when the panoramic Sooke basin comes into view. Best access to the road off the Trans Canada is via Veteran's Memorial Parkway (exit 14).
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Sooke is developing into a bedroom community for Victoria, so it's wise to avoid rush-hour weekday commutes when Highway 14 gets busy and becomes an extension of the "crawl" (which notoriously slows traffic in the suburban Victoria bottlenecks of Colwood and Langford). It's best to rent cars in Victoria, too - Sooke doesn't have any local operators.
Pacific Marine Circle Route
This 255km/158mi trek takes drivers neatly around the southern half of Vancouver Island. From Sooke, the route travels up the West Coast Road to Port Renfrew, home to the 75m/250ft Red Creek Fir (reputedly the largest Douglas fir its kind in the world and estimated to have first sprouted from the ground a thousand years ago). It then heads over to Lake Cowichan, where it hooks up with the road system looping back towards Duncan, the Cowichan Valley and the Victoria region. Get more details on the Pacific Marine Circle Route.
Bus & Taxi Transport
The Victoria Regional Transit System offers daily service to Sooke via Route 61. The trip (often on a double-decker bus) takes a little over one hour from downtown Sooke to Victoria's Inner Harbour. Sooke Harbour Taxi and Westshore Taxi provide service as far west as Port Renfrew.
Maps
A one-sheet map of the town reversed with a larger overview of the Sooke to Port Renfrew area is available at the Visitor Centre on Phillips Road. So, too, is a tear-off sheet detailing the Pacific Marine Circle Route.
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Transportation & Maps
Sooke