Pipers Lagoon Park

Pipers Lagoon Park is the best, most exotic oceanside park in Nanaimo (aside from Newcastle Island, but that's not a fair contest).
The lagoon itself is the size of three football fields. You park at one end and walk along a narrow, straight dyke between the lagoon and the restless surf. The waves from the open water have created a marvellous pebbly beach with a great deal of mermaid's tears (a beautiful product of beach glass). Then it gets rocky; there is some non-technical rock-climbing for those who desire it, and one larger hill covered in arbutus and Garry Oak, eagles, driftwood and views of the Strait.