Back In Canada!

Monday, June 30, 2014


This afternoon we are sitting in the rig at the seawall in Port Hardy, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The wifi in last night's campground, the Quatse River Campground, wasn't strong enough to post. I am hoping to get this out when we get to Prince Rupert, B.C. at the end of our 16 hour ferry cruise. So, in order to make it easier for Greg to upload this for us, I will make this a short and sweet summary of the past week.

Last Tuesday we visited the Mercedes dealer in Bellingham, Washington for our regular oil change. After lunch at a local microbrewery and visits to the Bellingham Co-op and Trader Joe's, we decided to return to Larrabee State Park for a second night. The next morning we left for Canada.
Our wait to cross the border on I-5 was only a half hour. Not bad for a major border crossing. We stopped at the information center to stock up on brochures and drove towards Vancouver, (the city). The ferry we wanted to take to Vancouver Island was leaving from the northwestern side of the metropolis. Since it had lots of crossings, and a additional one for Wednesday, which we later learned was for the “Long Weekend”, the beginning of summer coinciding with Canada Day on Tuesday, July 1, we opted out of making reservations.

The Canadian “interstate” dumped us in the middle of the outer city and then downtown Vancouver. At first it was interesting to see the city center, than we realized that we had been captured in the middle of gridlock, and spent a good chunk of the afternoon trying to crawl our way out the other side. When we finally rode over the Lion's Gate Bridge and then west out to the ferry dock, we were amazed to get on the next boat, the 4:20. The one hour and forty minute ride went quickly since the weather and scenery were gorgeous. After unloading we drove through the city of Nanaimo, the second largest on Vancouver Island, and managed to get one of the last sites at Rathtrevor Provincial Park. With what is supposed to be the warmest swimming beach north of California, families had filled it up for the long weekend.

Crossing from Horshoe Bay (North Vancouver) to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island

Amazing scenery just ourside Vancouver City

Thursday morning, before we left, we walked to the beach to see the view across to the mountainous mainland of British Columbia. The sun was shining as we drove west across the mountainous spine of the island to the wild Pacific coast. The first range to be crossed led us to Port Alberni at the head of a long inland estuary coming up from the Pacific and creating a port. After Port Alberni the road climbs, becoming narrower, and twisting, and as we got closer to the coast, the clouds and fog dropped down from the high peaks, some snow covered even at this last date in the year.

Rathtrevor Beach on the east coast of Vancouver Island

Through the Coast Range of Vancouver Island

Very narrow, steep, winding highway, speed limits down to 30 KPH (18 MPH)

Kennedy Lake near the West Coast

Reaching the coast there is one road connecting two towns. For now we wanted to see if we could get into the Pacific Rim National Preserve's Green Point Campground. They found us one last site and told us they would put us on a list for a cancellation the next night. We were camped in another rain forest, a short walk from the beach. It was overcast and wild, but we walked to Long Beach, a huge sand beach that stretches for miles. We crawled around on the beach rocks checking out the tidepools. It was similar to the Olympic National Park beaches, but without the huge washed up trees.

Long Beach at Pacific Rim National Preserve

Iridescent Beach Foam in a tide pool

Banana Slug

Overnight the rain started, so on Friday we decided to drive to the nearby towns. We were about 20 kms in between each, so we started by driving north to Tofino, the end of the trans-Canada highway. Tofino was discovered by surfers and said to be one of the world's great surfing beaches. It was a hippie outpost, until it was discovered by the outside world, and has become an upscale international destination. The town is still somewhat funky, but the outskirts now hold fancy resort lodges. We walked around in the rain for a while, Greg bought some locally smoked salmon, and departed for Ucluelet at the other end of the road.

Kayak Class at Tofino

Bookstore in Tofino

Surfer Mecca of the north Pacific

Ucluelet, or “Ukee”, is more of a working fishing community, but is being discovered, too. We parked and walked to “Ukee Dog” for lunch. It had a TripAdvisor award. Seems that very few places haven't been discovered by TripAdvisor travelers anymore. We actually found it in our “Lonely Planet” guidebook, so I guess we aren't much better! It was a small funky, old garage with a walk up counter. I got the Canuck Dog, and Greg had the salmon pie. Then we wandered a bit around the waterfront, drove through the rest of town, and back to the campground to dry out.

Ukee Dog!

The rain continued the rest of the day and night. We were able to stay in our campsite a second night. Saturday, a short lull in the rain encouraged us to pack up and begin the wet drive back over the twisty mountain roads to the eastern coast in pursuit of drier climes. It was dry and mostly sunny when we reached the coast and drove north to Miracle Beach Provincial Park. By a miracle we got the last site, but only for one night. The park was mobbed with celebrating families. The kids on bikes swarmed the paved roads in the park. We walked to the beach and viewed another part of the mainland across the Strait of Georgia.

Miracle Beach

Sunday morning we were ready to drive up to the north part of Vancouver Island. Once we left the town of Campbell River, the road went down to two lanes, left the coast, and we drove into the mountains again. The sun broke out, the rain showers came, we wound our way through wilderness, the only distraction from the beauty, and snow covered ridges, were the large scars on almost every hillside from the clear cutting of timber. Reaching Port Hardy at the end of the road, it was overcast and the town was looking pretty quiet, and dreary. The ferry for Prince Rupert leaves from here every other day. We got in a day early. Today things are picking up.

We made the decision to stay one night in a local campground on the Quatse River. They had hook-ups and a shower, to prepare us for the raging wilderness after we leave the ferry! We just missed the salmon spawning in the creek across from our campsite. The day before we arrived, a bear was feeding on them. We had hoped to stay the night in the ferry lot since we need to be there at 5:30 am tomorrow. We were able to do so when we took the ferry over and back to Newfoundland last summer. No such luck here. They will lock us in the parking lot as long as we arrive before midnight and charge us $22 for the privilege. We found a few sources on the internet that mentioned parking for the night at a marina close to the terminal, so we'll check that out later. If that doesn't work, we'll part with our money!

We spent the day in the town park and visited the local fish & chips place

Tomorrow we will spend 16 hours on the ferry. We arrive in Prince Rupert at 11:30 pm. The Safeway is supposed to have free overnight parking, and the Starbucks in the Safeway is supposed to have internet. I am hoping to post this there, before we drive away to head for the Cassiar Highway on Wednesday.

Note From Greg – At 7:00 AM, we are sitting in the Safeway parking lot after a short, noisy night of sleep next to two RVs of fellow ferry passengers from Switzerland and Ontario. We are very safe, right next to the fire hall that never had a call but did a lot of fire truck moving. We found a free wifi connection from who knows where to post this blog.