Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Second posting of our trip

Sunday May 24, 2009

Today we took a trip to Victoria: first to see how long it would take us to get there from our campsite as we were planning to go on a train trip to Courtenay which left Victoria at 8 am. during a succeeding day. Secondly, we went to visit the Royal British Columbia Museum. Lucille (our TomTom GPS) took us directly to the train station located downtown but it was closed and would not open again until the next morning 7 am. Hence, we were not able to ask questions or book our trip as we had hoped. (But we did book our trip online in the evening to make sure we did get a seat on the train). We then went for our planned trip to the museum, which is very nice but also very expensive in my opinion.

We left the museum around 3:30 pm and now had to kill some time as Leo wanted to wait for the train to return so he could take some pictures of it. Our planned outing on it is a 10 hour round trip and we figured the train would arrive around 6 pm. Not so. On Sunday’s it leaves at 10 in the morning and comes back at 8 in the evening. So we had more time to kill. We decided to have our supper, one of Mexican food (in a restaurant which had not even burned down!). After we finished and walked around a bit we still had to wait for at least an hour before the train arrived. We killed some further time checking out a miniatures store close by which had fantastic doll houses and all the accessories one might possibly wish for one. A picture of this is to be found elsewhere in our blog.
Finally the train arrived: a 2 car passenger set and that was all. Leo got to take his pictures and back we went to our trailer and almost straight to bed.


Monday May 25 to Friday May 29, 2009

Today we packed up and moved to one of our favourite campgrounds on the Island - French Beach Provincial Park. But first we stopped and did some grocery shopping in the town of Sooke. Leo drove around the campground at least 3 times to find the ‘perfect’ spot to camp. And he did, in a very private spot with lots of afternoon sun. French Beach is a campground with very tall trees and most camp spots do not see much sun shine at all so this was a decided bonus. After we set up the trailer we had a nice walk on the beach and I almost fell asleep sitting on a log it was so nice. There was wind but when one was sheltered from it the sun was hot. It was a nice start to our stay at the almost empty campground. Its emptiness now was in stark contrast to its being fully occupied on the preceding Friday when we had first tried to get a spot in it.

Tuesday started out with rain so we stayed at the trailer and did some catching up on our reading. By afternoon the sun came out and again we took a stroll along the beach. I got a free ‘hot rock’ treatment by finding a sheltered spot on the rocks to rest on. It was another perfect day.

Wednesday we visited some old favourite locations like Jordan River and Port Renfrew. Things here have changed from when we were here last 20+ years ago. The only service station past Sooke at Jordan River had closed and so had the snackbar we ate at many times with the kids. The road to Port Renfrew is now totally paved and the town is growing, with lots of new development in evidence. We were going to go to China Beach but had a quick look to see if we could go to Botanical Beach instead. They had improved the trail (and trail markers) tremendously so we decided to try it. It was a very nice walk and Botanical Beach was still as pristine as we left it those 20 some years ago. Unfortunately it was high tide so Leo did not get too many pictures. Next we drove to China Beach campground, which is a brand new campground and also to the start of the Juan de Fuca Marine trail which is a 47 km trail along the coast to Port Renfrew. It is similar to the West Coast trail but you do not have to book your time here as yet.
Then it was back to our trailer we went, where we had a nice fire and went to bed early, as the next day we had to get up early to take our train ride to Courtenay, BC, with the train leaving at 8 am.

Thursday we got up at 5:30 am to go to Victoria to board our train. Again it was a nice sunny day and we sat on the train ALL day. We got off at Courtenay for a 20 minute stop over. The scenery at times was worth the train ride for sure. We got back to Victoria around 6 pm and drove home for supper. The next morning we would be moving on again.


Friday May 29 to Wednesday June 3, 2009

Friday - Today was our day to move on to the Comox area. The first part of the trip was very stressful with all the traffic around Victoria and Nanaimo: certainly not a pleasant drive. After Parksville the traffic started to thin out and slow down. and the trip became much more pleasant. The Victoria area is not one I would want to retire to, for sure. We stopped at the Courtenay information Centre to ask about campgrounds. Past Parksville there are not too many Provincial Park campsites any more, but they directed us to a very nice private campsite. It was very open with only 5 or so spots taken. We had our pick again for the perfect spot. By this time the day temperature had shot up to 27 degrees so it started to get hot here. After we set up our trailer we did some grocery shopping again and had a nice quiet meal at the trailer.

Saturday - The lady at the visitor centre told us we ought to go to the Farmer’s Market in the morning. So we did, and came home with Klaas, a 20 cm tall blue spruce tree grown from seed, with Tiny and Tim, 2 Tiny Tim tomato plants, and with 2 more small plants for in my garden at home. I know! How stupid can we get when we have 4 more weeks of vacation time left? In the afternoon we went for a very nice bike ride around Courtenay and back to Super Store to buy a roasted chicken for supper.

Sunday - We did not do much in the morning. Well actually we did not do much all day, as Leo was reading a book and had to finish it: Little Dorritt by Charles Dickens. This was a first for me to see Leo not being able to put down his book, and besides that it was a first for me to see Leo read a fiction type book. But he did finish it that afternoon and we again went for a bike ride to Goose Spit Regional Park: a park where people go for picnics, campfires and just walks along the beach.

Monday - Today we took the bus to the nearby town of Cumberland and rode our bikes back. I won’t go into much detail, which your imagination is free to fill in as you may like, but I got home before Leo and had to call him on the cell phone to let him know I was home already. I do have to mention the fantastic local transportation system they have here. They have buses going to all small surrounding towns on a regular schedule. All the buses have bike racks up front for 2 bikes so if it gets too hilly you can hop the bus and ride back. I am most impressed with the system! While we were out on our bike trip the campground filled with a group of cyclists for a ‘hub and spoke’ event. This is were daily biking tours are planned for the participants to different locations within the area, but each day’s trip originates at the same spot, namely our campground. This group was for those 55 years and over, with many of them into their 70s and still sleeping in tents.

Tuesday - We had heard from participants from the cycling group that there would be a trip going to Denman and Hornby Islands with at total distance cycled of about 92 km. This would be riding from the campground and back. To do this tour you did have to take 2 ferries so we decided to drive to the first ferry, and cut of 22 km both ways from our trip. Well the ferry ride was fine but for some reason they forgot to flatten the islands before I came so we had to tackle quite a hill coming off the first ferry and also going across the island to the next ferry. I admit I had to walk up some of the hills as they were just too much for me to bike up. But we did do the tour: first Denman Island and then Hornby Island. It was a very nice day but I had a very sore behind by the time we got back to our trailer. Leo did yeoman duty each night after out cycling trips in massaging it, however. Wednesday was going to be a REST day.


Wednesday June 3 to Saturday June 6, 2009
It was time to pack up again and go on close to the tip of Vancouver Island, the town of Port Hardy. Yes the good road stops in Port Hardy. From here on you either travel by boat or swim. Driving to Port Hardy was a total different experience. We took a very scenic route, highway 19A, to Campbell River and from there on there is only one road to Port Hardy. It is a very quiet road with only trees on either side: no houses, no signs, no side roads, no nothing. Some logging roads are be found at times but that is all. We did enjoy the drive very much though and just loved the ruggedness of the area. When we got to Port Hardy we visited the Visitor Centre and were served by a lady raised in High River. It is amazing how many people you meet here who have lived in Alberta and moved here, all of them swearing they will never go back again. We checked out some campsites and ended up at the Quatse River campsite: a very nice campground with the basic rule - no food of any kind out in the open due to the generous presence of black bears in the area. We even had to dump our sink waste water in the sewer dump. The campground is associated with a fish hatchery and when we toured it we were told that in the fall the salmon swim back up the river to spawn and the bears also come and fish for them. This means for us that we will have to come back in the fall sometime and watch the salmon and the bears feasting on them. Apparently the preceding September there were a group of 7 bears which were eating salmon in this fashion right beside our camp spot. After we set up our trailer and had a bite to eat we went to Coal Harbour and saw our first black bear: right along the road eating some horsetail plants. We stopped with the bear right beside my window, but what Leo called ``some local yokels`` drove by, honked their horn, and the bear took off before we had a chance to take any pictures. But it was our first sighting of many to come.
Thursday - We tried to go the Cape Scott Park which is supposed to be just beautiful, and in which there is a wheelchair accessible trail to the beach. To get there you have to take a logging road and before we left we talked to the campground manager who warned us that we have to make sure we have a spare tire and also that ``tire stuff`` you can spray into your tire to fix a flat if needed. We said we would give it a try anyway and that we could always turn back if the road became too rough. The road started off fine but after a while we ended up on pieces of very coarse rock with sharp edges, such that we decided to turn around. We were not even half way there. And they advertise a wheelchair accessible trail at the end? Go figure! Instead we went to town and strolled along the harbour and beach. After supper we went to Storey Beach to watch the sunset and had another nice walk along the beach. Leo had some fun photographing a heron which would fly away every time Leo was ready to take his picture. Then it was back to the trailer after a very nice hot sunny day.

Friday - Friday we visited the Fish hatchery and took a long walk in the forest along the Quatse river and the Estuary. Following this we returned to the trailer for a warm lunch and then drove to Port Alice to watch the sun set again. It was a very nice drive on a paved road, and we had another bear sighting again on this trip of course.

You will find images of many of our visit sites in the photo album of this blog, with the link to this accessible in the left column.