+3000kms and 14 days later...

So we've just completed our massive road trip...phew! two weeks in a new place every night is hard work! not to mention all the stuff we've been doing as well...we went a bit round about in places, check the map of our journey here. I will now attempt to give you a blow by blow account...

Day 1

Leave our beloved Fernie...we know she wanted us to stay by breaking our trusty lil car but lil car fought back and got us on the go again...some final pics with the Forsters home and the hill that provided us with so many fun times throughout the winter, now looking pretty bare...

  

We headed through Golden and into the hills of the Yoho National Park to a place calledCathedral Mountain Lodge where we  splurged for the night and had a beautiful log cabin with all the trimmings and a gourmet dinner under the shadow of cathedral mountain and Big Hill that contains the infamous spiral tunnels as well as numerous ex-mines and the Kicking Horse Pass. Mum, I am so taking you to this place when you eventually come over...soooo nice...

 

 

our log cabin, kicking horse river, inside the log cabin, us with cathedral mtn (note: the crazy huge glacier sitting up there...prolly 10 metre high ice sheet...)

Day 2

Hiked up the 'Walk in the past' short trail close to the lodge to an abandoned rail engine used to build the Spiral tunnels. Also hiked to Wapta Falls and visited the natural bridge and beautiful Emerald Lake. That afternoon we pressed on to the beginnings of Banff National Park and the Icefields Parkway stopping at one of the only hotels along the road at Saskatchewan Crossing.

l-r from top: part of the spiral tunnel railway, a victorious Hiker Khan with the dead engine, natural bridge, cool sign and emerald lake, Wapta falls

 

Day 3

After tossing and turning in pain most of the night due to my knee doing something weird and not wanting to function properly during one of the hikes on day 2 we started off slowly towards the Columbia Icefields. All looked a bit different to the last time we went through there 2 years and 1 month (almost exactly) ago. More snow had melted and we actually could see a little bit of blue of the infamous blue lake, Peyto Lake.

After Peyto Lake was the Columbia Icefields and the amazing Athabascar Glacier, can't tell much difference between the amount of ice melt in 2 years but the photos from 1884 tell all...

  

That day we drove and drove, through Jasper, watched a moose cross a river on a back road, and ventured off the beaten path towards Whistler and through some amazing red, dry, canyon country where we stopped at a tiny town called Lilloet. Our first night camping and we were ready to get out the tent and start pitching it when we realised the space set aside for tenting had been enveloped by the swollen river...there was one tent down there, precariously close to the flood waters but we weren't willing to wake up floating down the river with the uprooted trees...

 

moose x-ing, lilloet camping

Day 4

More driving...Lilloet to Squamish,  had a leisurely brunch with Matty (ex-Acumenite) in Squamtown then meandered onto the ferry at Horseshoe Bay bound for Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Nanaimo was nothing to write home about, more of a town to stop at to get yr shit together for venturing off into other areas of the Island. The highlight of Nanaimo would've been the ultra greasy dinner at Pirate chips where it's all pirate themed and they'll deep fry any chocolate bar you bring in...the fried ice cream with it's filo pastry outside was goooood...

Day 5

Off to Tofino. 

Short stop at an old growth forest where some of the trees were over 600 years old. A massive wind storm came through in the 70's and knocked down some of the giants but the forest grows on...

 

Tofino is the slightly less developed Byron Bay of Canada, which, due to the rain meant we found ourselves in a small cheap hotel room. Of course, as we're spoilt aussies the beaches just don't cut it here...littered with seaweed and driftwood and grayish brown sand, not really the nicest place...but the tourists (and Canadians) still seem to love it...

found an awesome little shop where I HAD to buy a giclee print of Juli Adams. Can't find the print we bought in her gallery or on the web anywhere, so you'll have to see it on the wall of our new house.

Day 6

Drove from Tofino to Campbell River as we had to be close to the ferry for the next morning...stopped at a few nice places along the way and had lunch at a strange european place on the river in a town with a name I can't remember...wierd lunch...

Day 7

Awesome day...We got up early, as you do when yr camping...and headed over to Quadra Island on the ferry for an island breakfast and then a full day of kayaking...woot!

A german/italian couple joined us and our guide Jane with another guide-in-training, Mich.

We had big sea kayaks that as well as turning using the paddle had a little rudder that you controlled with foot peddles...oh how unco did I feel for the first half hour... 

We paddled in and around Quadra Island and a few of the smaller islands around Quadra, one with a small seal colony on it, seals are the cutest things! They would come about 3 metres from the kayak, stick just their eyes out of the water and watch you as you glided past...

Had a picnic lunch on a beach and then did more paddling, this time closer to the shore. We came across this guy who was practicing Greenland style kayaking which involves a paddle shaped like a plank and lots of crazy rolling in the water, we're talking 360's here, through the water...couldn't believe this guy...

After a tiring day of paddling we headed off Quadra and back to Van Island to head south towards Victoria, ended up in Rathtrevor beach Provincial Park where we kept getting woken up by animals walking around outside the tent, deer, geese, rabbits, squirrels, luckily no bears...decided to leave the indian dinner leftovers in the car just in case...

    

Day 8

Sore backs from paddling! Ouchie! So the best way to alleviate that? Mini golf of course! There are so many mini golf places around Van island! there was 2 in the small town we found this one, totally sculpted from concrete and metal but with a cartoon seaside theme...funnn...

 

 After mini-golf we headed down south, taking back roads where we could and generally going the long way as the island is fairly small it's only maybe 1-2 hours to most places. 

Got to Victoria and went straight to a place I'd been wanting to head to as soon as I picked up the brochure that looked like it had been created (and not updated) since the 70's. Miniature World! It had to be good, I love mini things, always have always will, mini pencils, mini tea sets, mini bibles intrigues me to no end! Anyways this place was RAD! a tourist trap but yes was worth every cent...lucky we made it in before 2 buses turned up...check out this creepy dad and the cool circus scenes, they went from day to night...

  

After Mini World we met up with Matty again and then rallied up Elise (who we met originally in Japan) and went on an interesting but freezing (due to the wind) ghost tour and then dinner at a hip tibetan/fusion cuisine place which was noice...crashed out early at Matt's noice harbour view pad as we'd been going since 6am (blame the camping...)

Day 9

Had a leisurely breakfast at a local diner then headed out on the road with Elise as she hadn't been anywhere on Vancouver Island apart from Victoria. Lots of driving, a nice lunch at a fancy place overlooking the straight complete with complimentary binoculars and more of the non- beach beaches...

  

couldn't resist this park name..., some sculpture on the beach, elise and I with a friendly bear

Decided to camp the night at another provincial park just outside of Victoria. 

Day 10 

Woke up to the very confusing sound of a train...we had no idea but there was a train line that ran right beside the park where we were camped...the campgrounds here are really nice, they're HUGE, we're talking hundreds of sites and are set out very well allowing you a fair bit of privacy from the campers next door, but as it wasn't very busy we were never really next door to anybody, yay for off season traveling! Went for a hike around and aboot checking out a waterfall and an old mine (which was open and if we had torches I sooo would've gone in there...)

 

waterfall, this is about 15kms from the city centre of Victoria, around the campground, massive slugs are everywhere on the island, including ones that apparently, if you like it, will numb your mouth and tounge as they have an anaesthetic on their backs. A shaft for an old gold mine. An average BC forest beautiful, mossy and green...

My knee struck back and made me a cripple for the afternoon so I got to miss out on the TreeGo course when we met Matt at Wild Play element park just out of Nanaimo.  The course consisted of ziplines, balancing bridges, nets, climbing walls and all sorts of other obtsacles through the 100 year old trees at an increasing level of hardness culminating in a 200 metre zipline. Looked like lots of fun and I was bummed I couldn't do it but was the official photographer. 

Day 11

After letting my knee recover in a hotel in Parksville for the night we decided to try caving at Horne Lake provincial park...neat-o! I never realised that yr barely ever in pure darkness and when you are, your brain makes up for it and you can see your hands in front of your face or the shoes on yr feet but really you can't..., we saw some pretty cool rock formations including a buddha, winnie the pooh and piglet too and rocks called ice cream, butterscotch and a wolf thrown in for good measure...see the buddah below...

Cave moss and buddah (click it to zoom in)

I wanted to do the 4 hour tour which involved a bit of rock climbing but as it was off season we were lucky to get  a 3 hour tour, however we had a good gide who took us places they didn't usually take tours...woot!

After the funness of being in the dark searching for fossils and sliding over wet rocks we were a little toasted as we forgot to have lunch...ended up in a nice treey and green campground at Miracle Beach just past the ferry we needed to catch the next day.

Day 12

Perhaps the worst luck day of our trip...We missed the 10am ferry and there wasn't another until 3pm as we didn't know the timetable (only to find a copy of it in the glovebox later...doh!) so we faffed around in this tiny town had an awesome truffle from the local chocolatier, khan had a haircut at the local barbers and we went and waited early for the next ferry. Got on it, went to the only campground in Powell River, a little town that has a hidden town centre...annoyingly enough we were allocated a site that was completely uneven, was basically just dirt and leaf litter and it pissed down that night, so realy bad sleep, then woke up and soldiered off to the showers only to find they were paid showers! What the hell do you pay for?!? Of course we only had enough change for one, it started raining again and putting down the tent in a stormy mood vowed we'd never return to that shitty place and advise anybody not to go there...moving on...

Day 13

Getting around the Sunshine Coast, you need to take a series of ferries, from Powell River we had to catch a ferry to Earl's Cove where we headed straight to Egmont and hoped we'd luck it and get there as the tide was turning. Came across some angry squirrels that stood their tree and barked at us in cranky squidgel and started the hike to the Skookumchuk Narrows which has a weird tidal occurence that can create waves of up to 2 metres. Unfortunately we missed it by an hour but it still looked pretty damn ferocious. Apparently kayakers love to battle the waves and it's a top spot to come.

 

From here we drove onto Gibsons and on the way managed to see a rare sight, a black bear! Was a fairly small one and had just crossed the road and was trying to scramble up a nearly vertical dirt bank. Was quite a comical scene but one thing we've learnt about bears whilst being here is that you have to keep yr distance and not stop to take photos so we kept rolling on...

Day 14

Caught the final ferry back to Horseshoe Bay and made it it into Vanschmoozer. Had a few hours to kill so went and caught the new Indiana Jones movie, worth a watch...some corny parts but I think that's inherent in an Indy film. Moved into our stinky pad (why do people still use mothballs for christs sake?!?)for the last couple of days in Canada. 

So the stats: 3000+kms, 6 nights spent in a tent, 5 hikes accomplished, every night in a different place, numerous Provincial Parks and National Parks visited, caved, 1/2 treego'd, sea kayaked seen squirrels, moose, deer, and a bear and spent lots of money but we had an awesome time and frankly, that's all that matters!

Canada and specifically British Columbia is such a beautiful and vast place, we've been so many places and seen so many things and barely scratched the surface! Fernie still has my heart though...we'll be back, hopefully sooner rather than later!

Ok, I think I've written enough...hope I haven't bored you too much...if yr in Aus, we get into Brisvegas on the 10th and will start moving south after then...might see ya soon eh? or should I say ay?