Today was all about driving. And trees. And 80s music.
As we packed the night before, it was an easy start this morning. Whilst I got the car brought around and loaded up, Laura went over the road to get us some breakfast, which today consisted of a berry & oatmeal muffin, lemon bread and banana bread. Yum.
Vancouver was still thick with smoke and we could both feel it in our throats and eyes. As we drove north out of the city over the Lionsgate suspension bridge we couldn’t see Grouse Mountain, so it was lucky that we’d seen it the day before.
We arrived at the ferry terminal in Horseshoe Bay exactly one hour before our ferry was due to depart for Vancouver Island. As we knew we wanted to be on the road quite early, we reserved our place on the ferry months ago, so we simply paid at the booth and parked up in lane 2.
In the queue we wrote the blog post for the day before and listened to music on the Jeep’s sirius satellite radio. At one point, Laura braved the 10 lanes of queueing cars and froggered her way over to the toilets.
At this point a tannoy told everyone to get back in their vehicles as boarding was about to start, so Laura hurried back and we sat in the car for another 5 minutes until we had the excitement of driving onto the ferry. Weeeeee!
On the ferry Laura continued to write the blog whilst sipping a cup of tea and I explored the upper deck. The mainland was barely visible through the smoke.
The ferry crossing took 90 minutes, but eventually we arrived at Departure Bay – which is surely only a good name for a port 50% of the time, right?
If we took the main road up the island, Telegraph Cove would be a 4 hour drive, but we followed the coast road for a more scenic route and added about an hour to the journey. The smoke started to clear a bit as we headed west, but it took a long time.
At a small store we loaded up on drinks and snacks for the long drive ahead of us.
We drove through places with names like Bowser, Courtney, Qualicum Beach and Fanny Bay (hehe). At Qualicum Beach we stopped for a wee.
Eventually the small towns become more sparse and for the last 150km it was just us, the car, the road and lots and lots of trees. Big trees, tall trees, thin trees, thick trees. Trees as far as the eye could see.
Laura tried to photograph the scene but it was difficult to do it justice. Imagine a long, straight grey road with a yellow line down the centre receding off into the distance. Next to the highway, trees so tall that they dwarfed even the occasional car that passed us heading the opposite way.
We played a game of leapfrog with a group of old guys on loud bikes that chugged deeply every time they overtook us, shirts flapping in the wind.
After a couple of hours we turned off the highway and down a road towards Telegraph Cove. On the way we went past Beaver Cove where thousands of logs arrive each week to be sorted and floated into barges, ready to be towed to sawmills and paper factories.
Finally we drove down a hill and arrived at Telegraph Cove. Hurrah! It’s a very small place in the middle of nowhere, but it’s got lots of character.
Whilst Laura went back to the room and had a shower and got changed, I wandered over to North Island Kayak and introduced myself. They were expecting us (hurrah!) and they gave me a packing list and some dry bags so we could pack our gear ahead of the 8.30am start the next day.
After I’d got changed we went over to The Old Saltery Pub – which as it’s name implies is the old salmon saltery – and got some dinner. Laura had a fisherman’s platter and I had a bison burger, which were both delicious.
Back at the room we packed our dry bags. The larger one for overnight things that we’d need at camp (pyjamas, toothbrush, warm clothes) and the smaller one for things we might need on the water (hat, sunglasses, camera). Packing was a little bit tricky because of the limited space, the necessity to favour synthetic clothing over cotton and the worry that things might get ruined by water! We managed it though.
By this time the sun was low in the sky so we went out to watch the sunset. We wandered around to the end of the boardwalk and sat on a bench overlooking Johnstone Strait. It was a bit chilly but the sun was still quite strong and kept us warm (mostly).
The sunset was lovely and as we were getting ready to walk back, a family of otters swam into the cove and entertained us. They were very cute.
It's Mater from Cars! Zach will love that pic!!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photos as ever Johnson! :)