Okanagan to Ocean

We have been travelling for 3 weeks now and it feels like time has gone by so quickly! We have gotten into a good rhythm for packing, planning, and travelling, and, knock on wood, everything has gone very smoothly. After some initial concerns about space/packing the car, we have developed a very efficient system – each bag and item has its home in the car.

We are officially done the camping portion of the trip (according to Mel) but have continued to make good use of the cooler and the Coleman stove (best $50 we’ve spent!). Buying our food in grocery stores has really helped cut down on costs and helps with healthier meals and we have been able to use our stove in some places where we don’t have access to a kitchen.

We spent the last week working our way across BC - Kelowna, Summerland, Lytton, Nimpo Lake, Bella Coola, and just now arrived on Vancouver Island in Port Hardy.

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Kelowna

After a week of camping, we were very excited to see our very good friends John and Christine in Kelowna for an extended long weekend. The boys enjoyed spending time with their son Cade (2) and Gus (dog) and played multiple games of the board game “Life”. We also spent a day at Scandia with go-karts, batting cages, mini-golf, and arcades. We won 500 tickets and purchased a whoopi cushion (of course). The next day we went for a hike to see the trestles with some incredible views of the valley. Overall, it was so nice to just feel at home for a few days – it was a great chance to relax and recharge as well as taking care of a few planning items (travel planning, cleaning and certifying the car, etc.)

Before heading out to Lytton, we met up with the Hills (Nick and Jehanne), family friends, who had recently travelled for a year around the world – they gave us tonnes of great advice (thanks again guys!). It was great meeting up with them and the kids made fast friends with their kids (10, 8, 6, and 6 months) and ended the night with a huge group hug!

Lytton

It seems as though BC is plagued by forest fires, drought, and flooding – if it isn’t one, it’s the other. We saw quite a bit of smoke in Kelowna, and on our way to Lytton, we had to take a slight detour since Hwy 8 was washed out between Merritt and Lytton. In Lytton, we arrived at Kumsheen Rafting at around 5 pm and got the tent set-up with a beautiful view of the canyon walls across the river. Being later in the season, there were very few other people at the resort. The boys kept themselves entertained with horseshoes, cornhole, volleyball, and giant chess.

The next morning we had a big breakfast at the restaurant before heading out for a 6 hour ride down the legendary Thompson River. We were the only people on the boat along with our trusty guide, Taija. We started out on some gentler sections on the upper part of the river before stopping for a nice shore lunch at the halfway point (make you own burritos – delicious!). This is where things got real. After lunch, we hit the Devil’s Gorge. With rapid names like “the Devil’s Kitchen”, “the Terminator”, “Jaws of Death”, and “the Bus-Eater”, these were anything but gentle. On one wave, our ~20’ boat dropped into a trough of equal depth before smashing into a towering standing wave. As we were flying through the air – Mackenzie got knocked off his seat and went flying into the middle of the raft. He was a bit shaken up, but unscathed. All in we did about 40 sets of rapids and got a healthy soaking from the river. Luckily it was a beautiful sunny day and we managed to stay warm until the last part of the river until the wind started picking up.

We returned to the resort and made beeline to the hot tub. A delicious dinner of fresh caught Coho salmon and rosemary potatoes, and off we went to sleep in our teepee.

One of the more interesting things about BC, is that everywhere you go there are railroads. Our teepee was located right at the edge of the Thompson River. On either side of the river there are railroad tracks. The trains run all day and night, and although they are very loud, they become white noise after a while (although at one point in the night I was jolted awake as a train passed by on our side of the river – it sounded like the train was coming right through the teepee!).

We learned that the tracks on one side of the river were owned by CPR and the tracks on the other side were owned by CNR – for over a hundred years, they operated in fierce competition without sharing any of the infrastructure. In 2000, they decided to share the lines such that all trains on one side of the river would go eastbound and on the other westbound (previously trains would have to stop and wait for opposing traffic).

All in all, such a great experience at Kumsheen – thanks again to Dave and Emily for hooking us up!!

Nimpo Lake

We hit the road early in preparation for a long drive - ~8 hours to Nimpo Lake. We could have pushed to Bella Coola, but I am glad that we made the stop a few hours earlier in Nimpo. After a stop in Williams Lake to get gas, food, booze, and lunch, we headed west. We stayed at Stewart’s Lodge, a fishing lodge, where they have float planes to take people out fishing and sightseeing. We stayed in a cozy log cabin with a fireplace. We taught the boys cribbage and they seem to have taken a liking to it – they especially like calling “muggins” on each other.

Bella Coola

Bella Coola, or “Beautiful Cool” in English, turns out to be a popular place in September. We found this out when we started to search for accommodation during our stop in Kelowna. The reason it is so popular is that people come from all over to see the grizzly bears fishing for salmon in the river. After trying 10 or so places, we were fortunate to find a room with a shared kitchen at Rainforest Accommodations. The building was constructed out of large slabs of cedar and was in the middle of a very quiet forest.

On our way to the lodge, we stopped off at the Belarko bear viewing platform – this is a small area on the side of the river with electric fences and park wardens with radios that walk you from the parking lot to the gate (grizzlies will occasionally pop out of the forest out of nowhere. Unfortunately, we arrived on a slow day, and didn’t see any bears – we did see plenty of salmon making their way upriver. The ranger suggested that we come back from 5 to 7 pm. Sure enough we did and we were able to spot a mama grizzly and her cub down the river (we also spotted a couple of black bears on the drive there). They were making there way upriver towards us when a larger male was spotted further down river. The mama and the cub crossed the river and then bolted once they spotted the male (males will sometimes kill the cubs in order to reproduce with the female).

I was able to capture a photo on my iPhone of the bear (left) and used some photo enhancement technology to digitally zoom into a close up of the bear (right).*

* okay, my kids thought it would be funny if I took a picture of one of the real pictures from the books at the Belarko viewing station.

The next day we did a great hike on the Burnt Bridge trail that led to a suspension bridge over a river. I was happy to start seeing some large trees – some Douglas Fir and some smaller (relatively) Western Red Cedar. I have been craving to see some massive trees. We had looked at doing a tour to see a gigantic red cedar (5.5 meters diameter), but it was only accessible by boat, and would cost likely $400 to $500 to take a 2-hour tour to get there. I mentioned this to one of the guests at our lodge and she told me that there was a trail about 5 minutes down the road from us with some old growth cedars. We drove down this little bumpy road, and sure enough we had found the “giant cedar trail”. I have seen so many photos of these trees but seeing them in person was just amazing – as Mel said – I was in my “happy place” amongst all these giant towering trees.

Ferry to Port Hardy

We woke up at 4:30 am this morning to drive to the ferry terminal. We are currently on a 10-hour ferry ride through the inner channel on our way to Port Hardy at the top of Vancouver Island. We were lucky enough to spot some humpback whales and orcas on the way.

We plan to spend the next week or so on the Island and in an around Victoria. Should be fun!!