The Hike - Mount Gardner

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Today I woke up at 6am again, the jet lag must be getting better! We went for dinner last night at the Bowen Pub. Turned out it was 2 for 1 burgers on a Thursday so we managed to get a burger each and cokes which ended up being free refills for £13. The portion sizes were huge especially considering Steph had chips or 'fries' as they're called over here and I had 'yam fries' otherwise known in the UK as sweet potato fries. The pub was lovely and very local, everyone seemed to know each other. It was very casual and basic but the atmosphere was good. The guy on the next table was eating on his own and ordered two burgers to get his money's worth and he ate everything! We headed back to the lodge pretty early to get an early night ready for the big hike. On the way back just ahead in the road was a wild deer just stood there looking at us. This prompted a mad scramble of Steph to find her phone to take a pic!
We got up this morning early and headed out to breakfast at the local bakery. I had a Santa Fe wrap with cheese, avocado and scrambled egg with chipotle sauce and Steph had a breakfast sandwich which they messed up at first putting bacon on the sandwich but she got a free cookie out of it so all worked out well. It was actually quite funny as the lady said 'oh shit' at our table when she realised the mistake. It's that sorta place though, the island is as a whole very chilled out with a strong community spirit and so far we've experienced nothing but friendly and kind people. We got some food as takeout and some bottles of water etc and drove to a point to park the car and start the hike. We'd got specific instructions printed out as the trails can be non existent in parts and lots of people have got lost. We marked the car and immediately spotted a hiking stick which had two names on it saying to return it where it was found and the year 2013. I took it to help me on the way up. We set off excited but with lots of trepidation. As soon as we started off a guy overtook us and we only saw two people all the way up until near the top. The instructions we had, had pictures showing the forks in the trail with directions on which way to go. However within about 20 minutes we were already questioning them and trying to figure out the way. Steph was also attracting all the local mozzies and bugs! We also came across a section where the very high trees were actually creaking as if they were going to break which was a little scary, we didn't hang around long in this section! In the end we decided to just keep following the gravel path/road upwards. I figured as long as we didn't leave the path we could find our way back if needed and as long as we were going up it couldn't be the wrong way. We followed the path winding up and up along switchbacks until the gravel trail ended... There were some signs nailed onto trees with arrows showing the way. We hit a section which had some branches blocking the way but it looked the right way to go with a trail beyond the blockage, so we followed it, more on this section later. The wooded area had lots of rotten logs around and fallen trees on the forest floor. The terrain started getting a bit rougher but we carried on. We then couldn't see anymore trail markers so decided to take a break to try and figure out the right way, we then saw a piece of pink tape tied to a tree which marked the way. This happened several times so whenever we couldn't see the way we took a break and as if by magic then spotted another bit of ribbon or a marker on the tree. We decided to leave some arrows made from sticks on the floor showing the way down for later a bit like hansel and gretle! We had to go across a pretty dicey section across a log and my hiking stick came in handy! We then came across a bit of a clearing where we thought we were a bit lost, we headed towards the lighter section which led to a viewpoint with lovely views of the ocean and Vancouver Island. We were slightly concerned at this point so we're discussing where to go next when Steph let out a big gasp. It freaked me out and she was looking behind me, I shouted what what and turned to see a dog that was a bit wolf like! Turns out it was two more hikers heading up to the top with two dogs, the other was a tiny pug, God knows how it was getting up! The guy then pointed the right way out to us and we carried on for another half hour until we came to what look like the bottom of a rock face. Convinced that couldn't be the right way up we went to the right trying to find the trail only to come to an even steeper bit. Turned out the right way was up the rock face. Things were getting dicey now, Steph went up first so I could give her a push up if needed. We scrambled up on hands and knees until we came to an even steeper rock face with a rope and chain hanging down. It was at this point that a bug decided to fly right into my mouth and into the back of my throat. There I am hanging onto a rope half way up a rock face trying to cough up a bug out if my throat! It must has been on a suicide mission as I never saw it again :-( We then cracked on and didn't think too much about what we were doing before heading up. It was tough going but we persevered and made it to the top. Then there it was the summit with one helipad in view and the satellites at the top. We were so pleased that we had made it and were extremely pleased with ourselves. We took a few photos before the hiking couple and their dogs turned up. We relaxed on the helipad in the blistering sunshine and ate our lunch and had a drink. We then wandered around the summit and found the other wooden helipad and took some more photos. The views were unbelievable and we felt we were almost on top of the world! Once we'd had lunch and taken the photos we wanted we headed back down after seeing one more guy who was a French national who had lived in Canada for 9 years at the top. He soon overtook us on the way down. The descent down the rock face was very dicey but we took our time and made it down fine. We seemed to see more trail markers on the way down and passed four more hikers on their way up. We followed the markers and realised we had cut out the dicey log section and then found ourselves as the end of the gravel road right where the way was blocked. Turns out we'd gone the wrong way at that point on the way up and completely missed the big trail marker nailed to the tree to the left showing the trail! Once on the gravel road we followed it down and down and it felt like it was going on forever. We were both very tired by this point and were almost stumbling down towards the end. Then there it was, the car! We'd done it!! It took us about 4 hours to make it to the top and 2 hours to make it down. We were both very pleased we'd made it and jumped in the car to drive to the nearest shop for a cool drink before heading back to the lodge for a well deserved cold beer! The weather has been beautiful today and whilst I've been typing this the news has just reported that its been recorded temperatures today for this time of year - 28 degrees. Thank god we were in the shade of the trees a lot of the time! Back at the lodge we've both had showers and a nice lie down before trying to figure out where to go for dinner.

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