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Ok, so the mosquitoes weren't
actually sixty foot tall: but they were BIG. And there were lots of them. But more of that later...
Well, when I last made a blog entry we were just about to visit Prince Rupert, on a wet and misty May morning. To be honest, it felt more like February than May. It's an ok-ish sort of place. Definitely geared up to the cruise ship audiences that frequent its shores.
We left there last Sunday, and started our epic journey east. On the way from Prince Rupert we stopped at Butze Rapids, where the sea and a salt-water lake conspire on the tides to turn a narrow channel into a raging river. Westbound rapids as the tide goes out and eastbound as the tide comes in. Well, I thought it was interesting at any rate...
From there we headed up the Skeena River. Quick stop at Diana Lake, and then at Exchamisiks River before getting to Terrace and our overnight stop at Lakelse Lake (lovely place) about 20km south of town.
Monday we headed further east, calling in briefly at the Kleanza Creek and Gorge, before carrying on: missing any kind of
Butze Rapids
Tide going out sign for the Devil's Elbow or the Seven Sisters' Provincial Parks (
we are beginning to suspect that the Canadian cartographers put these places on the map as some kind of sick joke...). We did manage to find Seeley Lake -
ok, it's right by the highway, so it would have been somewhat difficult to miss - and we also managed to squeeze in a brief stop at the Hagwilget Bridge in New Hazelton. Imagine Craig's delight as we walked across the bridge and he realised that you could see straight through the metal floor to the seething waters 300 feet below him. He was so happy, in fact, that he sang a little tune to himself and stared at the sky as he walked gingerly across the bridge. And back again.
We carried on to the Kathlyn Galcier, just outside of Smithers. And this is where we made our first mistake. Now who would have thought that just because it was a hot, sunny day, and the previous two days had been wet, and we were in the mountains of Northern BC in early June, that the mosquitoes would have been out in force? Obviously, not us, as we
decided to walk (in T-shirts and shorts, and with no insect repellent) the 2km up to the Twin Falls viewing platform. OK, we've learned that lesson now. And we each have about 100 little red reminders over our arms, legs, necks and heads, just in case we forget again in a hurry.
Overnight at the Tyhee Lake Provincial Park (nice showers, shame about the views - or lack of them). And then further east though the lake district to Fraser Lake, via Burns Lake & Babine Lake (
Interesting Fact: At 177 km Babine Lake is the longest, natural, fresh-water lake in British Columbia - see, all this, and educational too!). On the way, we had a festival of wildlife. We saw a wolf, a bear and its two cubs, an elk, and then another bear. This last bear was considerate enough to linger by the side of the road sufficiently long for me to take a lovely photo of the grass it was hiding in.
Wednesday we pushed further east to Prince George. Now, naively, we assumed that the biggest town in Northern BC would have RV parks aplenty. Again, how foolish were we? They have 7. And
the closest to town is 6km away. So we amended our planned two-day visit and instead just wandered round the town in the afternoon (it's much smaller than we thought) and on Thursday morning, we got on our bikes and did a 12km cycle along the Cranbrook Hill Greenway through the forest on the outskirts of Prince George.
We left town around lunchtime and started to head back west. Having completed our 725 km journey from Prince Rupert to Prince George, we now need to retrace our route back 480 km to Kitwanga, so that we can turn north on Highway 37 and begin our 750 km journey to the Yukon. We spent last night at Paarens Beach Provincial Park, just outside of Fort St James: and tonight we're back in Smithers. Looking out over the Kathlyn Glacier again, and laughing nonchalantly about all those d*** mosquitoes that bit us four days ago... Ahhh, these are the days.
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lynne
non-member comment
those mosquitoes
I can not resist, "TOLD YOU SO"