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Published: August 20th 2010
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Well, we left Hope and headed north up the Fraser Canyon. We stopped off at the very quaint little town of Yale, but decided that we’re far too tight to pay $6 each to walk around a tiny little church. So we carried on and stopped instead at the (free!) Alexandra Bridge over the Fraser River, where you could see right through the bridge deck to the river below. (
Guess who was overjoyed at that one!) And then again at the Hells Gate Airtram (i.e. cable car). Yep, it really was Craig’s day!
We carried on to the Skihist Provincial Park, just outside Lytton. Lytton sits in the rain shadow of the Coastal Mountains, so it’s very hot and dry. So we made the most of it and had a lazy afternoon of sunbathing. Just as Craig was getting the chairs out of the van, a big old black bear wandered past about 30 feet away. I think they both did their best to ignore each other.
Saturday, we pushed on further north to Cache Creek, and to the Marble Canyon Provincial Park, where we had planned to spend the night. When we got there, though, we realised that
there was less to do than we had anticipated. So we carried on west to Lillooet, where we spent another afternoon soaking up the sun. Sunday we headed south west out of Lillooet, stopping briefly at Seton Lake (where we had stopped off with Mark & Isla in April on our roadtrip to the Rockies), and then again at Duffey Lake (where we had our picnic lunch in the snow-filled avalanche-risk lay-by back in April). Carrying on to Joffre Lakes, we decided to do the 12km walk up to the Upper Lake and back. This is the third time that I have been to Joffre Lakes, but the first time that I have been when the path hasn’t been closed due to the snow. Now the guidebooks say that the walk to the Upper Lake is “
challenging”. What they don’t say is that it involves scrambling across a field of boulders (well, I say “field”, but it’s a 400-metre wide field with a 45 degree slope on it), and climbing up paths that wouldn’t look out of place in the mountains of Tibet. That said, the middle and upper lakes, really were amazing. And the view of the Matier Glacier,
hanging above the upper lake was worth all the sweat-soaked effort (
too much detail?).
Returning to the van, we drove to the Nairn Falls Provincial Park to spend the night, but decide to leave the walk to the falls until Monday morning. Getting up reasonably early, we tried to walk the 4km to One Mile Lake and back first, but gave up less than 500metres from the lake, when the path turned into a slippery gravel cliff. Returning to the campground we successfully followed by the 4km trail to the Nairn Falls.
Driving south, we decided to give Whistler a miss this time (I’ll bet that shocks Mark & Isla!), and stopped instead at Brandywine Falls for a quick trip to the canyon view point. Continuing south, we got to Alice Lake Provincial Park, and completed the gentle 6km “Four Lakes Trail” to see Stump, Fawn, Ethel & Alice Lakes - all very pleasant in their own way, but I think we’ve been somewhat spoiled by the Middle & Upper Joffre Lakes.
South again from Alice Lake, we finally made it back to the (Pacific) coast - well the Howe Sound to be precise. This is possibly
my favourite part of the whole of British Columbia. A huge fjord surrounded by snowcapped mountains, and yet only 50km from Downtown Vancouver. We stopped at Porteau Cove Provincial Park for yet another laze on the beach, interspersed this time, with a couple of quick swims in the Ocean. It’s not quite as cold as the Southern Ocean of the south coast of Australia, but it can’t be far off!
Yesterday, we hotfooted it down to Horseshoe Bay to catch the ferry across to Langdale on the Sunshine Coast. The Sunshine Coast is a 150km long strip of land, that forms part of mainland British Columbia, but is only accessible by ferry (
Isla, it’s where you thought about doing the “fun run”). First impressions are that it’s a lovely place, but has a strangely isolated feel to it. Anyway, we had a slow wander around Gibsons Landing, followed by a strenuous hike up Soames Hill, before driving to the tiny little hamlet of Wilson Creek.
Today we had a walk along the seafront at Davis Bay, a trek through the rainforest at Chapman’s Creek, and a very pleasant hike to Smuggler Cove (
not a typo, apparently there was only one smuggler using this particular cove!). We then drove to the fishing village of Egmont for an hour-long walk to the Skookumchuck Narrows: another place where the tide creates rapids in one direction as it rises and the opposite direction as it ebbs. Overnight in Egmont tonight, before we catch another ferry from Earls Cove to Saltery Bay tomorrow, so that we can enjoy the last day of the Powell River Blackberry Festival! (
They have cheesecake AND fireworks apparently - ok, laugh if you must, but it’ll be us drinking blackberry wine this time tomorrow...)
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Isla
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Reckon uv been on the blackberry wine a while!
Lovin the photos - keep em coming! Be careful on the vino :-)