Three Vancouver Island Adventures - Part I

In the past two weeks we've had three grand adventures: a day cruise on the MV Uchuck III; kayaking on Quadra Island; and an overnight to Tofino.

The MV Uchuck III From Gold River to Friendly Cove

The Uchuck III is a freight boat that delivers to small ports all along the Nootka Sound, on the west side of the island. For a reasonable fee you can travel with her to various destinations, depending on the day.

About half way through the route a small boat pulled up alongside the moving ship to receive a shipment of bait. The crew threw four boxes over to the driver and his two kids. 

They allow dogs on the Uchuck III so Kona came along and made lots of friends.

Above is the hold cover, which while moving many passengers used as a sun deck.

This is the captain and his dog on the bridge, or the wheel house. The crew were all very friendly and welcoming. They don't make you feel like you're in the way, which makes sense because the passengers basically keep the boat in business I think.

We chose one of her shorter routes, to Friendly Cove, a very small outpost of one the tribes of aboriginal people here. (There are something like fourteen tribes on the island alone, all with long and unfamiliar names and I'm sorry but I don't know them.) 

They host visitors to the cove, run a little campground, and give tours of the old church there and other places if requested.

The old Spanish Catholic church looks pretty typical outside, but the inside is very different:

This carving along with four totem poles now inhabit the church.

A cemetery on the cove, with both Christian and aboriginal markers.

The day was beautiful, and so was the scenery from beginning to end. 

Along the route there were places where the fog rolled over the water and land masses. 

The snow capped mountains were always just over the closest hills as we traveled 

along the Nootka Sound to the sea. 

After about six hours we pulled back into the port of Gold River, with it's fishing boats and its aerodrome (what they call an airport for sea planes around here).

Next Part II: kayaking on Quadra Island.

In Our Neighborhood

As I've not been able to keep up with all the things we've been doing and seeing, (slow connections) I thought I'd just share a few of my favorite pictures taken just walking distance from our campsite. There is a lovely trail along the Georgia Strait, down to the Oyster River, that we've been walking almost every day. It passes through reedy wetlands, deciduous and coniferous forests, meadows, farmland, dunes, and ends at the estuary. We see eagles almost every time, along with herons, harlequin ducks, Canada geese, flickers, gulls, spotted towhee, white-winged scoters and more. It's a birder's paradise and if I knew more of the little flitters I'd tell you what they were.

Above is the wetlands, and below is the Oyster River, where Kona likes to swim. These photos were all taken in the evening, so they have that magical light effect.

In the woods there are these small lilies, much like tiger lilies, but with much smaller blossoms.

We see lots of container barges along the Strait, and cruise ships once or twice a week.  This looks like we're in Alaska doesn't it? We've been having beautiful clear weather and get great views like this one of the mountains on mainland British Columbia.

Tomorrow we are going for an overnight trip to the west coast of Vancouver Island, to the beach towns of Tofino and Ucluelet. I hope I'll be able to share pictures soon.

Mt. Washington, BC

Greetings from the top of Mt. Washington on Vancouver Island, BC.  We took the chair lift up, as per our policy to get as high as we can in any area we visit, to get the fullest view of what's around. From the top we could see the BC mainland clearly, many of the mountains in Strathcona Provincial Park, Puget Sound, and the Georgia Strait.  We're getting great weather here now, after a long stretch of rain and clouds. 

You can see how beautiful it was in this picture of the Inukshuk at the top. Inukshuk are the small balanced rock piles you see all over Canada, along roadsides, on mountain tops and trails. They have become a Canadian symbol, especially since the Winter Olympics.

After going up, we of course came down, : ) and headed nearby to Strathcona PP to take a little hike in the mountain meadows. The snow has just about melted, and the marsh marigolds are just beginning to pop out,

but many of the trails are still blocked by snow. We took a short hike on a boardwalk through wetlands and around a few ponds, with views of the ski trails on Mt. Washington.

Along the way we met a new bird for us: a whiskey jack.  OK, it's not really new - it's a grey jay, but they call them whiskey jacks here. They are very assertive, especially if you have any food, which they will eat out of your hand. They should be called picnic jacks.

We've got a lot more to see and do around here in the next two weeks. We will be getting out on the water at some point, and driving over to the west coast for an overnight. It's certainly beautiful country. 

Today I'm headed up to the Campbell River farmer's market while Rick watches the Wimbledon championship.  Go Federer!

Short and Sweet Update

Our Daring Documentarian at Elk Falls

Just a quick post to let our readers know that our internet service here on Vancouver Island (we're using Datastorm) is so slow and inconsistent that it is near to impossible to create posts and publish them. I may just have to go with short and sweet like this one, or more words and less pictures. Thanks for your patience.

Oh Canada!

Happy Canada Day! Who knew?

Well obviously the whole country of Canada, but not us. Many weeks ago we scheduled our ferry passage from Port Angeles, WA to Vancouver Island, BC for July 1, not realizing in was a bit of a Canadian holiday, just the equivalent of our July 4th.  The light dawned just the day before we traveled that we might run into some congestion in our destination port, Victoria, the largest city on Vancouver Island. Yes, in fact there was a huge celebration right where the ferry discharged us, and all traffic was to be rerouted. Rick did a quick Google maps redirection, and we were confident we could get through it. That was before our walkie-talkies gave out, and I had no phone (because we didn't buy the Canadian package for my phone - just Rick's), so no communication and no Google maps to guide us just in case I got lost...

But let's go back to the beginning of the day. We checked out of Gilgal Oasis by 11:00, ready for our long travel day. We usually try to travel only a couple of hours, but this was going to be a full six hours at least.

We had to arrive at the ferry an hour early for the whole check-in and wait around process. That gave me some time to catch a few last pictures of local wildlife, real and imagined.

Right on time they loaded us into the belly of the Coho, one of the Black Ball Ferries that service Washington and BC ports.

Bye bye for now, USA!

There were many bicyclists on board, who had just finished a ride up and down Hurricane Ridge! Many of the about 400 cyclists who made the approximately 3 hour round trip ride had come over early in the morning from Victoria, and now were heading home on the 12:45 ferry.  We had a great talk with three of them, Barry, Dave and Dave, who gave us some local advice about what to see and do on Vancouver Island.

The upper deck was pretty full of bikes. The ferry is the largest and fullest I've been on, with two very long passenger decks and a maxed out vehicle deck.  Although the passage was smooth, the waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca rolled more than I expected them too. After about 1.5 hours we arrived in Victoria. 

Our reroute took us along the water and around downtown. We could just see the rooftops of the famous Empress Hotel, which is about the biggest thing in town. We have been told that we must go there for tea, and we will when we return to Victoria in about three weeks to see the queen, I mean the sights.

We did actually get through the city and out the other side onto Route 1, the Trans-Canada Highway, with no problem despite not being able to communicate. We got to the Salmon Point RV Resort and Marina by about 6:00 and had a restful dinner at the excellent restaurant there. 

Next day we took it easy, and even though it was raining (what else is new), by afternoon I was ready to explore a little so I headed into Campbell River, the closest town. 

The drive along the shore on Route 19 yielded sightings of many bald eagles and this surprise:

 Transformations on the Shore is an annual event in Campbell River in which local professional, semi-professional and amateur artists are given huge logs of wood to go at with chain saws and other carving tools. The results range from humorous to dramatic. Here are a few of my favorites.

 I thought this one of three otters was the best. 

The weather is supposed to improve in a few days, but in the meantime we've got RV repairs to take care of: power cord reel, sewer hose, backup camera and brake break-away cable. That will keep us busy until we can take in more of the adventures here on Vancouver Island.

Bloedel Reserve

"Nature can live without man, but man cannot live without nature" - Prentice Bloedel.

Prentice and Virginia Bloedel created the Reserve from their home and property on Bainbridge Island to provide "refreshment and tranquility in the presence of natural beauty." Prentice was a student of the benefits humans receive from nature. His intention to create a place where visitors would feel these benefits was profoundly successful.

The Reserve is divided up into about 12 areas including the residence itself. The first floor of the house is open to visitors and is displayed much as it was when the Bloedel's lived there. We visited a little over half of the grounds in the few hours we had for our visit. We started with the Japanese Garden.

The entrance to the Japanese Garden (above), 

has detailed stone work lined with black mondo grass (below).

The Stone Garden has raked gravel around larger rocks, reminiscent of the sea stacks along the Washington and Oregon shores with the tides washing around them.

Rick and I have a favorite Japanese garden in Rockford, Illinois (the Anderson Garden), which has always been our very high standard for what a Japanese garden should be. This garden meets, or may exceed the Anderson. 

Like any great garden, the Bloedel Reserve uses water, which it has in abundance, to contrast with, complement and reflect the landscape. The Mid Pond (below) transitions between the Japanese Garden and the residence (also seen above from another angle in the second picture).

The residence has an expansive view of Puget Sound. The labyrinth was a more recent addition.

From the residence we walked through a wooded area with a waterfall, another pond and a glen.

The "Christmas Pond" (above) was a gift from Prentice to Virgina in 1970.  

Digitalis or foxglove (below) is a wildflower here. I struggled to get it to grow in my gardens in Illinois, Vermont and New Hampshire, and here it grows along the roadsides.

A wide variety of native species has been used,
in addition to other trees and perennials that thrive but do not take over in this climate.

Adjacent tree trunks in the wooded area, with contrasting bark.

This beautiful path through the Birch Garden, eventually led us to the moss garden where  

the ground was solid moss, with punctuating ferns, skunk cabbage, and other shrubs and trees.

I've posted lots of pictures of northwest vegetation, so this won't look like anything new. However, what this garden does so well is work with the native plants and arrange them in a manner that looks natural, but actually creates aesthetically pleasing views everywhere you look...

...from the tiniest to the grandest places.

In the Olympic Rainforest for instance, the look is chaotic much of the time, and as the viewer you have to search for the aesthetically pleasing moments in space. Here, all you have to do is open your eyes  and see all the same elements, but arranged for you the way an artist sees them.  But nothing looks contrived or artificial.

It's like the Getty Museum of nature - a photographers paradise.

After being truly saturated with the moss gardens, we were popped out suddenly along this serene reflecting pool to calm our over-stimulated eyes.

We ended our exploration crossing a pasture, with an old sheep barn in the distance -
a final soothing perspective.

The Bloedel Reserve is someplace we would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone traveling in this area. There are accessible trails as well. Go even if it's raining. :)