2017 August 20th - September 10, Alberta, BC Canada 👍

Dateline: 16 September 2017, Vancouver, BC Canada

The Great Canadian Trek 2: Jasper - Prince Rupert - Port Hardy - Victoria, Vancouver and Home

Google doesn't believe there's a VIA Rail train here, so it's the road route, almost the same: 

No doubt about it. Annie & Gary really enjoyed the mountains, the lakes, the bears,
but Gary definitely had trouble with the costs. Annie didn't

As I never fail to point out, apart from a few die hard vicarious livers who really want to see this stuff, this is pure self indulgence, ready for my grandkids........

Yeah, right

An we're back, now heading to Prince Rupert
Personally, I find this train through the Rockies business pretty dull

OK, so here we are on the Skeena. As per Rus's recommendations. Lots of trees first day, but this is just a 4 hour (maybe) trek.

There's an engine, baggage (actually empty), us in one carriage, and a cafe/ observation car. To start with, it's packed, but it appears that more than half get off after 2 stops and take a bus back to Jasper. We're in for the long haul as it were

Lots of dead and dying
forest here

We travel along the same Moose Lake outbound: 
"Nothing to see here" says Gary

On the way out of Jasper, you can see the pine beetle destruction. As the car manager said: just one match and its all gone. True

We travel alongside the very same road we took toward Terracana Ranch just a week ago. Then it was all Ohh's and Ahh's and stop here's, now it "Just water, nothing to see here" and back to the bridge table...........

I've booked the Ramada in Prince George. Not much of a stop over, it's very remote after all, and a typical Northern Canadian small outback town.
We head to an Indian restaurant next door, but are seduced by a micro brewery on the way. It's busy, so we ask some customers if we can share their table. No problem, obviously, this IS Canada.
After a few minutes, we get to know our table hosts. One guy is a heavy duty mechanic, so Gary and he exchange, well, pix of rusty machinery as far as I can tell. The other guy, Neil was it? Now he's an RCMP guy on the fringes of civilisation.

Prince George: a local brewery with great beer and RCMP

I thought, here we go. RCMP, remote town, lots of first nations drunken stories.....
Well, actually, no. Here was a classic Canadian, socially aware, psychologically savvy, totally accepting of societies foibles and personal human failures as a result of society rather than personal direction.

Somewhere, lost in the Canadian outback, VIA Rail style

It was absolutely wonderful. True, universal Canadian values at their best and most universal, espoused by a hard bitten outback cop. Plus, it had the advantage of educating our visitors that we weren't some kind of liberal outlier. We all tend this way......

I felt really proud of being Canadian

"Seven Sisters" in the background 
as we run along the Skeena river

Next  day, we arrive at the station with 15 minutes to spare.
We leave about 90 minutes late

This gets more extended as we have to wait for huge freight trains coming the opposite way.
The way we hear it is that CN operate the rails, and VIA just has to put up with whatever that means when freight is more important.

Up on the observation deck, we have almost a full house, maybe 25 folks, mostly grey haired bucket listers, and a few families actually using the train to get somewhere.
One family has a young girl who is obviously very smart and there;s a grannie doing her "yes I have a grand daughter who is seven too". I live in California, do you know where that is?
To which the young lady replies "I don't know much about the United States, but I do know that I don;'y like Mr Trump".

Some abandoned
town on route

Brings the (Canadian) house down.

6:00 AM, the Prince Rupert -

Port Hardy ferry all lit up

Unlike us intrepid travellers

It's way dark before we get into the second half of the Rockies.

  

"4 extra hours on board - FREE" says out train manager. Plus free cookies, pop and coffee

Yep, apparently in the
lounge

Just means more Bridge for us

Actually, Annie and Gary are really getting the hang of it now. Nairobi Rules that is

Somewhere out there,
there's a few whales, dolphins etc

Its about 11:30 when we arrive in Prince Rupert. We are all pretty wiped out. About 4 hours late.

I recommend that we leave next day as the forecast is perfect tomorrow, but rain for the rest of the week. There is much talk of just dossing at the terminal for the night, as the ferry leaves  but, thankfully, we cap to, well a pretty grimy hotel and ask for a call at 5:45. It works well enough for us to be awake for all the fantastic ferry trip to Vancouver Island

A late night, but a great place,
especially as I booked at 6PM...

It's Jesus Christ early. We've grabbed about 4 hours of sleep in a less than salubrious hotel

Gary manhandles their worldly goods
As Annie and Gary are off on a cruise from
Vancouver, then flying home, they are lugging
everything, everywhere
I've booked a big car for the 4 of us and bags

In daylight, we see that the port is extremely clean. The industrial port is some ways off. We can't see it from here.
Amazingly clear water, maybe 15 feet (5 metres) to the bottom.

A sea otter is out just in front of us as we snooze in out seats.

It's a long trek, but beautiful scenery, and the weather is perfect.
There's occasional announcements for whales and dolphins - lots to see actually. It reminds me of the Stockholm archipelago, but totally devoid of cottages and life apart from fishing boats and a barge or two.

We knew the ferry would arrive in Port Hardy late at night. I've only got in touch with a lodge owner around 6:00 PM when I get service on the ferry. We are booked into North Coast Cottages.

Telegraph Cove. Winging everything again
Gary HATES it

Unfortunately, sort of, the wife of the manager takes the booking, and unbeknown to her, her husband has upgraded a group to the cabin we've booked. We wake them up around midnight as we barge into "our" cabin. Eventually, much to the frustration of my clients, we get a really nice cabin down the lot, at 12 midnight, I negotiate an even cheaper rate. We have a good night, eventually

Telegraph Cove - 
Our luxury 4 bedroom cabin
overlooking the harbour

I'd booked 2 nights, but due to the cock up, and the fact that neither our cabin or the much better one were available next night, I fire up the trusty Nexus and organise a one way car hire to Victoria, not having much of a clue what to do once we arrived there.
Traveling on the edge. Gary shows little sign of stress.

Here's Googles take: 

Next stop with trusty Android using WiFi at our Greek cafe breakfast stop, it's Telegraph Cove where we hear there's lots of Bald Eagles. We get, again, the very last room available
There's lots of birds around here in Port Hardy too

Fish Eagle
View from our cabin

Telegraph Cove Marina

Campbell River. Real chainsaw Art.
Yes,  REALLY!

We do dinner alternately. Ours tonight so its fish, yes again: get over it!
Thankfully, there's decent shops here so we can stock up on fish, GnT's and other essential booze

We have our own barbecue, and so we are totally self contained in our own little world, a long way away from the luxury mob in the marina and lodge down below.

A short ferry ride across from Campbell river
and we score a lovely 2 bed apartment on the water

Ambling, down to Campbell River with, of course zero idea of where we are heading. Gary is of course, beside himself not knowing where we are staying on a day by day basis, let alone at 4:30 with still no bed presenting itself.
No problem, I use WiFi at the Campbell River visitors centre and snag a place for us before the visitors centre finds something, also surprisingly, $50 (?) cheaper than they were offering exactly the same place.
That's quite a surprise

Complete with otters and various during dinner

It's the last room they have. Maybe we should get used to this over the long weekend

Annie & Gary do dinner tonight. The subtle understated delights of sausage curry are the order of the day. As I said, get over it.

On the way to Quadra, we stop to admire the chainsaw art park. There's some rally good stuff here. It's across the road from a Timmy's, so I introduce the tourists to Timmy's coffees

Annie continues her photo journalism calling on 
Quadra Island with the local fauna

The ferry takes us to Quadra Island next day to probably my favourite resort of the trip: April Point. On the way, we head out to the lighthouse, and in the inner channel, no more than 500 metres away, theres a pod of Orca - Killer Whales to you. We see them first, but the locals are soon out in their high powered boats and they're gone, about a kilometer up the channel. No problems, there's dolphins and seals just off the beach.

I field a call from the Realtors who are trying to sell Kayla's house as we watch the wildlife. We scoff at the offer.
At the lodge, we have a resident seal that swims around beneath our suite as we have our drinks and waits for the fishing boats to come in to feed it

Swept Away Inn.
An old tug in Port Alberni harbour

There's a local market, and apparently, general locals get together near the ferry to sell wholesome dog food, compare pets and offer knitted paraphernalia to each other.
It certainly looks and feels like a 60's revival for aging hippies here.
Lovely people (Canadians Eh?) all aging gracefully in this wonderful environment.
Reminds me a lot of New Zealand South Island

Quathiaski Point Library

The ferry back, and we head to Port Alberni.
It's the long weekend. I'm surprised there's any accommodation available and this place sounds perfect.

Annie and local constabulary

We luck out again. It's wonderful, but we can't have our own wine. Malesh
There is a salmon run festival here. Yep, MORE cheap fish.

The Swept Away departure.

Port Albion, just south of Tofino

Raven Lady in Ucluelet

Can't get enough of it. Only problem is that the only booze is Bud draught. Yeaugh! Annie and Gary say they prefer it to my Blanche de Chamblay they quaffed at Oyster Bay the other night. Go figure

Sunset Beach, Tofino

Stamp River Falls: 
finally some salmon actually leaping up waterfalls

Port Alberni, apparently first explored by a Spanish ship, captained by, a certain Captain Alberni in 1790 ish is quite a cute place, certainly if there's a Salmon competition on. But we are off to Tofino. We didn't work out why, even once we were there.

It's ok, but nothing to head there for. Try Ucluelet. Much more atmosphere and cooler.

A lovely drive, with lots to see, but of course, the driver only sees the road in front.

We hear we can finally see salmon leaping up the rivers at Stamp River Falls. Wait long enough, and sure enough, there they are

A real Motel. Gary's choice for the night in Nanaimo.
The place wasn't too bad, where it was was a dump

I think that maybe I've hogged the accommodation too much, so Gary is in charge of todays lodging. It's Labour Day, we circle around Nanaimo looking for a B&B. We settle on the Bluebird motel in Nanaimo. Surprisingly good as it turns out, but in a dreadful location for, well everything.
Subway sandwiches tonight

Onward to downtown Nanaimo for our next morning coffees. It's really quite a cool place. No wonder Vancouver Island is retirees preferred destination in Canada

Chemainus BC. It's all like this

Onward to Chemainus, a twee village where almost every wall is covered in muralsw, all depicting something about the village history, or Canada in general. Very impressive too

It's obviously quite a tourist stop over, but Annie is after even more birds, so we head out to Pacific Northwester Raptors park.

Pacific Northwest Raptors,

Lots of birds of prey here, and the show is excellent. Bald Eagles, Peregrins, Owls and more. About 20 people here so everyone gets a ringside seat and birds flying right past them

Very professional presentation, cheap too: only $12

Splendid stuff

Down to Victoria for 2 nights

Now, this place reminds me of Johannesburg 40 years ago. Wide, clean streets, organised, lots of busses. White...... Maybe

Hope springs eternal. 
BC Legislature Visitors

Ilge & Friend waiting at the harbour

There's a Costco here, so it's lots of fish in the kitchen. We have a lovely place. Pretty cheap, but only one bedroom. We're getting cheap, so this is fine

It's time to take the vehicle back. The only one way option was to take it to the airport, ways out of town. I'm back by 11:30, and we all meet near the port

I'm really impressed here.
Annie & Ilge head off to whale watch, I'm more interested in the town as we are off to Vancouver tomorrow. Gary heads back to the digs, and I'm off exploring

BC's legislature, BC Museum, long walks.

I fit it all in and get a pretty good idea of the place.

Hmmm, I could live here, no problem

Frontier Life, maybe 1800 something

The museum has some fantastic diorama's. HUGE things. All life size, even to the replica of Cooks Discovery

Frontier wildlife

An almost working gold mine C1820

Fishermans Wharf, Victoria
all kinda great grub

We're running out of time, and no one's killed anyone yet, in spite of our different approaches to "organising" tours, politics, social norms, well, everything and no one is dead or even injured yet.

All floating houses. There's even a floating B&B here

The realtors have squeezed the potential buyers for the London house. I countersign on, yep, my trust Android. Totally legal and binding documentation apparently. We have one less tangible asset apparently from September 18th

To Vancouver via public transport. Trusty Google directions, bus, ferry, bus, subway.

I've organised an Airbnb in the downtown core. It's a bit sketchy, like "don't talk to the neighbours," "don't talk to the concierge", "don't leave a review"....

Theres also a big sign in the lobby: "Short stays are not permitted in this building"

Just down the road, super luxury, super poverty

Ahh. So, I just sneak in with a backpack, come down and walk everyone and their short term bags up to the splendid apartment.

2 bedrooms, 1 en suite, kitchen and much to Annies delight. Netflix. Well, that's about it for her

I get some snacks, passing some locals that can't afford Airbnb's tonight on the way.

We snack and pass around our bottle of red. I can just watch the place go by tonight without the tourist schtick

In the morning, its back to Vancouver weather - drizzle. I reflect that we haven't really had bad weather since the Ontario part of the trip.

Great coffee and wonderful croissants spots here.

We take some snacks back for Annie & Gary in the apartment, and eventually, they elect to do one of those God awful city tours on the bus.

 complete with rain and drizzle

Stanley Park,

Unfortunately, I'm washing my hair so can't make it, but I do a grand walk down to Costco (for sunglasses), then waaaaaaay up and around Stanley Park and back by about 6 for a dine out at a sushi place.

There's a Timmies on the way back (of course), so a final 10 pack of Tim Bits (GAK!) for the tourists (they like them!), and we're ready to depart tomorrow

 I was going to buy a beater in Vancouver and drive back, but it turned out insurance and registration were a pain, so I just booked last minute Air Canada (now last minute Air Canada is also a REAL $$$$$ pain)

Our Vancouver apartment
Annie & Gary catching up on what high speed internet means for TV viewing

Annie & Gary still have unfinished tourist business: yes, another week. They are off to Alaska on a cruise for a week. Not my bag

We say our farewells and head for the door, airport and home.
Phew.

Now we've  done East, West & central. North?, well, not if I can help it.
Canada turns out to be a fantastic place. Stunningly beautiful, great coffee, wonderful people. I might even emigrate here, one day.

Till then, time to sign off and work out our next trip, which is only about 4 weeks away

Stay tuned followers 

Publish and be damned!

From Your Correspondent