Day 8 Monday
We set off from the housesit which was quite sad. We are not good at such short sits, and know we could have bonded more if we'd been there longer, though for the time we had we did get fuss and cuddles so not too bad.
A four hour drive ahead of us, but rather than just drive, the plan was to stop and see things en route,. though we are not very good at doing that! Our first stop was a bit of a deviation to the Kinsol Trestle. It is one of 8 in the Cowichan valley, but definitely the most impressive. It is one of the tallest free standing timber rail structures in the world. It's 187m long and 44m above the Koksilah River. It was worth the deviation.
Next stop was Duncan, for totem poles with a little walking tour. That was interesting, but sadly Duncan seemed to be closed. It was a public holiday, but we think it was just usually shut on a Monday. Even finding a coffee was difficult.
We saw a little snake on the way out
We tried a little bit of the old road, to see more, but this proved frustrating with changing speed limits and traffic lights, so we just gave up and headed for Campbell River.
Our Airbnb is lovely, almost perfect, I can see into the strait between Vancouver Island and Quadra Island, but only really by standing with one foot on the arm of the sofa and one on the windowsill. Why is this important? Because of the Whales, dolphins and orca that might go past. I found a group on Facebook that posts when and where they see such things , which obviously I'm very keen on.
We did a bit of shopping and prepared for an early night as the boat trip to see marine life and hopefully Grizzly bears was leaving at 08.00. Just sitting down to eat and hurrah, we are not setting off till 10.00. That's more civilised.
Jackie standing on her tip toes to look out of our lounge window at the deep channel of water that is a whale and orca freeway (along with cruise ships). She joined a Campbell River Facebook group to notify whale sightings and, one morning she spotted some and reported it...
Day 9 Tuesday
My birthday, which isn't why we booked the trip, but it's a good excuse. I'm amazed I managed to eat any breakfast, jumping up and down to see first a humpback whale and then a pod of dolphins go past.
We got to the marina in good time and said hello to the seals swimming about. That's three and we haven't even seen our boat yet. The zodiac turned up with our skipper Benji, who really didn't look very old, and then told us it was the first time he'd done this trip on his own, but not to worry, he's got at least 3000 hours driving these boats! He was lovely, and very good. There was us, a couple from Denmark, an Ozzy man Anthony and a local lady.
Heather obviously knew what was what as we headed out of the marina into the channel she knew we were going to see something immediately. And so we did, the ferry to Quadra Island taking a very strange route around two humpback whales. They vanished with no time for photos, but Benji started talking about them and with that they broke the surface so close to the boat. Still no time for photos, but what a welcome.
We watched them head off before turning away to go and see the family of orca that were hunting seals. This is where Heather came into her own, this is what she told us:
Today's whales were a well-known family here in Campbell River (& Qualicum) - the T002Cs
Matriarch, T002C Tasu (1989)
T002C1 Rocky (2002)
T002C3 Lucy (2011)
T002C5 Zippy (2020)
T002C6 (2025)
She told us all about Tasu being the granddaughter of a killer whale who had been set free in the 70's that she had seen in the zoo.
We watched them chasing and hunting, pictures were taken, which are never very impressive, I've seen lots of the Facebook group. They were better to see, until Rocky, the big male, breached out of the water, twice. Absolutely amazing, and very rare, and Brian caught it, with his little camera.
As did Heather with her big flash one. Turns out she's a professional photographer! Not only that, she set up the Facebook group I've been watching, and posting on with my whales and dolphins that very morning!
This was all within the first hour, so we can now head off looking for bears. Lots of suitable beaches, but no black bears, so off to the mainland to look for grizzlies. We'll go down here, oh no we won't, we'll go over there. The power of the radio! It took ages for me to look in the right direction, but when we did, there was a mother bear and two cubs ambling along the shore, turning over rocks and feasting on crabs and fish and molluscs.
The two boats that had been there when we arrived headed off and we were left with the bears for ages. They were trying their hardest, but I saw one of them tug at a rock so hard it fell onto it's bottom at least twice. The other one then made so much noise trying to turn one I almost thought it had it's paw trapped. This was just what we had come for, and was absolutely amazing.
We finally headed off to have our own lunch, while hoping for a black bear to come and wave. It didn't, but finally I spotted one. Benji and Omar also saw it but then it vanished before Brian could see it.
Not that he could have photographed it anyway, the camera had gone flat. Benji was obviously delighted I had seen one as it meant he could head back to base and arrive bang on time. 17.00.
Poor Anthony then had to collect his wife and drive for four hours to Tofino on the west coast of the island, very close to where we are going when we leave here. We will be spending all day driving there though.
We'd come through some exciting rapids on our journey, one set was in the Seymour Narrows. This narrow stretch of water used to be much more dangerous than it is today. Ripple rock used to sit between 5 and 7 feet below the water, at low tide, and had sunk boats causing the death of many people. In the 50's, they decided to get rid of it, so they tunnelled under it, filled it with dynamite and blew it up, in the biggest man-made non nuclear explosion in the world. It was televised in only the second live broadcast by CBC. The Narrows are now much safer and the channel is used by shipping of all sorts including big cruise liners.
What a fabulous birthday.
Day 10 Wednesday
A more relaxed start though again, I don't know how I managed to eat while posting on the Facebook group about a humpback out of the window. It did make me smile, within 10 minutes of my putting its location on the group three zodiacs had appeared to show their customers their first whale!
Today was walking though, so we went off to Elk falls which were lovely did a loop there, chatted to the lady in the visitor centre who gave us a two for one ticket at the museum. She suggested the salmon hatchery in the hope of black bears. It was quite interesting, but we didn't see any bears which was disappointing.
A bite of lunch and then Brian talked me into the walk to look at the Seymour Narrows, where Ripple rock used to be. It wasn't that far, but there was a lot of up and down and we now both feel exhausted.
I've been jumping up and down while trying to eat, and write AGAIN as orca were playing outside for a long time! It's been fabulous.
Day 11 Thursday
A town day today, walk to the museum, with our 2 for 1 ticket. We spent ages in there, starting off with an 18 minute video about blowing up Ripple Rock. It was a two year project, a small village was built on Quadra Island for the workers who drilled and dynamited. Due to the weight of water above something like 10x more dynamite was required than if they had just been in the air. Very interesting.
Then logging, salmon fishing, canning and some first Nations history. Up until the '90's children were taken away from home and put into boarding schools to try and assimilate and 'civilise' them! Thousands of children died and never returned home with others undergoing abuse, not to mention the trauma of just being forcibly taken away from home. Compensation has now been set up and paid.
From the museum we walked to the Discovery Pier, had a cup of tea, went to the aquarium which is tiny, but very interesting. It's only open for three months a year with the animals being taken from and returned to the local seashore. They are still waiting for someone to catch them and octopus for the last tank! The guys working in there were so enthusiastic, it was a pleasure to talk to them. Perhaps I could have done that with my degree in marine biology.
From there to Crabby Bobs, for seafood. Prawns scallops, mussels clams, bread and garlic butter. Absolutely fantastic! Back to the pier for an ice-cream which we didn't need, but hey, before walking back to the house.
Quick change of clothes to head to the sea shore to go rock pooling, it was almost low tide, and was highly recommended. It wasn't like at home though, you had to walk out over slippery stones to get to some pools, rather than scramble over rocks. Wet feet were bound to happen, but having seen crabs, starfish anemones and been squirted at, probably by clams, we beat a retreat for fear of melting! Off to the supermarket for fruit and fuel before we go to Ucluelet tomorrow.
