Saturday 18 September 2010

The final leg of our journey west was undertaken today as we left Kamloops headed for Vancouver. Despite a 6 hour drive and 2 hour ferry crossing to Vancouver Island, we decided to take the scenic route. We followed the river through the canyon, past a famous white water rafting area called “Kicking Horse” and into the famous “Hells Gate” in the Fraser Canyon. We saw some beautiful scenery despite the low cloud and rain, but the visibility did not make it worth taking the gondola ride across the canyon.


Soon, the brown, barren landscape and rolling hills became green slopes and alpine forested mountains with snow capped peaks as we neared Vancouver. It also became evident that British Columbia is wood carving mad and every little town proudly displays massive wood carvings mainly done with chain saws.

19000KM AND 130 SOMETHING DAYS LATER WE HAVE REACHED THE WEST COAST AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN!

What a sense of achievement we felt driving into Vancouver. Headed straight for Vancouver Island, we boarded the ferry and settled into a 2 hour crossing of the Georgian Strait. Vancouver Island is beautiful with many mountains, a thin coast line and a lot of remote wilderness. The south and east coast of the island have some decent sized towns and city, but the island is over 500km long and very few roads run east to west. The west coast is pretty remote and inaccessible and dotted with fjiords, sea inlets and sounds. Unfortunately today the scenic beauty is obscured by cloud, rain and mist. We were happy to arrive at our gorgeous cabin in Oyster Bay overlooking the sea!

Oyster bay log cabins and British Columbia chain saw sculptures