Olympic National Park
The centre of the Olympic peninsula is pretty much uninhabited and is given over to the Olympic National Park. This is pretty mountainous terrain and the lowlands are dominated by rainforest. This is where the Twilight films are set and the forests are thick, wet and abundant.
For our first day in the Park we headed to the Sol Duc area (sounds exotic but the road there is really called the Sole Duck Rd). At Sol Duc is a lovely resort built on a hot spring which meant that we had to try out the water. They had three pools varying in temperature from 100F to 106F and a swimming pool that was only 70F.
After this we drove to a trail head to the Sol Duc falls which was a walk through rainforest to a bridge over the gorge just down from the falls. It started raining soon after we started and stopped just before we got back to the car. Driving away from the falls we drove past a river where we stopped to watch Salmon battling their way up a waterfall and rapids. They would often make it half way up with a massive amount of effort and then would be swept back down. There is a salmon flying through the air in the picture below, against the rocks, if you can make it out.
After that we drove out to the Storm King area and went for another short walk to Marymere falls. It started raining soon after we started and stopped just before we got back to the car. Hmm – a pattern is starting I think.
From here we drove back to Heart of the Hills for the night. The next day we drove straight up Hurricane Ridge Road – 12 miles long but rising to over 1500m. Our average speed was 20mph up here.
As we neared the top the vista opened up and we could see a range of snow capped mountains. We visited briefly at the visitor centre before heading off to hike the High Alpine trail from which there were views across to Mt Baker in one direction, Mt Olympus and even as far as Vancouver Island.
We also saw a number of remarkably unafraid deer on our hike. We spent the day up in the Hurricane ridge area before descending to Hurricane Ridge road and finding a turnout to spend the night.
After three nights on the Olympic Peninsula it was time to start heading South (and East) but first we stopped off in Gig Harbour and spent the night at Rob and Nina’s (www.whiteacorn.com) getting the low down on South and Central America as they had got back from a trip all down to Ushuaia and back towards the end of last year. A big thanks to Rob and Nina for some great hospitality and some really good pointers.
The Lower 48
From Vancouver we headed South and hit the US border before too long. The border crossing took less than five minutes and we didn’t even have to get out of the Beast. The Border guard did take it upon himself to caution us about going to Mexico though !
One of the first things we did was fill up with Diesel and were pleased to note that this was the cheapest fill up yet – we were finally under $5 per Imperial Gallon.
We had a plan to visit Seattle but the weather was bad and we could barely see the city as we drove through the middle. This coupled with the difficulty in finding a parking place meant that we abandoned this idea and decided to head over to Olympic National Park. To get there we got on a ferry from Edmonds (just North of Seattle) across to Kingston and then we were a short drive from Port Angeles.
In Port Angeles we headed up into the Park to a campground called Heart of the Hills where we spent the next couple of nights.
Vancouver
We drove down to Harrison Hot Springs with high expectations for a lovely resort town with some great soaking opportunities. However on arriving we were pretty disappointed with what was a fairly drab town reminiscent of a British seaside resort. The hot spring itself was accessible through a large swimming pool – however the water wasn’t really that hot. We spent a night here and then headed off to Vancouver.
Seeing towns from the Beast isn’t always easy as it is often pretty hard to find somewhere to park – the main problem is height as we can’t use a multi-storey. However Vancouver is unusual in that it has an RV park almost in the centre of town which is a really quick bus ride from the downtown area (Capilano RV Park). The downside to this RV park was price in that it was just over CAD 50 a night.
The RV Park itself is just over the Lions Gate Bridge from Stanley Park and is just next door to the Park Royal Mall. From the Park Royal Mall there are a number of buses you can catch into central Vancouver and the bus ride is only about 20 minutes.
Vancouver is a city of around 2.2m people and is Canada’s third largest city. The reason for its growth is that it is the only major Canadian mainland port on the Western side.
The first thing we did in Vancouver was go up the Harbour Centre Building which has a circular observation gallery at the top, called the Lookout. This gave great views across the city and since the weather was good gave us a really good overview of where we would go next.
From here we walked through the Downtown area into the Gastown district – the old town. Here the highlight was the steam powered clock. From Gastown we went to Chinatown where we stopped for a bit and watched a First Nation (native Indian) ceremony that had closed the streets to traffic for a few minutes (we didn’t really get what was going on but there was singing, incense burning and speeches). Chinatown was a pretty rundown area so we didn’t hang around too much.
From Chinatown we went to Yaletown and then caught a bus back through downtown up to Stanley Park. This is a 1000acre park which has a great seawall walk as the ocean surrounds it on three sides but also a pretty wild interior. We explored for a couple of hours and then decided to head back to the RV Park. We were very surprised to come across 2 games of cricket being played in the Park and a rugby pitch – they are obviously pretty civilized when it comes to sport in this part of the world! We also listened to the band “Ra Ra Riot” warming up for their gig that evening in the Stanley Bowl.
Overall Vancouver seems a nice city but as a tourist it is too new to be that interesting. It was only founded in the late 1860’s and didn’t become big until later so there aren’t really that many interesting buildings and areas. I could see living there though as there are a number of pretty funky areas with lots of bars and restaurants that look fun.
You Couldn’t Make This Up !
The sense of freedom on finally leaving Lillooet was immense – we could finally get back to travelling again after a month of mechanical mayhem.
First we had to drive the wrong way up to Kamloops to return our hire car. From there we headed due South with our next destination being Harrison Hot Springs. In the last month the days have been getting much shorter and now it is dark just after 7pm. We didn’t make it as far as Harrison but instead decided to look for somewhere to free camp just short of a town called Hope.
We drove down a side road next to the freeway and found a good turnout by a river, so we pulled in and got out ready to settle in for the night. But no – we could hear a loud hissing sound coming from the truck – what now we thought – A PUNCTURE. We couldn’t quite believe our luck !
With the dark gathering quickly we got out our jack and placed it under the axle to provide some support. There was no way that we were going to change the tyre that night though. I did test the lug nuts though to make sure that I could turn them – and all of them turned – that was a serious relief. We spent an anxious night – moving around very gently to make sure we didn’t knock the truck off the jack – before resuming at first light. Although just our luck it was pouring with rain in the morning.
We have two spare tyres – one under the truck on a pulley system and one on the back with a winch to get it down. Well we soon discovered that the one on the winch was bolted on with bolts which we didn’t have the right size spanner for. Fortunately the other one was bolted on with nuts the same size as the tyre ones – good design.
It took us a little while to figure out the pulley system to get the tyre unloaded but we eventually had it just above the floor. We wedged a stick underneath to make sure we could get purchase on it before disconnecting the pulley. I then had to lift it upright (no mean feat – these tyres are heavy) and we rolled it round to the other side.
It didn’t take long to undo all the nuts holding the flat in place and then slide it off. However we were then faced with the challenge of putting the new tyre on. Not easy as it was too heavy to lift. Through a combination of pushing and using the jack to move the hub up and down we eventually managed to get the spare onto the hub and then it was an easy matter to screw the nuts back up.
The only challenge left now was reloading the punctured tyre onto the truck which was fairly easy now that we had worked out how to do it.
We had managed to change the spare, in the rain, in only 1.5 hours. If there is a next time we will be quicker.
The town of Hope was a short distance away and we went to Kal Tire there who put a new inner tube in the punctured tyre (after breaking the valve of the old one instead of fixing it). They then took the spare off the truck and put on the new fixed tyre. We want to make sure that the tyres wear evenly so we can get them regrooved all together.
Ready, Steady……Start
After 10 days in Lillooet we are finally leaving. Our starter arrived courtesy of Fedex shipping from the UK – shipped on Friday afternoon and arrived Tuesday afternoon. That’s pretty good if you ask me. It only cost £50 to ship using Interparcel which I think is amazing for a 17kg package on a priority service.
Anyway the new starter was completely different looking from the old one (shorter and heavier) which gave us some nervous moments but it fit perfectly. When we tried the ignition for the first time we were so nervous that we could hardly breathe. The engine started better than it has ever started before though. Hurrah !
It had taken us quite a while to track down a replacement starter and that is due to the fact that there had been a redesign. The original starter for this truck was a reduction starter (spins really fast but is geared to interface with the flywheel) and we have since found out has a reputation for sticking (exactly what happened to ours). The new one has a bigger motor and is non-reduction so doesn’t have to work so hard. Much better.
We’ve been helped out by so many people while we were stuck. A big thank you to my Dad for doing so much phoning around to find a replacement for us and acting as our procurement director in the UK. Also Nick Bailey at Marshall Web (A UK DAF dealer) went out of his way to help us. In Lillooet, Greg and Sunni – master mechanics, got us back on the road and hosted us at their garage with enormous good cheer. Bobby De Roy also helped us with his towing feats and also by being an entertaining and generous neighbour. There are also a number of other people in Lillooet who were kind and generous so thank you to them as well – including Susan at the Visitor Centre.
Downhill Fast
Whistler is of course best known as a ski resort, however it also has the world’s biggest purpose built downhill bike park. This makes Whistler almost as busy in the summer as it is in the winter.
I do lot of mountain biking but have never tried a proper downhill course before so I was really keen to give this a go.
We went to Summit Sports to rent bikes after being given a tip that they rented good bikes which were well maintained. We were given the option of different armour packages but caution won out over cash and we opted for full armour.
We headed over to the lifts to buy a lift pass each and then we were ready to go. Every other chair on the lift had been converted to a bike chair which you loaded up to 4 bikes on and then got on the following normal chair.
The runs are graded into Green, Blue and Black. The Greens are pretty straightforward with banked curves, no jumps and are pretty cruisey. Anyway Sarah had never really done any mountain biking so we needed to start easy.
After a couple of green runs I was ready to up the ante so moved onto the Blues. This was more like it. What a blast. There are two types of runs at Whistler – the fast cruisey ones littered with jumps and with mostly banked corners to help you maintain the pace and the narrow, tight technical runs which take a whole load of skill.
I preferred the fast runs which had loads of jumps in them which you could hit at pace. It took a little while to learn that the jumps were always safe to hit and there would be space to land after them. I also did a few of the technical runs but sometimes they were a bit like hard work.
For my last run of the day I thought that I should try a black. Wow this is much harder. The key to success is to maintain your pace but that was my downfall. Coming up to a dropoff of about 1.5m I came into too tentatively. My front wheel dropped and when I hit the ground I went flying over the handlebars landing hard on my head, knee and hip. Thank god for the armour – because even with armour the fall still hurt. Without a proper helmet I would have been concussed. Good thing this was the last run of the day because it killed my confidence but I would really love to try it again.
I’ve upload a video to Youtube of one of the blue runs called “Crank It Up” – going into “Heart of Darkness” – I hope it gives a good idea of what it is like to bike one of the trails.
Whistler – At Last
With our new starter on the way to Lillooet we decided that we needed to get away for the weekend and Whistler seemed the ideal destination as it is only 150 km away. It was great having a hire car to give us some freedom. Driving a normal car feels like driving sports car after months of the beast !
The road to Whistler is a slow one with several high passes and lots of twists and turns. Even in a hire car it was a 2.5hr drive. We did stop off at Nairn falls on the way for a 3k hike to the falls.
On reaching Whistler we parked up – no free parking here – and went to the visitor centre to pick up some maps and get our bearings – but most importantly to find out where our hotel is.
I want to give a big thank you to my former Colleagues at Orion who gave me some lastminute.com vouchers when I left. Well we used these to pay for a nice hotel in Whistler for the weekend – and seeing it was my birthday it was a really nice treat.
We checked into the Aava hotel which is only a couple of minutes walk from the centre of whistler village. After three months in a camper checking into a nice hotel feels like such a luxury and we fight over who gets to sit in a hot bath first ! The hotel was reasonably priced but like everywhere in Whistler you had to pay another CAD20 a night for parking !
Part of the luxury is an HD TV and a channel which is showing games from the Rugby World Cup. We sit down and watch three straight games. The icing in the cake being watching Wales v Samoa live – coupled with a takeaway pizza although we also watched Ireland beat Australia which was great to see. We’d also managed to pick up some free Molson microbrew after stumbling on a giveaway in the middle of the village – not a sample either they gave us 8 cans between us. So beer, rugby on a big flatscreen and pizza –a pretty perfect night on.
The next day we didn’t get up very early – revelling in a soft big bed. However when we did we headed out to take part in Whistlers summer sport of Downhill mountain bike – more of which later. It was nice to come back from biking and sit in the hot tub back at the hotel !
In the evening we decided to celebrate and go out for a really nice meal – it was my birthday after all. We had made a reservation at a restaurant in the village called Araxi. This was a real treat – we had the four course set menu with a lovely bottle of Argentinian Malbec. This restaurant is easily up there with some of the nicest I’ve been to in London.
The next day we wanted to get up in the Alpine for some hiking. We got up relatively early and headed out and up the Whistler Village lift to the top of the Whistler Mountain. From there we went across the Peak2Peak lift – they get terribly excited about it but it was just another Gondola that happens to go between two mountains – not so different to others like the one that links Les Arcs and La Plagne. Anyway we got to Blackcomb mountain where there was a 10k long hiking trail that was right up in the Alpine and very pretty.
After a couple of weeks waiting around with mechanical troubles it was really good to have two days in a row of exercise – although I paid for the mountain biking with really stiff legs.
We headed back to Lillooet after the hiking hopeful that our new starter motor would arrive the next day – and FIT.
Sturgeon- Don’t they live in Russia ?
Sunni, one of the mechanics who works at the garage we are stuck at in Lillooet, has also been an absolute star. He offered to take us sturgeon fishing on Friday night. My first reaction was – Sturgeon – aren’t they the ones in Russia that they get caviar from . Well they live in the rivers here too. You can fish for them but only on a catch and release basis.
After Sunni finished work he took us and his family down to a great little beach by the Fraser river. The track to get there was pretty gnarly but their pickups made easy work of it. At the end was private beach with a still corner of the river just off the main channel – although just downriver were some rapids.
Sturgeon is a bottom feeder so you chuck a line out with a heavy weight on and some salmon roe as bait and wait. When you get a bite, pull back hard on the rod to set the hook and then reel the guy in. That is easier said than done as these fish can get up to 10ft long.
Within 5 minutes we had a bite and Sunni handed the rod off to me. It took me about 20 minutes of hard work to reel in a 5ft 6in Sturgeon. That was fun.
20 minutes later we had another to give Sarah a chance to catch one. Hers was much smaller though at only 4ft. Probably a good thing as it had taken all my strength to lift the big one.
After that we settled down to a great Salmon bake prepared by Sunni’s wife, Elsa. We sat on the beach watching the river and the sun set. Beautiful.
Then eating done there was time for more fishing in the increasing gloom. There was time for Sunni to land a fish as well but it was too dark to measure. So we called it a day after this one and packed up in the pitch black.
A really good evening and we want to put out a big thank you to Sunni and Elsa for giving us a really great experience.
Hockey – Do you mean Ice Hockey ?
The national sporting obsession in Canada is Hockey – and there is only one type of hockey here and that is the type played on Ice. We thought we’d better catch a game while we were in Canada and the ever helpful Prince George visitor centre let us know that there was a pre-season match taking place between Prince George Cougars and the Edmonton Oil Kings at the CN Centre in town.
The game wasn’t the most skilled but after the first period got pretty aggressive and the body slams got harder as the game went on.
Anyway the final score was 4-1 to the Oil Kings who looked the much the better side. We later learnt that the best Prince George players were away on loan to NHL sides for pre-season training and would likely be returned in a couple of weeks.
Swimming with Salmon
One thing I’ve wanted to do all summer is to get in the water with spawning salmon to try to get some pictures. Well our sojourn in Lillooet was a perfect opportunity as the Pink Salmon are currently running.
About a mile from town is a little river called Cayaoosh Creek. Just under the one lane bridge that the road crosses the river on there are a large number of spawning salmon and it was here that I decided to try my hand at some photography.
So dressed in my 3mm wetsuit and clutching my camera I waded into the river. My first feeling was one of utter shock at the freezing water – I’m glad I didn’t try this any further North because the water is just so cold. After a few minutes the Ice Cream Headache fades and I can submerge my head for more than a few seconds at a time. Its amazing what you can acclimatise too !
By the time that the Salmon get to the spawning grounds they are in pretty bad shape. They don’t eat from the time that they enter the rivers from the sea and once the start spawning they start dying. Bits are literally falling off them. The dying salmon are easy to get close to as they have much less energy. The ones who are not so far gone are much harder to get to as they powerfully swim down the river.
The area I am in ranges from a deep area which is about 2m deep to a shallow gravel bar with only 10cm or so of water in it. The shallow area is much easier to work in as the current isn’t so strong.
After about 30 minutes in the water I hear a shout from Sarah – “Bear”. So I look up and working his way down the river about 100 metres away is a medium size black bear. He stops to munch on the brains of dead salmon on the river side but keeps moving towards us. I’m not too worried until he gets almost alongside me on the bank – only 10 metres or so away. At this point I think its better to look a person than a strange looking fish so I stand up and he takes one look at my wetsuit clad form and lollops away. I take a picture with my underwater camera using a fisheye lens – gives you an idea of how close the bear was.
Anyway soon after this I can’t take the cold anymore and we call it a day.
FromAtoB 