2004/06 Yukon trip - Getting there - Port Alberni |
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Some of these paragraphs and pictures are only available via the family's userids and passwords |
When the sun broke through, relatives took us out to Stamp Falls, where the Great Central Lake empties towards the ocean. The west coast has been in an unusually dry spell, so all those green Alberni lawns look dry and yellow. The river level and falls were way down from where I’d seen them a few years back, but enabled us to see the fish ladders, which had been submerged before. We also went down to Port Alberni’s pier for some coffee. The last time we’d been there we’d just returned from last year’s kayaking trip to the Broken Islands, and it was so windy that the kayaks were being blown along the pier.
Saturday 3rd July
There was go-kart racing on Sunday in the streets in town, so it seemed like a good time to go elsewhere. We all squeezed into their truck and took logging roads over the mountains down to the coast. They took us to Pachena Bay, which is where the West Coast Trail ends. The trail starts in Port Renfrew and follows the coastline. Hiking it takes about a week, something I’d like to do some day, but tough if you’re on your own and carrying a tent, cooking gear, and a week’s food. There were a number of hikers laid out on the grass, awaiting the bus to take them to Port Alberni. Pachena Bay was pretty, with forest, river, sandy beach, and gentle waves.
From there, they took us over to Bamfield, a little seaside community, close to where we’d been kayaking in the Broken Islands. We wandered around this tiny community built around a natural harbour, and had a good lunch at the TT restaurant. We’d seen two bears on the way there and soon met another on the way back. These were black bears – the island does not have any grizzlies. (A belief since proven wrong.) On the way back we stopped off at a sawmill down on the Alberni Inlet. One of their uncles is the watchman there, and, as he and his wife are the only people within miles, they are required to be there at weekends and evenings. However, another Uncle and Aunt had come out from Port Alberni to escape the go-karts, so they were sitting in as watchpersons. The house there had made the TV news earlier in the week as it had dozens of hummingbirds. We saw a few, but nowhere near as many as reported in the news.
Sunday 4th July
We set out for a couple of walks in Port Alberni’s ravine. The town is cut in half by Cherry Creek, which has formed a deep ravine, a jungle of trees and shrubs. The water was low because of the dry weather, but it was a good walk.
Monday 5th July
I went out early to run some of the Log Train trail, the track that was used for the previous August’s Log Train Trail marathon.
They took us over to Sproat Lake provincial park. This is where the giant Mars water bombers live. They fill up with lake or sea water and drop it onto forest fires. However, we were at the lake this time to look at the petroglyphs, animal images scraped into the rocks hundreds of years ago by the Indians.
We also considered taking Port Alberni’s steam train ride, but decided to watch the train (for free) rather than riding on it.
Tuesday 6th July
Tuesday was to be a shopping day. As shopping is a bit limited in Port Alberni we were all going across the Hump to Nanaimo, where they have big malls, book shops, wool shops, all that kind of stuff.
Wednesday 7th July
I took another, longer run on the Log Train trail, about a half marathon, glad that I wasn’t running the other half on this day. Then we were off shopping to stock up for a few days camping together in the north of the Island.
They had got a salmon from a friend who’d been out fishing the previous night, so that night we had an excellent salmon barbecue.
Note that if it sounds like we’re not packing as much into a day as we usually do, we weren’t! Babies are great time wasters, and we were enjoying “wasting” that time.
Thursday 8th July
Chevrolet’s new truck engines come with a computer that tells you when to change the oil. However we could just imagine getting the message to change it as we crossed into the Arctic! So we changed it anyway. The computer has to be told that we’ve changed it by depressing the accelerator three times to the floor within five seconds. There may also be magic words involved.