Fish guts and wolf watching...

Friday night dash to the ferry preceded a glorious weekend on Vancouver Island.  Made the 6.55pm crossing and after some great views to 'the island' and back to downtown we commenced a slightly hair-raising 3 hour drive across windy roads to Tofino on the West Coast.  Full realisation of the amount of logging in Western Canada brought about by the huge logging trucks coming in the other direction... but the Jeep persevered.

Saturday was spent touring old growth rainforest and coves along the 'long beach' in the Pacific Rim National Park.  A Parks advisory out re cougars and wolves (special packs have adapated to coastal living) did not deter me, Mark and his mum and dad from spending twilight on the beach on 'wolf watch'.  No wolves but lots of bats and some very hardy surfers...

Sunday dawned incredibly foggy (the islanders refer to 'Fogust') making for a mysterious start to our kayaking trip.  I pumped our guide for wildlife info, her top West Coast animal encounters included a raft of 250 sea otters and wolf swimming between islands.  We landed on Meares Island, protected by the biggest act of civil disobedience in the 80s to prevent the thousand year old giant trees being logged.  Check out the biggest we saw on the right- pretty amazing stuff.  Planning to join the Friends of Clayoquot Sound to keep it protected. 

Then back across the Island and to work.  Small matter of my 30th birthday quickly dealt with through fish and chips on the beach and another trip to Beaver Lake; great sighting this time as he checked out how his damming was going...  Beautiful sunset was a great finish.

Next update following trip to Manning Provincial Park on Saturday and Squamish the rest of 'Labour Day' long weekend.


Ooops, almost forgot:  On the way across the island bumped through a seemingly innocuous puddle only to realise about 30 seconds later it was obviously the aftermath of some roadside fish cleaning.  Stopped at the next garage and cleaned the car like crazy... which reduced the smell by about 10% (it seems to have weirdly got into the engine and air vents).  We're already in our landlady's bad books and we fear a stinking Jeep in our parkade is not going to improve relations...