In the last blog we told you that we had to wait a month (May) while our RV was repaired.
June 1st, 2017 we left the beautiful Mendria home in Nanoose and drove down to Nanaimo to pick up the RV. The rig was ready for us and shortly thereafter we were sitting in the ferry line-up to Vancouver. We had to wait for the next ferry because we were oversize but ended up at a nice RV park in Chilliwack.
When we took the rig in for maintenance, our biggest issue with the RV had been the main slide and it went out perfectly. A nice quiet night and then we prepared to leave for Quesnel. Unfortunately, the slide did not come in properly. We extended the slide again and tried to retract it but the problem was even worse and we could see that the edge of the slide was being torn apart with screws pulling right out of the wood.
After several phone calls to Nanaimo and other RV dealers in Abbotsford, the best suggestion was to get some people together to see if we could PUSH the slide back into position.
Neither of us thought this would work but we did find some folks and yes, the slide went back in!
About 1100 we left Chilliwack and drove back to the ferry and back to Nanaimo, arriving after the RV shop had closed for the day. Spent a very noisy evening listening to the Island highway traffic but also decided that we were not going to let this set-back spoil our plans.
We spent an hour moving everything we thought we would need for a two month road trip, into the Jeep. It was packed from floor to roof.
Bright and early the next morning, the folks from the RV shop arrived and were ready to start immediately on our repairs but clearly were relieved when we told them that we were leaving within the hour and would pickup the RV on August 1st.
Interior of BC
Since we were heading to northern BC, we caught the 3rd ferry in 3 days to Horseshoe Bay and drove to Whistler/Pemberton to spent part of the afternoon and early evening with an old friend, George Brooks. Great to see him but unfortunately we missed seeing Barb, his wife, as she was in Vancouver for a concert.
We drove the back road (Highway 99), north-east to Lillooet for the evening and found a motel that was within 50 feet of the train tracks - not a good choice but Lillooet does not have a lot of choices either.
Between Clinton and 70 Mile House, on Hwy 97 is a slight detour to the east which takes you to Painted Chasm, a small Provincial Park with lava-layered colouring in the rock canyon. Jeannie had been here as a teenager and it looked exactly as she remembered. http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/chasm/
At Williams Lake we found a motel which had a beautiful view of the Lake. Unfortunately, we had not noticed that a bit farther down the road was a paving crew. They did not stop for the night but continued on and at 2300 they were right outside our door. Sigh.
The next morning, we spent several hours at Scout Island Nature Reserve on Williams Lake aka Willy’s Puddle. It was a beautiful sunny morning and we saw a number of birds including some that we do not see on Vancouver Island.
Quesnel in the Cariboo
We drove on to Quesnel and checked into a motel for a 4 day stay but that turned out to be a bad choice as well (not doing too well at this point with accommodations, are we?). The motel was old and tired and clearly the door had been smashed open more that once but the killer (bad choice of words) was the fact that there was a lumber mill a short distance away that ran all night and the noise never quit. We moved the next morning to the Billy Barker Hotel downtown where the city has decorated their fire hydrants – see photo. We also checked out Pinnacles Provincial Park, a 20 minute drive from town.
We spent 3 days in Quesnel and were planning on doing some birding on our own but it turned out that there had been a couple of cancellations for a BCFO (British Columbia Field Ornithologists) pre-conference field trip that Jeannie and I were able to link into.
We spent 13 hours birding one day and explored some very interesting places (Old Soda Creek village site with pit houses reconstructed and back roads on the west side of the Fraser River). But the long day and the 32 °C temperature took a bit of a toll on us. A couple of cold beers at the end of the day put things to the right again.
Second day was cooler and quite a bit shorter but we did see some interesting birds near the Bowron Lakes and Barkerville and we did increase our life list by 5 birds.
Friday, June 9th was a travel day from Quesnel to Tumbler Ridge and it rained, sometimes heavily, for the whole day. We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant and it appeared that half the world had the same idea, as lunch was an hour and a half with only one server and one cook. The server was almost running for the whole time we were there – at one point she changed her shoes and took off her fancy jacket to cool off.
Birding at Tumbler Ridge
We had a very nice room in Tumbler Ridge and attended the BCFO (BC Field Ornithologists) mixer at the Tumbler Ridge Dinosaur Discovery Gallery on the Friday evening. Nice to meet some old friends again and to meet some new folks as well.
Saturday morning, we met at 0515 for breakfast and several of the field trips had been cancelled due to flooding or bridge washouts. Our scheduled trip was good-to-go so we ventured into the sub-alpine, looking for a Ptarmigan. We did see one briefly and got some photos of a Sooty Grouse but the highlight of the day was a Great Gray Owl that was sitting on a telephone pole. That was the first time Jeannie and I had seen this bird and we did have several other birds that were new to us. Being in the alpine area was so special – the views (of the snowy mountains and a strip coal mine), the clear air, the amazing rock structures. One area is called the Shipyard/Titanic because of the interesting rock formations that are gigantic and really do resemble huge ships, one being a long pointy outcropping where some brave folks will walk to the end and do their arms outstretched-Titanic imitation.
Sunday at 0515 saw us at breakfast again and ready to head out on our field trip but in contrast to the sun of the previous day, it was raining and continued to rain for the whole day. Again some trips were cancelled but our trip to Brassey Creek went as scheduled.
In spite of the weather, and heavy mud on the road that forced one car to turn back, we did hear an amazing number of birds and many of them were new to Jeannie and me. Of the birds that we did get to see, the highlight was a Canada Warbler. Unfortunately, we did not get any photos of it. Our “New To Us” list had now increased by 15 birds on this trip.
Waterfalls and Pickup Trucks
After the BCFO conference closed, Jeannie and I spent several days in Tumbler Ridge where almost every vehicle is a pickup truck. We went to some of the sites which we did not visit with the conference tours and one of those was the site of dinosaurs tracks that are part of the largest and most complex dinosaur track-way in Canada.
Tumbler Ridge has now been designated as a Global GeoPark
with many spots to visit if you are interested in geology and paleontology plus 30 waterfalls in the vicinity.
Kinuseo Falls is a most spectacular falls – actually getting there is a 140 kilometre round trip over a gravel road but was worth the trip (couldn't load a video but you can find videos of Kinuseo Falls on YouTube). On the way, we passed by Shark Fin Mountain and passed over several rivers. All the rivers here are flowing at an incredible rate as it was a wet winter and late spring. We could have spent several days doing more hiking in this area – the local hiking club has published many brochures on all the hikes and sites to see in the area.
Dawson Creek / Gordondale
The trip from Tumbler Ridge to Dawson Creek took us through the foothills of the northern Rocky Mountains. We stopped to take photos of Jeannie’s old neighbourhood and she reminisced about events from 54 or more years ago.
We had made arrangements to stay with Jeannie’s long time friend from elementary school and her husband (Lynne and Halvor Moxness) in Gordondale, Alberta, a 30 minute drive east from Dawson Creek. We had a marvellous 5 days with them where we rode ATVs and an old-time horse and carriage along a country road. Lynne arranged for her 3 sisters and their spouses to come for a BBQ – what a riotous few hours with many laughs. So nice to see all the Harris girls and their mom after so many years.
After leaving Dawson Creek, we were literally, in unknown territory. Neither of us had been north of Fort St John but we wanted to see what northern BC and the Yukon has to offer.