Prince Rupert

It's ironic that we had to go this far north to enjoy some of the most conventional comfort for almost a week. Our hosts, Al and Rachael, are among the friendliest and hospitable people we've ever met: they gave us free range in their kitchen, Rachael drove us around town, and they are simply great souls.

Their back deck faces almost directly West,

and the view is breathtaking any time of the day.

They have a hot tub (with bubbles!) out on the deck, and we were in it twice!

Al and Rachael are leaving on a cross-country bike trip in two days, and their bike is going to touch both oceans:

There are a lot of totem poles around town:

Smithers is next, where we'll stay on Rachael's sister's organic farm, sounds like it'll be good times!

P.S. Consider this: We came to know Al and Rachael through Bret, Tara's brother, whom we met in Winnipeg Beach this summer, and we met Tara last year when Eugene and George hitch-hiked through Winnipeg. A long-reaching chain of friends, eh?

Ferry

Because the ferry to Prince Rupert runs only every other day we had to stay in Port Hardy for a day and catch it 5-30 Saturday morning. In Port we found a nice municipal park where we ate our supper and then went into the bushes in search for a place to sleep - nice, dry and comfortable riverbed was there for us!!!

Next day we've met Steve, local farmer who kindly offered to take us to the beach and showed quite a variety of marine life. Besides mussels of different kind, sea urchins and stars there was one we had never seen before - Louis Moon Snail - huge thing , with 15 cm shell and the foot twice as big. Its mainly diet are mussels that she surrounds with its leg and sucks it out of the shell through a small tube. Quite amazing to observe!

There was not so much to do in Port itself and the local hikes are too far to go on the logging roads. So we have decided to spend the day in the library, reading about local aboriginal art and culture and marking places on the map where we would like to go. Lots of pencil on the map now!!!

With lots of impressions and good feelings we left Vancouver Island. Fifteen hour boat ride was amazing , truly beautiful landscapes, whales, abandoned canneries and over 2000m peaks of the coastal BC.

Comox Valley to Port Hardy

After a long 7 hour wait on the side of the road that reminded us a lot about north-western Ontario (brrr) we have finally got to Port Hardy, a very small town on the northern tip of Vancouver Island.
It is so picturesque here-calm ocean bay, distant islands on the horizon covered with fog and beautiful mountain peaks bathing in the evening sun. I promise to post some photos...
Tomorrow we are hoping to catch a 5 am ferry to Prince Rupert the journey that would take us 15 hours to get there.The other amazing thing is that the weather is staying quite unusual for the local climate. It has been very sunny and dry for the last couple of weeks we've been on the island compared to the rain and fog that on the west coast adds up to three meters of precipitation a year!! We are lucky to be able to watch beautiful purple sunsets almost every day!