Since our trip to Vancouver Island, we have been working
hard, saving some money and making bigger plans for the summer. In the mean
time we’ve had a few smaller trips and one MINI adventure. In November, we went
to a Bingo night at a local gay bar. I thought it would be terrible, and it was
amazing! The
evening ended with me winning the top prize of a MINI goody bag, which
included the rental of a mini cooper for one weekend. We finally got a chance
to use it when we were invited to stay at our friend Emily’s cabin at Pender
Harbour on the Sunshine Coast in BC.
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On the map above, Vancouver is just below the
bottom right corner, the cabin was roughly at number 7, and the
Skookumchuck rapids we visited were at 27.
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I had to drive the car through Downtown Vancouver to pick up
Emily and Danielle, and the fun began as we (and passers-by) soon realised that
4 humans, all with luggage and booze, was just waiting for a bad punchline (I'm yet to think up one that does it justice).
In addition, the car
itself had been branded with a Canucks (Vancouver’s Ice Hockey team) logo for
the Stanley Cup tournament. However, the Canucks had been knocked out of the
cup. So off we went, not caring about ice hockey (sorry Canada), in the most
British of cars, to test my driving capabilities in the smallest vehicle on the
road. Our first stop was Horseshoe Bay village, from here we took the ferry to
Langdale. We took many pictures of the surrounding snow topped mountains,
passing islands, and 3 eagles that were flying overhead.
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| Danielle, Emily and me |
Only half an hour from
downtown and everything was suddenly very wild. Once at Langdale we drove along
the coast stopping at Gibson’s Landing and Sechelt to catch the views (and buy
beer). We arrived after dark to Pender Harbour and the treacherous road that
lead down to the house, the road was then following by a woodland path that
brought us to the cabin. I thought 'cabin' was just a cute way of saying house,
but this was actually a cabin. The original structure of it had been floated
down the coast on logs years ago when Emily’s ancestors decided they wanted to
move house! Since then I guess it hadn’t changed much, as there was no heating,
and the decor was adorably dated. Although we couldn’t really tell in the dark,
the cabin was just metres from the water with a private pebbly beach and a
jetty shared with the neighbours, most of whom were relatives of Emily.
We had arrived late and naturally were worried about the logistics
of getting to the pub. Going by boat was mentioned, but when we called ahead to
the Garden Bay pub, they were about to close (at 9.30) but said they would keep
the kitchen open for us! So we drove around the harbour to the local pub, which
defies description. It was mostly like a social club, but with tv (naturally),
local beers and AMAZING pub food. We
headed back after a good feed, and shivered in the cabin until we’d had enough
cans to forget that we were cold.
The following day we drove to Madeira Park, and watched a
boat race in which local schools raced homemade boats around the harbour. It all felt very local and it was pretty remarkable that even one or two boats made it to the finish line. We
walked around the harbour, and went to the Copper Sky Gallery/cafe for
delicious salmon chowder to set us up for our walk to the Skookumchuck rapids. The
walk was through beautiful woodland with lakes on both sides. I was scared
about bears the whole time, but all we saw was a notice that politely asked us
to call the ‘turtle hotline’ if we spied one in distress.
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| Stella at Skookumchuck Narrows |
We went to two
viewing points at which we could see the rapids, but they weren’t at their full
potential as the tide was going out. The Skookumchuck narrows is an ocean inlet
where some of the fastest tidal rapids in the world occur. You can see on the
maps, how the Sechelt, Narrows and Salmon inlet are all filled from water that
rushes through the Skookumchuck. Unfortunately it didn’t look too impressive when
we saw it, but it made for a famous destination of our afternoon walk.
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| Just looks like your average Dicker family walk, only bigger! |
We also stopped by one of the many local art galleries on
the coast, which can be identified by flags that people fly outside their
homes, so passer’s by know an artist is resident there.
Our last evening mainly involved ginger beers, and getting to know our new wonderful friends. Emily and Danielle did an amazing job of representing, Danielle's
entrance on Saturday morning in her Canadian Olympics attire brandishing
a bottle of Maple syrup was definitely a highlight. And I was really
glad that kayaking to the pub was just a cruel joke in the end, meant to
scare us unadventurous Brits.
The following day we drove back to Langdale via Robert’s
Creek, to see more inspiring coastline and some even more impressive holiday
homes of the rich. We stopped by another very artsy cafe for soups and
smoothies, before taking the ferry back to West Vancouver.
It was such a change of pace to get out of the city,
unfortunately without a car of our own, it is nearly impossible to see these
bits of real British Columbia, so it was a great experience, short as it was.
