Friday, May 29th
The Other Side
My foundation was rocked
My tried and true way to deal was to vanish
My departures were old
I stood in the room shaking in my boots— Alanis Morissette, That Particular Time.
It turns out in the morning that Hope is surrounded by mountains. The rain has stopped and the clouds have lifted, but only for a bit. It is still cold and damp and grey. Beyond Hope lies the densely populated Vancouver area. I decide to cross it as quickly as possibly by means of the motorway. The trip starts out nice enough. The road pairs up with the railway and together they run along a river.
Bridal Falls Provincial Park has sparked quite a bit of entrepreneurship along the highway. The sign listing the tourist attractions is quite packed. Among them is Dino Park. Quick, move on.
Around Chilliwack (hehe, Chilliwack) the motorway becomes rather busy. Abbotsford features a huge construction site along the motorway sparking traffic jams. Langley, then Surrey where there is another lengthy construction site. Across the river, where they are rebuilding the bridge across Fraser River, and into Burnaby where, guess what, they are doing construction along the motorway. That one is really long and lasts all the way through Vancouver to the Vancouver Inlet bridge.
You’d think that they would have finished all this work before the Olympic games earlier this year, not least because this highway is the main artery through the eastern parts of Greater Vancouver. But no, this has been going on all the way through the games and will continue well into next year.
We cross Vancouver Inlet by means of a huge bridge and thusly arrive in North Vancouver. Just north of the inlet the mountains start. There are plenty of skiing areas here, just outside town. The motorway winds its way through. It has a number of rather steep sections. Eventually it arrives at Horseshoe Bay, where the ferry to Nanaimo departs.
The next boat leaves in a bit over an hour. But since I don’t have a reservation, I line up already, anyway. Everyone else seems to just lock their car and leave, so I do the same. I get some coffee and have a look at the village. There is a large sailing yacht pier, lots of parking lots. The residential homes run up the hill, out of the bay.
The one hour and forty minutes crossing of the Strait of Georgia over to Vancouver Island is done by the three year old German built double-ended ferry ship M/V Coastal Renaissance. Not only the ship is German, most of its passengers seem too.
At the other end of the crossing is Nanaimo, styling itself ‘the Harbour City.’ I turn north and wade through an ocean of cars. Traffic here feels as bad as in Southern California. In addition, synchronized traffic lights haven’t made it this far west yet. You reach every light at red (which, of course, is a form of synchronization too). As we leave the city, rain starts to set in. At Parksville I leave the motorway and turn west. The road is cluttered with millions of advertisement boards.
Coombs appears to be a heritage village gone wrong. It consists of old buildings, one even has a grass roof. All of them appear to be antique or arts and craft shops. They present some of their products outside and what you see is rather kitch. People love it and are all over the place. At the end of town lurks the Coombs Rodeo Ground.
On its way to Port Alberni, the road has to cross the Beaufort Range. It first passes Cameron Lake, a long small lake lined by high, steep walls. It then runs to Cathedral Grove, a grove with impressively tall trees. Finally, it swerves over the mountains.
Of Port Alberni, I only see the outskirts. I skip the centre, which may be worth having a look at. I can do that tomorrow, since I have to come back this way. Driving through the suburbs, though, is like a drive through an ocean of green. This seems to be plant heaven. A sign announces ‘pot sales.’ I wonder how many disappointed customers they have had.
After Port Alberni, the road has to cross eighty kilometres of wilderness to reach the west coast. It runs along high above Sproat Lake before climbing over a mountain to reach Kennedy River. It becomes rather narrow and windy, which would be great fun, but on this Friday afternoon, there are way too many people afraid of curves. But at least the rain stops and the sky lightens up a little bit.
The valley of Kennedy River is of the narrow, steep-sided variety. Eventually, it falls into Kennedy Lake. But the road sticks to its height for a bit, allowing a magnificent view over the lake and towards the coast. We cross Lost Shoe #2 Creek, followed by Lost Shoe #1 Creek. It appears that the unfortunate traveller was on his way east.
Ucluelet at the south end of the road is very much a tourist town. It has the ocean on one side and an inlet on the other. There are lots of resorts and even more surf shops. Everything is in small, traditional buildings. The coast is cluttered with development projects, selling apartments to rich city folk. This makes my goal a bit more tricky: Find a public beach. Eventually, I find public access to the ocean front, at least.
And so, almost four weeks after I have been standing at Cape Spear looking out east over the Atlantic, I am now balancing on some rocks on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Thousands of miles in between, I have crossed a continent.
If this were a book, it would end here. But I have to get back. So I turn north again. The road to Tofino crosses the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, whatever a national park reserve may be. It runs along several beautiful beaches, marked as Tsunami Hazard Zone.
Tofino is yet another tourist town. It has various resorts with beach access, a variety of good restaurants and lots of events. It has a bit of a new age feel too it. There are just a touch too many yoga schools and spiritual experiences.
I pick a motel resort at the very end of the road. The room is overlooking the bay and the ocean. Various extremely green islands out there. I have dinner at SoBo, an apparently much hyped restaurant just around the corner. It lives up to its reputation. The Shellfish Bowl is quite delicious.
Beer of the day: Phillips Blue Buck Ale (the only beer they had on tap, but with such a fine local ale, why would you need more?)