Journey to the Motherland

This last week was a vacation to Victoria, BC with Michelle and Steve. We had a great time together as usual. On Saturday before we left we played touch rugby. My first experience with rugby and it was confusing but I was told I did great for a first timer. I guess I'll believe it. Anyway, then we journeyed on our way to Victoria, riding the ferry from Port Angeles, WA. We arrived and visited with Steve's aunt and uncle, had dinner with them, and headed off to our campsite at French Beach along the Juan de Fuca Strait.

This picture was taken Tuesday just before we dried out our things on these rocks

In the morning (Monday), we headed up to Port Renfrew to do our backpacking trip on the Juan de Fuca Trail. It's a 47 KM hike, but we were only doing 18 KM of it to Sombrio Beach. According to Michelle (and the information she found) Vancouver Island has the most bears per square mile in the... world? Or maybe just in North America? Well anyway, there's a lot. Also found on the island are cougars and thankfully we didn't see any cougars. Bears are another story later to be told. So anyway, we woke up on Monday morning to drizzling rain. We got to our destination in the rain. We geared up in the rain. And then proceeded to hike... in the rain. The trail was pretty cool. It went up and down and had several obstacles and it was completely muddy. There were parts with built in boardwalks and convieniently placed logs and stumps and other things to help us overcome the mud, but in some parts we just had to scale the sides of the trail and hang on to roots and branches and hope they didn't break. Of course the worst that would happen is stepping in the mud... which we each did. We all slipped at least twice, but really more like multiple times. But we plowed on... in the rain. It rained all day that first day and downpoured a couple of times. We got to our campsite and looked for the least flooded looking ground and set up camp in the rain. Then we proceeded the recommended 50m away from our tent to cook our late lunch of ramen in the rain. There was only a half hour that entire day where no drops fell from the sky. Enough time for us to eat our late lunch and then go 20 feet down the path to cook and eat pasta roni, hot cocoa, crackers, and trail mix for dinner. Yes, we ate 2 meals in a matter of 30 minutes. But Steve said it was important for our bodies to be warm and have calories to burn to keep us warm so we would not get hypothermia. Plus we were starving. So then we finished eating and it started raining again. We got into dry clothes and went to sleep with the rain drizzling down on the tent. It was a little cold that night because we were wet, and our sleeping bags were a bit moist as well. But we survived and when we woke up Tuesday it was a glorious day. This is what I saw when I climbed out of the tent. It was mostly sunny all day and part of the trail went to the beach so we were able to dry out some of our clothes a bit in the sun while we ate a late breakfast. The hike was nice once more - I did biff it hard when I slipped on a log but it was all good - and we made it to our next stop, which I already forgot the name of the camp, in good time. All the water we saw along the trail had a reddish tint that looked yellowish when splashing down. I saw some of the ugliest waterfalls ever with that color water. But we figured it must be safe to drink since there were no warning signs. When we got to our campsite, we found a small stream that had the reddish water but not as much color as other streams and when we filtered it and tasted it, it wasn't bad at all. We ate dinner on some high rocks by the beach, played Up and Down the River in a little meadow (ok, it wasn't really a meadow since it was near the outhouses), and then scrabble in the tent. When we woke up Wednesday, the tent was moist from condensation I think. Anyway, it was a cloudy day but not cold and not raining so it was fantastic. We hiked along the trail and then Steve suggested taking the alternate trail along the beach for a while since the tide was low. We agreed and it seemed like it would be a marvelous idea. So we found the trail to go down and Steve was a bit ahead of us and already down to the beach while Michelle and I were still working on getting down the trail. It was totally muddy and I was going down backwards holding onto branches and trees basically sliding down while Michelle was going down forwards doing the same. Well we finally got down to the beach and started coming around the corner when Steve pointed out that we could see our destination - Sombrio Beach and how we could see a tent set up. Michelle on the other hand saw the black bear and wondered why Steve was pointing and was so happy about a bear right there! Well needless to say, Michelle and I were outta there and Steve wanted the camera. That's how we got this shot. So all over there are signs around that tell you what to do when you encounter a bear. I don't think Michelle or I remembered any of them. In fact all we thought was, bears can run 55 kmph. Oh boy. Well I was fairly calm on the outside but feeling a bit panicky. Michelle had enough panic for all of us, although I have to say that she was still relatively calm. Well we backed away and the bear followed us a bit (it was not more than 75m away), and perched itself atop this log like it could pounce at any time. We managed to get back to the bottom of the hill that we just took forever getting down, but with adrenalin pumping, we scrambled up to the top in record time with brave Steve behind us as our bear bait if the bear so happened to attack... which it did not. We thank Heavenly Father. Well we got back on the trail and we were all good. But then the trail leads back down to the beach and lucky us, another bear just chillaxin on the beach exactly where we needed to go. Well this time there was no alternate route. It was either get to Sombrio Beach 1km away or go back 7km. So we stalked the bear for a while watching its moves. Interestingly enough, we could see the bear ahead of us, and we could see Sombrio Beach in the distance with people happily doing their thing not even aware of this bear. After probably 45 minutes, it eventually went back towards the trees... which does not guarantee our safety but it made it easier to get by very cautiously. We ended up going closer to the water on the larger rocks and just skipping the regular trail altogether, hiking out to Sombrio Beach by the beach since the tide was low enough to do so. It seemed safer to do so because we could see all around us and know if there were any other bears around. We made it safe and set up camp. We still cooked our food away from our tent but the others at the beach didn't seem to care where they cooked since they all were doing so right by their tents. Steve hitchhiked to go fetch the car in Port Renfrew and was very successful at this task. He was back in no time. Thursday, we got back to Victoria, showered and did a bit of exploring. The next couple of days were filled with spending time with some of Steve's extended family and helping to get ready for Steve's cousins reception as well as seeing some of the sites of Victoria and enjoying it's beautiful scenery. We went to Butchart Gardens on Saturday. I haven't been in 20 years and it was a bit smaller than I remember. It was still pretty though. Not everything was in bloom but what was out was pretty. I discovered some functions on my camera and enjoyed taking pictures of the flowers. Which is odd since I don't exactly care for flowers. I mean, they are nice and all but I dunno, they aren't my thing. But I sure enjoyed photographing them and looking for cool shots. Here's a sampling.

We left the next day, having to take a ferry to mainland BC instead of the Port Angeles ferry that ended up being too full. The border crossing went rather smoothly and I was happily reinstated as a legal alien once more. On Monday back in Portland, Michelle and I went strawberry picking and made some jam for me to take home. Lucky me! And that my friends, is the longest blogging account of a trip I hope you endured. But hopefully it was somewhat entertaining?

In front of the Chinese Public School. The Totem Pole Park.

Beacon Hill Park. View from Mt. Tomlie (Tomlie?)