Tuesday, September 17
Today
we drove north up the east coast of Vancouver Island to the very small
town of Telegraph Cove. It’s only about
a three hour drive so we had planned on doing some sightseeing along the way,
but when we woke up it was very windy and raining. We decided we might as well sleep in a while
and have a leisurely morning and see if the weather cleared. We eventually got everything together and got
the house together and ended up hitting the road about 10:30.
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| The weather didn't look good when we got up. |
The wind
had stopped blowing, but it was still raining on and off, but we decided to
check out Elk Falls anyway. When we got to Elk Falls it was raining
pretty hard so we decided we didn’t want to hike in the rain so we moved
on. I was looking at Google Maps and
noticed an alternate route through the interior of the island that looked more
interesting so we took that way, which turned out to be, to say the least,
interesting.
The road
started out paved, but soon turned to gravel, but it was in good condition so
we continued on. The rain had let up and
it was a beautiful drive with heavy forest and lots of rivers and lakes. There was a myriad of dirt roads which were mostly
logging roads, and problems started to arise when the road Google Maps had us on
disappeared. After a while we finally ended up back where we wanted to go, but then the road
once again changed direction and we were having a hard time figuring out where we were. It was very frustrating as I had my phone,
two GPS’s and two maps and none of them showed the same roads.
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| We were off into the wilderness. |
It’s
understandable though, as these are logging roads and probably not mapped as
well as they should be, but it was very frustrating for us and made us a bit
anxious. I knew what direction we were
supposed to be going in so we did make forward progress, but there continued to
be roads cutting off in various directions and it was a guess as to which one to
take. Finally we found ourselves going
back south and I saw someone in a pickup truck cutting wood so we stopped to
ask directions. Sure
enough, at the crossroads he described there was a sign that said “To Highway”
so we were back on track. It took us a while to find our way, but we finally saw a main road and we were soon on the highway again.
We weren’t in any real danger of being lost
as we would have eventually found our way, but it was very frustrating not
knowing exactly where we were, but it was a beautiful drive and we did enjoy
that part of it.
When you
get past Campbell River you leave most of the cities and towns behind and it is
a very rugged and isolated area with very few towns. There were few cars on the road and the rain
came and went and was at times pretty heavy.
We finally found a gas station and restaurant along the road and stopped
to eat as it was around 2:30 and we were quite hungry.
The food
was surprisingly good and the people there were very friendly so we really enjoyed
our lunch. By the time we left, it was
after 3:00 and we still had another hour and a half before we arrived in
Telegraph Cove. Telegraph Cove is a
pretty isolated small community which is at the end of a ten mile road that
turns off the main highway.
We are
staying at the Telegraph Cove Resort tonight which is a nice place, but no
frills; no TV, not cell service and no wi-fi.
We checked in and found our room with a nice view of the cove. Since we had eaten so late, we weren’t very
hungry, but we did decide to go down and check out the general store with the
idea of maybe getting a snack to eat later, but we found it closed. We also found the café closed so it looks
like if we get hungry, we’ll be eating the snacks we brought with us.
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| Views of Telegraph Cove |
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| The Telegraph Cove Resort was pretty spartan, but did have great views of Telegraph Cove. |
It was a
very quiet evening, I spent some of the time updating the blog, but otherwise
we spent it reading until it was time to get some sleep. Tomorrow we have a long drive to the west
coast of Vancouver Island and Pacific Rim National Park.
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