Lake Cowichan and Port Renfrew

Monday 26th September

We had a more successful fire last night and were able to sit outside with a drink and nibbles.

This morning we woke up to lovely light in the water.

We set off back through the rolling farmland towards the Highway 1 and came across one of these signs! I love them!! Can you imagine our farmers' reaction to one of these warning of their farm entrance! We saw lots as we drove south from Jasper, but never in a place where it was safe for me to pull off the road...

We crossed the 1 and drove west on the Pacific Marine route, on the 18,  first to Lake Cowichan where we filled up with petrol, did some shopping at the Country Grocer, and had a coffee with Internet at Tim Horton's. The latter is a coffee shop chain we have seen everywhere, but this was the first time we had been in one. It was OK....is the best I can say!!

We then drove off into the wilds!  Up hill and down dale with forests in either side, some of which had been partly felled. At first all we met were huge logging trucks, the a few more vehicles but on the whole it was very quiet.

We arrived in Port Renfrew shortly before 1.0pm and found the pub!!! The Port Renfrew Hotel, which had a nice deck area on the harbour side, and we stopped for lunch! Fish and chips, I think this is the first meal we haven't made ourselves apart from sandwiches on the ferries. It was very good and Michael enjoyed his pint of Island lager. After lunch we had a look at the local campground, which is right on the beach and run by First Nations. I had read some poor reviews and we found them to be justified so we changed our plans and moved on. 

View from lunch spot

Looking up the Renfrew river

Port Renfrew is one end of the West Coast Trail, which is a 6 or 7 day hike along the remote west coast. As we reached the road junction we saw a young man with rucksack etc hitiching a lift, so to cut a long story short we picked him up. He was German from Berlin, a social worker, also studying for his Masters. He had just completed the trail and was on his way back to Victoria. We took him as far as the Jordan River where we found a shoreside campsite, and were pleased to see he got another lift within a few minutes of us arriving there. It is not a busy road. 

So, we are now sitting looking at the USA and the Olympic Peninsula across the water, we will be over there on Thursday!! It looks very mountainous and, as we were driving down the road, we could see some very high snow capped peaks.

We are completely off grid here, so this will definitely not be posted until tomorrow.