TRAVEL DAY
From: Juan de Fuca Provincial Park, China Beach Campground, British Columbia.
To: Cowichan River Provincial Park, Stoltz Pool Campground, British Columbia.
Day 245 – Today we’re packing up and going to a new campground for a week. At least half of the drive consists of traveling back the way we came a week ago. Sections of this road are still rough, but we tried the other route several days ago, and that highway would be dangerous if we encountered logging trucks. Therefore, even though we’ve seen this scenery before and the trip will be longer than the other route would’ve been, we’ll be heading south and east back towards Victoria. Once we get closer to Victoria and head north, soon we’ll be in new territory again as we drive on the Trans Canada Highway (Route 1) closer to the east coast of Vancouver Island.
It rained all last night and was still raining this morning when we were packing up, but it had dropped to just a sprinkle or two with lots of clouds by the time we departed at 10:05 a.m. It was 51 degrees. This area was so incredibly beautiful, it was hard to leave, especially the amazing old-growth trees. As we passed Shirley Delicious, the parking lots were already filling up.
We had no hook-ups at the campground, and our next campground won’t have any either. We had to stop at a dump station to empty our tanks. This one was across the street from a different Provincial Park. We’ll have to stop to get fresh drinking water at a different location later in the drive. We again drove through Sooke, stopping for gas in the RV at a Native American-owned gas station.
After Sooke, we turned off Highway 14 and headed north for a short distance to catch Route 1. We were deep within the Victoria sprawl. The city of Langford is growing rapidly with houses being built to occupy every bit of land all the way to the tops of hills with spectacular views. Once we were beyond Langford and all the construction, we began climbing and traveling through parks with lots of trees, and traffic wasn’t as bad. Until it was…..road work time…..and traffic was piled up as two lanes became one lane, over and over again. And if that wasn’t holding things up, the Canadian’s appeared to have gone nuts for roundabouts in this area, as everyone slowed down again for numerous roundabouts in every town we went through. Basically, what all this boils down to is that our drive took longer than it should have.
Still climbing, the view opened up to the east of us when thru the forests, we saw a large bay of deep blue water below, some small islands, and beyond there was another mainland. Looking at the map, across from us in the distance was the large peninsula that is above Victoria, separated from us by the Saanich Inlet. And another place for us to explore while we are camping in this area. Beyond the Saanich Peninsula would be the Strait of Georgia with the many San Juan Islands, followed by the British Columbia mainland and Vancouver. We wanted to stop for pictures as there were several pull-outs for this amazing viewpoint, but with the RV and Honda behind it, there would be no place to park. And another place for us to come back to while we are camping in this area.
Eventually, we turned off on what we thought would be a cut-through to Highway 18, the road heading west to our campground and the town of Lake Cowichan where we would be stopping to fill our tank with water. Big mistake. This was not the short-cut we wanted. We waited in a huge line of traffic for road work that was directing one lane at a time to drive over part curb, part ditch, part one big mess, as they were repairing the road. After waiting about ½ hour we got our chance to beat up both the RV, the Honda, and the girls, who were hollering from their bedroom retreat. We were hungry and headachy. Will this drive ever end?
Once on Highway 18, we made it to Lake Cowichan, filled the tank with fresh water, had a chance to let the girls out, and we all had lunch in the RV. Feeling better we drove to our new campground only to drive on one of the worst-maintained campground roads we’ve ever encountered. With deep potholes and no way to go around them, we limped to our campsite.
There weren’t many people camping; the weekend is over. The campground wasn’t very big. Our campsite was fine, we had checked it out previously the day we made the Circle Loop drive. We set up camp, Rob put up the screened tent, we breathed a sigh of relief – finally we’re done – we are here.
It was almost 4 in the afternoon; time to head out to the tent. Damn, we forgot we’d put off cooking last night, were lazy, and now we have to make dinner, too. (We try not to need to cook on a travel day.) We prepped and cooked together and when done, set the food aside and still made it out to the tent (with our beer and wine) to relax. We were glad it doesn’t get dark early here this time of year.
P.S. We again have no internet/ no phone connection. Who knows when today’s blog, and all of last week’s blog will go out. We just may have to get used to this.