Wednesday, June 22

THANKS TO THE BROCHURES…..

Day 254 – …….we found some great things to do and made reservations – things we wouldn’t have known about otherwise since we are having internet problems. There is a boat that departs from Port Alberni three days a week and travels south and west to the Pacific Ocean & back again to Port Alberni. It is an all-day trip. We will be doing that tomorrow. We also booked an afternoon whale watch trip for Friday. We’ll be looking for Orca (Killer) Whales.

It was raining and cloudy this morning but it cleared up around lunchtime. After lunch in the RV, we drove to Port Alberni to familiarize ourselves with the town about 30 minutes west of our campground. Port Alberni sits at the head of Alberni Inlet and has a large port. It’s a nice town, fairly scenic, and while we were there we found out where we could dump our RV tanks next Monday since our current campground has no dump station.

On the way to Port Alberni we passed some really beautiful places we could go – Cameron Lake (kayaking) and Cathedral Grove (walking through ancient forests). The scenery was truly amazing between Port Alberni and our campground. There was ample parking for Cathedral Grove but every spot was full – on a week day.

While in Port Alberni, we went to Lady Rose Marine Services at Harbour Quay where our boat for tomorrow, the Frances Barcley, was docked at the marina. There was a restored Banfield lifeboat on display with interpretive signs. We went to the office and picked up our tickets for the mail boat trip tomorrow. They showed us a map of the route we’d be taking, said we would see bears and whales and eagles, told us where to park at the train station which lets you park for free all day, and said they’d have breakfast and lunch items for sale also. The man at the counter asked if we were doing anything after leaving the port, because the salmon were running near Stamp Falls Provincial Park. He drew us a map and told us how to get there.

After getting Subway sandwiches for tomorrow’s lunch and getting gas in the Honda, we drove to Stamp Falls. Coincidentally, this Provincial Park is where we’d reserved a campsite for six nights beginning the 4^th of July. When we got there we checked out the site we had reserved and were happy with it. Then we drove a short distance to a small parking lot and took the hike to the Falls. It was amazing. Not only was it very beautiful scenery, the salmon were swimming upstream and attempting to jump the falls. A salmon ladder had been installed to help the fish bypass the falls and make it easier for them to swim upstream. We could see them swimming in the ladder as well as in the whitewater of the falls. Amazing to see.

There is a park in Port Alberni on the way from the Provincial Park to the route we were going to take back to our campground. Supposedly Black Bears go after salmon at low tide in late afternoon across the river from the park. We drove by, but no bears, and it was high tide.

Back at the RV, we had dinner and then sat outside in the tent until it was getting dark. A cute little Song Sparrow sang us a song. We are excited for tomorrow; we have to be back at the dock in Port Alberni by 7:30 a.m.