HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY HOLIDAY, EVERYONE.
TRAVEL DAY
From: Long Beach Golf Course Campground, Tofino, British Columbia.
To: Stamp River Provincial Park, Port Alberni, British Columbia.
Day 266 – Today we travel east from Tofino on the coast to north of Port Alberni. Stamp River Provincial Park is situated by the Stamp River. It is where we went a couple of weeks ago to see the Salmon running at Stamp Falls. We hope to have enough time and good enough weather to be able to do that hike again.
We departed the Long Beach Golf Course Campground at 10:20 a.m. It was 55 degrees and raining. It rained steadily throughout the day. Our route was to head east on Route 4 to Port Alberni – the exact same way we came out to Tofino, and that meant going through the terrible road construction traffic jam again. On top of the heavy rain, it was also quite foggy, making parts of this trip a bit treacherous. The road is narrow, climbs up and down steep grades, and with the construction cutting it down in places to one lane, we were not looking forward to this drive.
As it turned out, instead of being delayed an hour like the previous time we passed through, they weren’t doing much work on the road (we presume due to the weather), and our wait was only about 15 minutes. The scenery was gorgeous even with the fog and rain, but the drive on those winding roads can wear you out. We were glad when we approached Port Alberni. It meant we were almost there. We arrived at our campground at 12:20 p.m., let the girls out and we all had lunch, then we unpacked and set up.
Stamp River Provincial Park (also called Stamp Falls Provincial Park), has a small campground and the campsites are each surrounded by trees and not close to the next campsites. There are no hook-ups. We filled up with drinking water before we got here. We had site #4, a very nice campsite. We cannot see our neighbors. The river is close to our campsite and we can clearly hear it rushing by towards the waterfalls. We love the sound. There is a sign at the River by our campsite that warns anyone who might be in the water to stop there, don’t go any further due to the waterfalls ahead.
We didn’t feel like cooking tonight; that happens often after a drive, packing up and unpacking, and setting up. So we drove the 15 minutes into Port Alberni and got take-out from Twin City Brewing, a place we ate dinner a couple of weeks ago. We split a pizza and went to bed early, listening to the rain on the roof. It continued raining throughout the night; the high today was 59 degrees.