Vancouver Island

This little guy was a tad
shy and turned his head
just as I snapped the picture

The next couple of days were much less energetic as I only drove a few hundred kilometers each day. Originally, I had hoped to make it to Hope (ha-ha!) in a day, but then I remembered I have lots of time and don't need to be in a hurry, and so decided to relax and take my time. Instead of spending my time driving, I found some free internet and wrote a blog (which always takes an hour or two), read a book and generally got off to rather late starts in the morning. Eventually I did make it to Hope and being such a nice afternoon, I decided to go with the original plan of camping at Silver Lake which is just a few km south of town. A very nice provincial park campground that comes complete with a small lake nestled snugly between nearly vertical hills, and surrounded by tall cedars and rainforest as one would expect for Hope. Lots of fishing being done in the lake, but not a lot of fish being caught as far as I could see.
Next day it is on to Tawassan and the ferry and finally Victoria.  Although driving through Vancouver without a navigator was an interesting exercise, I did manage to find the ferry and was exactly on time to drive on and sail with no wait - always a bonus...

Kinsol Tressle
- walking between the
support towers

Kinsol Tressle

Managed the first golf game of the year a few days back (and even won a golf shirt in the process), so now was a good time for the first tennis game of the year. I nearly won the match...which roughly translates to 'lost' the match - although I did manage to do well enough to push it into overtime (that is, it took 10 games for me to lose) which I was quite happy with for the first playing of the year.

Went for a bike ride on small portion of the Trans Canada Trail at Kinsol Trestle (or Koksilah River Trestle) which is the largest wooden trestle in the commonwealth and one of the highest railway trestles in the world. After a close call with the wrecker, it has just recently undergone a major rebuild/repair/renovation and is once again open to foot, bike and horse traffic (no trains). A bit of an engineering marvel...the individual supporting timbers are about 30cm square and possibly 15m in length and although it is hard to see, the platform or rail bed is made of similar sized timbers except they all have a curve to match the 7 degree curve of the tressle.

After a vigorous paddle to the middle of
the ocean, we found a small island to
have a rest before the journey back

Kayaking on the Pacific Ocean - well at least a very small and protected piece of the pacific... we did see one seal swimming just off the point in the picture, but no close encounters, although I do now know of a place where they hang out, so will have to check that out in a day or two.