When we left our great camp spot on Bridge Lake, BC, we continued west into the town of 100 Mile House. After the fuel and propane was topped off we swung by the local RV dump. Well, I gotta say, I’ve been to a LOT of dump sites over the years, but this one has to be the best I’ve ever seen! Super convenient spot, just off the main highway, easy access from either direction. It is super clean and located in a small park setting, complete with flowers, and a garbage bin. Worth stopping by even if you don’t have to dump .
Headed south on Highway 97 past Clinton, we took the 99 heading south and west towards the coast. In the Pavilion area the highway passes through the site of a massive landslide a few years ago. Last time through here, it was full-on construction getting the road rebuilt. You can see these massive anchors bolted into the bedrock below to stabilize the road area.
Past Lillooet, the terrain gets even more dramatic, winding it’s way through gorges, and clinging to the canyon walls. After a while it moderates somewhat and I began to look for an overnight spot that we had stayed at previously. Sure enough, we found it and it was vacant. It’s right by the highway, but this road gets pretty quiet at night, and the sounds of rushing water drowns it all out anyway!
The next day we continued over the summit, and headed down through Pemberton to Whistler. The plan was to stop in Whistler to eat or look around a bit, but every square inch was occupied, and even the ‘pay’ parking lots were overflowing – so we carried on! Turns out there was a major cycling event in town, and it was a weekend, so that accounted for the extremely crowded conditions.
Down in Brackendale/Squamish, I was disappointed to find that the main access to the waterfront was closed off for some major construction projects. Nevertheless, we tracked down a couple of friends who live in the area, and had a good visit and spent the night.
In the morning we drove the spectacularly scenic ‘Sea to Sky’ highway down to the ferry terminal at Horseshoe Bay, and got in line. Without a reservation and with no idea what the schedule was, we missed the first sailing and caught the second.
With no response from my last-minute note to some friends in the area, and not wishing to drive much further up the coast of the island, we opted just to find a quiet secluded , non-scenic spot to spend the night. It was very quiet at least, and fairly handy to the main highway.
I spend a fair bit of time ‘recreationally’ looking at real estate online. Occasionally a place will catch my eye, and that is the case with a place I spotted on Quadra Island. Even though it appeared to be sold within a week back in the spring, I wanted to have a look at it for real and see what I had missed! So we got on the short ferry across to Quathiaski Cove on Quadra, from Campbell River.
Sadly, the place looked even better in real life than the online version, and it looked like the new owners might have trimmed a few trees to make the view even better. O well, saved a lot of money not buying that place! As expected, the island is a pretty nice place, so we spent the better part of three days checking out the roads, parks, beaches and the views.
Spent a couple of days at Rebecca Spit, admiring all the expensive boats anchored in the cove there, as well as some biking and hiking on the trails.
Some unique windmills on some boats in the harbour.
Back on the ferry to the ‘mainland’ of Vancouver Island.
We made a run into Browns Bay, but found the forest service road to be very rough and very dusty.
Good thing we didn’t leave our boat trailer ‘UNINTENDED’! That’d kind of like the sign at the laundromat that says ‘no loitering’!
It was a great spot, until …
some arrogant obnoxious types pulled in right next to me with a Class A, and a trailer full of Atv’s. All good till they fired up their cheap 7000W industrial generator to ‘cook supper, and charge the atv batteries’. It took about 2 minutes for me to vacate the site after that. The next spot down the shore was pleasantly private, but not exactly level!
So many of your photos always stir long ago memories for me of the few years I lived in B.C. 50 years ago. Sounds like you may be considering a move at some point to the west coast. I would welcome the milder winters and scenery there but maybe not so much the gray skies. I imagine you are already scrabbling together your winter travel plans for the southwest. Due to health concerns and the high cost of travel insurance, etc. we will not likely make it again. However, dreams sometimes have a habit of coming true and I cling to that thin sliver of hope. Keep on truckin and say hello to Hailey:))
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