Beautiful sunset at Kin beach by the Royal Canadian Airforce base (only one jet the whole time 🫣). It’s a little obscure this one but it has the most beautiful view of the coast. Literally you could see Mount Baker in the US, which is north of Seattle up through the Canadian coastal mountains in the remote west of BC to Phillips Arm. Sunrise and sunset are crazy.

Approximately halfway between Nanaimo and Port Hardy is the small village of Sayward it’s population is similar to our island in Orkney, approx. 400 people. We stayed here for a couple of nights sharing the campground with just two other people Bryan and Pete. On one of the days we went hiking with Janice (caretaker of the campground) and her three dogs.

We spent the night discussing anything and everything with Bryan and Pete telling stories of wolves and bears and little green men! I’m not sure what the green glow is around Bryan in the picture. It may have been smoke from the cannabis (completely legal in BC) he was puffing on to help his ageing bones or something to do with the line of conversation about alien life and Pete’s first contact experience with them! Either way it was good fun in a perfect dark sky area.

I was talking with Janice when we arrived at the campground and mentioned we would be doing some hiking over the time we were there. We discussed the local trails and she said her and the dogs would like to tag along so the following day Janice led our little group over the slopes of mount H’Kusam. Along the way telling us how her people, the First Nations people of the area used the plants for medicine and food. We have to thank Janice for her time and sharing her knowledge with us making the day very rewarding.

Our final full day on Vancouver Island had us drive the long and empty road through the mountains to Port Hardy which is about as far north as the paved roads go. Imagine our surprise on arriving to find a McDonalds drive through! Seems it has a surprising flow of traffic and people with the logging trucks and the ferry connecting Prince Rupert, in the far north just below Alaska, with Vancouver via the island.

During our time there we walked the beach and watched the pink salmon jumping out of the sea next to us. Sarah had her dose of coffee and books in the quirky local coffee shop. We spent the evening talking with Gerry in his home made camper. He was telling us about his trips through the Yukon to the arctic where you drive for days and never see another soul. Just driving from his home in Ontario to Vancouver Island had taken him seven days, only stopping to sleep each day. It’s difficult to believe how vast Canada is until you hear about these things first hand.

The following day was a gruling five plus hour drive back to Nanaimo to catch the ferry back to the main land by 4pm.