Up early, 6am MT so 5am Pacific which is where we were headed, and left at 7am. Had done all the check out stuff the night before so ready to go. We were hoping to avoid the construction, but they had started early at the blasting area and we stopped for about 10 or 15 minutes \u2013 so not bad. The rest of the construction area we just drove through!<\/p>\n
We did some stopping along the way. First stop was Rockgarden which was lovely. As it was early we chatted to each other so didn\u2019t see much wildlife (there were warning signs about bears everywhere and we were the only people there) but did see woodpeckers, probably the three-toed woodpecker, and some sort of small rodent, probably a pika. Haven\u2019t had a chance to look them up! It is a beautiful walk, with some scrambling over rocks. Descriptions online said easy walk, the display board at the site said \u2018difficult wear appropriate mountain hiking boots\u2019, and the truth is somewhere in between. I did well in trainers and Joe in his hiking sandals, but there were stretches of scrambling!<\/p>\n
After pulling out of Rockgarden, a truck going the other way flashed his lights at us. So I was slowing down and trying to find out why \u2013 was looking at my lights, checking the car, looking around. I was just about to start speeding up again when I saw why he\u2019d flashed \u2013 the bear digging around at the side of the road! Black bear<\/a>, just looking for breakfast. As it was so close to the edge of the road I didn\u2019t stop, but slowed way down so Joe could get some hasty photos \u2013 and I\u2019ve finally seen a wild bear!<\/p>\n We then went to the Giant Cedars boardwalk and walked along under the giant rainforest trees. Really lovely. We did run into a couple of other people on the boardwalk, but it was still quiet. Didn\u2019t see anything under the trees, no bears or voles (there were signs about voles) and could hear birds, but didn’t see any. Joe got lots of good photos of the light, the trees, and the boardwalk!<\/p>\n We then got to the Skunk Cabbage boardwalk and Joe said he wanted to see what a skunk cabbage is, so I did a quick turn into the area. I thought it was just a short boardwalk out to some cabbages, so left my binoculars in the car. We stopped by the info board as there was a laminated sheet<\/a> attached to it and a warning sign below \u2013 warning of a bear in the area. This was new; the other signs just had \u2018bear country here\u2019s how to behave\u2019 but this was a sheet saying a bear was definitely in the area. At the start of the walk there was a white board with \u2018post your recent sightings!\u2019 and the last one was at 20:30 the night before \u2013 \u201cstill eating\u201d. Hmmmm. And again we were the only people there. So we went in talking and singing.<\/p>\n Turns out the skunk cabbage boardwalk is a long walk \u2013 we took a bit over half an hour going relatively quickly. Well quicker than we\u2019d normally go on such a walk. Because bear. We got to the boardwalk and started along only to come across a rather recent pile of scat <\/a>and crushed vegetation either side of the boardwalk. But Joe said he wanted to see skunk cabbage (and also said \u2018so this is proof that bear\u2019s do not<\/strong> shit in the woods!) so we had a very loud discussion about bears and how they should just trundle right along because humans were there and carried on. And the boardwalk is brilliant \u2013 lots of skunk cabbage which is July isn\u2019t particularly impressive, but also loads of birds (they do tagging here and have tagged around 50 different species) and other plants and creatures. The bear was obviously stocking up on all the berries in the marsh, loads of berries there. And of course I didn\u2019t have my binoculars to see any of the birds flying around! We also startled something swimming in the water which dove with a flick of tail \u2013 too small to be a beaver, not a bird, so maybe a rodent? Perhaps a small otter? If they\u2019re in that area. But not enough of a look to tell! There was one bird actually slightly under the boardwalk (and guess what we started singing) which we startled and it got caught by the grass\/weeds trying to fly away so was making a racket flapping and crashing about. We may have jumped and squeaked when it did. But the skunk cabbage walk comes highly recommended! Even though we never saw the bear.<\/p>\n Then we just got in the car and headed toward Vancouver! We had decided to drive as far as we could, then stop for the night. We stopped at Joe Schmucks Roadhouse<\/a> in Sicamous for brunch. Really good food and fun signs \u2013 \u201cI dream of the day a chicken can cross the road without its motives being questioned.\u201d Also seen along the road was an Authentic Canadian Cantonese restaurant. We\u2019re unsure exactly what they were serving, maybe maple syrup in all the sauces? We stopped in Chilliwack for the night and had dinner at a steakhouse<\/a>, which was very good. Joe finished the meal with a 12 year old Canadian whisky which he learned was a rye. Said he enjoyed it. Saw a sign as we were leaving the steakhouse \u2013 \u201cInstant human: just add coffee\u201d \u2013 which we had to agree with. Tomorrow we fly home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Up early, 6am MT so 5am Pacific which is where we were headed, and left at 7am. Had done all the check out stuff the night before so ready to go. We were hoping to avoid the construction, but they had started early at the blasting area and we stopped for about 10 or 15 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-131","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3245,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/21\/early-start\/","url_meta":{"origin":4031,"position":0},"title":"Early start","date":"Wednesday, 21 December 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"So the meals are very nice onboard. Though we are the last seating for dinner and also the last to be served! Still, it was worth it. After dinner, there was a talk in one of the bars, which we missed most of, but did get to try the canape\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":335,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/03\/warm-at-last\/","url_meta":{"origin":4031,"position":1},"title":"Warm at last!","date":"Sunday, 3 January 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Finally warm! San Diego is warm - about 80F which is lovely. Love the warmth. Almost too hot in the car as we'd dressed for a cold Death Valley early morning. We wandered around Furnace Creek and watched birds and generally pottered about. Didn't see the roadrunner, of course. Never\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4029,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/12\/snow-hiking\/","url_meta":{"origin":4031,"position":2},"title":"Snow Hiking","date":"Wednesday, 12 July 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Had a huge breakfast at the lodge then headed off for Mount Revelstoke\u00a0and the Meadows in the Sky parkway. We got caught just out of the lodge by roadworks and had to sit for about half hour while charges were detonated. Not sure if they\u2019re widening the road or simply\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":269,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2009\/06\/14\/loch-awe\/","url_meta":{"origin":4031,"position":3},"title":"Loch Awe","date":"Sunday, 14 June 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday 13 June So got into Glasgow and started trying to find how to get to the airport - hired the car from the airport so we wouldn't have to drive through Glasgow! After running about looking for the bus stop, we finally found it, just as the bus drove\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":479,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/01\/classic-picture-of-copenhagen\/","url_meta":{"origin":4031,"position":4},"title":"Classic picture of Copenhagen","date":"Sunday, 1 July 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Turns out the toddler wasn't the main problem, it was the parents that woke up us. They apparently weren't aware that\u00a0 everyone could hear them and then they started winding up the toddler - yay! Especially after a normal night on a train. Changes in a modern train journey through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":323,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2009\/12\/30\/long-day-in-the-desert\/","url_meta":{"origin":4031,"position":5},"title":"Long Day in the Desert","date":"Wednesday, 30 December 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Up well before dawn, dressed and in the car. Drove in the dark all the way up to Dante's View where Joe got all settled for photos. In the freezing cold. Really freezing cold - it was about 32F. Brrrr. Watched the sun rise and Joe take photos, while freezing.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4031"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4033,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4031\/revisions\/4033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}