After 18 years of service my 1998 Jeep has taken a rest. In its place is a 2016 Ford Edge. My love of exploring has not changed, and at the root of all my travels is the love of finding something new.
It's on these pages I've written travel logs to describe my wanderings.
I hope you enjoy the stories ...
Haven't been out caching or back road touring much due to winter time, only managed to get out a couple of times past few weeks, so I thought I would look backwards and see where I've been.
I have been doing back road and forest road driving for close to 35 years, needless to say my knowledge of the South West corner of British Columbia is pretty extensive. On Jan 9 2005 I added geocaching to one of my hobbies, which dove tails nicely with my love of exploring the countryside and poking around little corners of the Vancouver suburbs and the Fraser Valley. Looking for geocaches is a good way of finding those hidden gems of parks, ocean vistas and high mountain views. Add in my love of photography and story telling, well, you have all the makings of a guy who goes every where and wants to tell every one about it! :)
I've expanded my way of getting my travelogues out as the years went by; starting with simple emails, then to writing trip reports for web site forums, to posting pictures on Flickr.com, then getting my own web space in the form of this blog, and finally adding videography to my story telling repertoire.
Let's see where I've been, stories I've told, and who's seen me......(I know, rather self-aggrandizing but there you are) LOL
Starting with this blog, which began on Oct 2 2006; 16,642 visitors have viewed 24,412 pages worth of 90 trip reports and blog write ups. Guests have come from dozens of countries, every where from Canada to the U.S., China, Argentina, the U.K., France, Netherlands, Italy, Australia, Israel, Russia, Austria, Columbia, Denmark, and dozens more countries.
My Flickr account consists of 1,959 pictures which have been viewed 30,154 times
My YouTube channel contains 52 videos I have uploaded which have been watched a combined total of 7100 times, give or take a few times.
On the geocaching front I have found 2,366 geocaches in 3 provinces, 8 U.S. states and two countries in Europe. Doing so I have logged 36,190 miles between caches.....thankfully I didn't walk it all! :)
As a way of saying thanks to the geocaching community, I have hidden 54 various geocaches. My cache hides are in such diverse places as your run of the mill shopping mall parking lot, where the busy area makes it difficult to retrieve the cache unobserved, to local suburban parks, to forest mountain roads treating the finder to fantastic lake views, west coast rain forests, and beaver ponds.
A lot of time has gone into documenting and recording my activities to share with my family, friends and colleagues, but that same type of force that drives my wanderlust also drives my story telling...I've had such a great time and seen some fantastic places that I just have to show and tell every one where I've been, whether they want to hear it or not! LOL
I hope you didn't nod off reading the stats, but when I look back on the journey so far, I'm amazed at the territory I've covered doing what I love - exploring BC and beyond!
Bring on the nicer weather and melt that snow in the mountains, me and the Jeep are ready to hit the road again!
Part 2 of our two week holiday was spent on a leisure visit of the southern section of Vancouver Island. We caught the ferry around dinner time on the Monday, which put us in Victoria around 9.00 PM. We cruised around till we found a hotel with wifi available (you old geeks in the crowd would call it "war driving"), then searched out the local phone number for a hotel right downtown that Annette had in mind. And a good score it was...
This time of year Victoria is a quiet town, most of the tourists have disappeared, the tree huggers don't like protesting in the cold and the rain, so we had our pick of hotels at prime spots. Annette got a sweet deal at a hotel a block away from the Parliament Buildings, and a short block away from where the Blackball ferry from Washington docks. A charming smile from myself got us upgraded N/C to a room overlooking the Inner Harbour, with a fantastic view out our balcony of the harbour. At least it would be come sunrise...
We went for a short walk around 10.00 PM in a lite rain on deserted streets near the Parliament Buildings and popped into a corner store for some cool drinks. We meandered back to our room at a leisurely pace just enjoying the quietness of a normally busy street, with no place to go and no hurry to get there. It was a good moment, walking hand in hand under the umbrella, with all our cares many miles away.
We had a lazy wake up, no rush to start the day as we were officially on "Island Time". I was still half asleep when Annette said "have you looked out at the view yet"? Well, no....I was still in bed! But, oh yeah, this will be a great view, with excellent shots for the video. Annette stands back, and lets me peek out the curtains....I rub my eyes as there's too much sleep still and I can't focus...then she starts laughing....I couldn't see a darn thing cause it was foggy as hell! Well, I started laughing too...best room I've had for a while in Victoria, good price with a great view...LOL
Oh well, whaddaya going to do, other than pack up and head on out towards Sooke, someplace I had yet to be. The fog slowly lifted and the sun came out to make it a great day for the start of November - it was so warm that we had to take our coats off in the car, and the outside temperature hovered between coat or no-coat.
We grabbed a bite to eat at Timmy's in Colwood and wandered up Metchosin Road as it followed the coast line. I sure like these drives a lot better than the main highways - there is much more to see and more opportunities to pull over when ever something sparks your interest. We went past the town of Sooke for a few more miles, and picked a random place to stop where the highway touched the water...somewhere along the length of Sooke Bay.
The sun was fully out now, doing it's best to warm our hearts, and the shoreline did it's best as well. We walked the few yards to the beach, sat on a log and just enjoyed the sights and sounds for a few minutes. The place was enchanting, so much so that a brief stop turned into a couple of hours spent sitting on the beach acting like boyfriend and girlfriend again...in a good way! LOL
The beach here was full of small pebbles, and the shoreline short and steep; when the tide pulled out, it pulled all the small pebbles with it. Under the quiet roar of the undertow, was the unmistakable sound of pebbles tumbling over themselves.
Sadly, we knew there was more to see, so we trudged back to the car and turned the car back towards Sooke. I wanted to find at least a few geocaches while we were on the Island, so I had several picked out close to the road as we travelled the Island. The first one on my list was in Sooke, on a quiet back road.
So, picture this....we've been on holidays for a week already, we are on Island time with no rush to do anything or go anywhere, and I have only one thing "I" _want_ to do today...that's to find a cache. So, funny enough, the missus, who shall remain nameless, immediately starts by saying "how far down this road do we have to go", "we don't have all day to waste caching"! Excuse me? I thought we were in "relax" mode...apparently not when it comes to something she has no interest in....so we go about 6 blocks down this road (that's not really far is it?) and we pass a small trail into the bush...GPS says 130 feet to the cache. I park on the side of the road, GPS says 86 feet to the cache...I have one foot out the door and someone in the car, who shall remain nameless, says "hurry up"! I say "shut up, I haven't even gotten out of the car yet and I only have to go 80 feet" ! Sheesh! Isn't this the same person just a few days ago had me sitting on a bench guarding her purchases for 3 hours as she power shopped at the Outlet mall in Portland? Hurry up my ass!
With that little incident out the way, the drive went without further excitement as we went back through Sooke and caught the Inner Island Highway up island. We cruised up the Malahat Highway stopping at the viewpoint to take some pictures and video, and just enjoy a few moments out of the car. We continued north, getting off the main highway where we could to drive the old roads along the waterfront. This was way more funner! :) We drove through small towns like Mill Bay that displayed its rich fishing heritage for all to see. Fishing nets hung off the side of small houses pushed right against the old road, with pylons for footings to hold the house over top of the shoreline. Where space permitted, boats big and small were tucked between neighbour and house.
We got off the main highway again at Cobble Hill Road and took the old road down into the old town of Cowichan Bay right on the waterfront in, what else, but Cowichan Bay! There is a lot of First Nations history here, as it is one of the main First Nations settlements on the Island pre-European contact. For thousands of years, the people harvested salmon from the rivers and shellfish from the tidal flats. Warm winters and plenty of wildlife made this an ideal place to live.....and still does.
We ended the day's drive in Chemainus, another bright tourist stop during summer months but quiet on this Autumn day. Chemainus was an old logging town that was dying like most logging towns did in the 1980's. From it's inception as a First Nations village, to it's dynamic times of logging, mining, and fishing, the town was all but dead when the last lumber mill was scheduled to close in 1983. In 1981 the town decided to beautify itself and at the same time attract tourism, by painting murals on the sides of businesses. They started with 5 murals, today they sport 41 murals, plus a scenic little old fashioned, downtown section. It has now become a main tourist draw on the Island itself, and the little town is choked with tourist cars, RVs, and tour buses in summer.
Being here in Autumn, gave us the town pretty well to ourselves; and, as we discovered, there was a new Best Western hotel in town, only a year or two old. It looked like the only people staying there were a few blue collar workers and a few old tourists also enjoying the off season. Again, my charming smile along with a casual request for some kind of "free" upgrade brought us to the top floor in a corner suite. And what a great little room it was...you walk in, bathroom by the door, walk down a short hall, bedroom is on the right hidden behind double doors, a full kitchenette tucked off to the side of the spacious living area, and a large walk out balcony where you could sit out in the morning and enjoy your eggs and orange juice on a warm day! I definitely made a point of saying "thank you" to the young lady at the reception desk - that was a great gift from the hotel!
In the morning we had a lite breakfast at the hotel, then wandered around the streets taking in the murals and popping into the small shops advertising some typical touristy stuff, and some fine crafts made by local artists. We even went into the theatre they had, not so much to see the theatre, but the higher end gift shop stocked by local artists with small items like jewelery, up to paintings and metal work. Hmmm, that place wasn't quite for us....some prices seemed way over our heads. Still, I'm sure the workmanship was worth the dollars they were asking.
The day was getting on, and we had to start getting on as well, so we did get on up the highway, next stop, petroglyphs! I had gotten my eye on a small park advertised in the local Parks map and wanted to see in real life some petroglyphs..had only seen a few to date. Just a couple miles south of Nanaimo is Petroglyph Park, a 2 hectare park right at the side of the main highway overlooking the Nanaimo Harbour. The earth here is mostly exposed smooth rock, perfect for First Nations to use as a tablet to tell their stories.
First question I had - what's the difference between pictographs and petroglyphs? Well, I had to look that up, as they seemed the same to mean...here's the difference.
Rock paintings are called pictographs - rock carvings are called petroglyphs. Now you know!
I pulled off into the small parking area looking forward to the rock carvings; Annette chose to stay with the car, partly as she wasn't as interested as I was, and partly due to the local crime fighting sign that stated "Thieves work here". As it was, it was a very short walk up to the top of the large boulders above the car, and there I could see the rock carvings. The Park has done a good job of highlighting the carvings, and interpretation signs help the visitors. What I was disappointed in, was the fact there had not been any maintenance done in the park for some time. Fallen leaves and moss obscured the petroglyphs - I guess this was one down side in coming out of season - no work was done for the visitors sake.
Back on the road, we took the Old Island Highway north and stayed near the water again, this time passing through Lantzville, Parksville and stopping in Qualicum Beach for lunch. We headed up the hill away from the water into town and found a trendy tapas bar restaurant with good sandwiches. A nice lunch in our bellies, we headed back down the hill to the water, and continued our sojourn at waters edge.
Through Fanny bay and Oyster Bay, with their oyster operations creating mountains of white shells besides their buildings, and the strong smell of seawater from the concentrated operations, we marched on up island, until we got to the turn of for Cumberland.
Cumberland is an old coal mining town that has been nearly dead for as many years as I've been coming to the Island. Annette use to visit a good friend here back when they were both young girls, and she always wants to poke around town to see how it's changed. Well, if any thing, it's deader now then back then...although there is the odd sign of new life here and there as the town becomes an alternative place to live for the folks from the bigger towns of Courtenay and Comox as they look for cheaper housing.
We did a quick tour of the town, all 8 blocks of it, then headed back to the ocean to have a look-see around Courtenay. Like many parts of the Island, new shopping malls on the outskirts of town indicated a growth spurt that we hadn't seen before. But the downtown core remained pretty well the same, as many towns do.
We crossed the bridge out of Courtenay and drove the couple of miles to Comox, sister town of Courtenay and home of the large CFB Comox at the Comox airport. We looked around the air force base, taking pictures of some of the old planes on display in a museum area. Problem was, we couldn't get in to tour them...end of tourist season....bah!
We meandered over to the museum itself and spent a couple of hours looking at the vintage air force equipment, from the WW1 goggles worn by pilots in open cockpits, to the radar set ups of yesteryear, to the plane-dropped torpedoes on display....which Annette wouldn't let Ed kick to see if they were real!
If you are in the area, check it out; entry is by donation and I bought a CFB Comox golf shirt to help the cause.
Another must do in the area is the Courtenay Museum and Paleontology Centre. For many years the museum was a typical small town museum, doing it's best to preserve local history. The history of the Courtenay-Comox area goes back many years - the latest event for mankind was the visit by Captain George Vancouver in 1792 aboard the HMCS Discovery. Recent findings suggest that an even earlier visit by Sir Frances Drake in 1579 was the first real European contact for the First Nations people. Thousands of years before a sail ship entered Comox harbour, the People lived well off the abundance of deer, bear, beaver, salmon, whales, and shell fish.
And, millions of years before the People came, dinosaurs roamed Courtenay. Not too many years ago, a startling find on the Puntledge River led to a boon in fossil hunting. An elasmosuar skeleton was found by the river; this set off a boon and many more fossils were discovered, from the smallest of creatures called trilobites, to gastropods and bivalves, all the way up to the giant elasmosaur. Courteany had it's calling card, and another tourist draw to help the town.
For Annette and I, Courtenay held another treasure for us...our old friends Ron and Donna Mae had moved here from Maple Ridge a few years back, and no trip to the Island would be complete with out a visit. I worked with Ron back in the old Westinghouse days in 1976, and it was clear even back then that Donna Mae was the smart one in the family...so naturally I hung around with Ron as he was more my speed! :) Ron use to be my shotgun partner back in the days when a Sunday drive with Ed meant you never knew where the hell you where going or when you would come back. Our wives received more than a few calls at dinner time from us to say something like "we're in Ashcroft but will be home soon". The response was always "what the heck are you doing way up there"?
Ron is fond of telling a story of spending a day with Ed in the Jeep going into the mountains along Harrison Lake and driving for miles and miles on forest service roads only to have Ed ask him "want to stop for coffee"? Ron thought "where the hell are you going to stop for coffee in the middle of the bush"? Ed says, "wait 10 minutes". A few miles down the road the Fraser River running through the wild and dangerous Fraser Canyon came into view and Ron said "where the hell are we"? We had crossed over from Harrison Lake to Big Silver Valley, passed through the Kookipi Canyon and entered into the Nahalatch River system through the back door, getting deposited on the banks of the Fraser River at Boston Bar. I think that trip really blew Ron's mind...the fact that you could go into the Coast Mountains near Vancouver, leave one biogeoclimate zone, cross the Coast Mountain Range, and come out into the Interior Desert biogeoclimate on the back end of the Interior Mountain range. Or he could have just been amazed I knew where the hell I was! LOL
We had a great visit with our old friends, they are the type of people that even though you haven't seen each other for a few years, it's like you never left each others company. A nice cup of after dinner tea at their house, followed up by a lunch at the White Spot the next day helped us catch up on each others lives and what "the kids" where doing.
All too soon, we had to say goodbye to our friends, (definitely the hardest part of the trip) and goodbye to the Island as we were running out of days. We took the new Inner Island Highway from Courtenay to Nanaimo in a bid to catch one of the late ferriesback to the mainland. Let me tell you, the new highway is just like driving the Coquihalla - the same people who made the Coq must have had a hand in the Island highway. It's 4 lanes, it's mostly straight, and it's fast. A 2 1/2 hour trip now took only 90 minutes if that, and we couldn't believe how fast we got down island.
Well, a late ferry out of Nanaimo let us get back home in Maple Ridge around 10.00 PM, just enough time to play with the cat and enjoy our own bed.... ahhhh....
If the video is too wide for your screen, view it hereon my YouTube channel
Had two weeks of holidays to use up before the end of the year so we decided to do a couple of driving trips broken up by the Halloween weekend. The first week we crossed the 49th parallel and went south though Olympia Washington, then cut west heading for the Pacific Ocean with no clear destination in mind. That was what this whole week was planned to be, "no plans"; just drive taking side trips and stopping when we came across interesting things.
We continued west with the intent of going to Aberdeen, well, just because we hadn't been there before....
We arrived at Aberdeen late in the afternoon, had a look around the town and surrounding areas, then began to think of where we wanted to end up for the night. Annette used her I-Touch to jump on a local wi-fi hotspot and found out about some resorts in the seaside town of Ocean Shores about 30 miles away.
"Want to go there I ask"? "Annette says "sure, why not"! So off we go with no idea of what we will find.
Well, what we did find was a ocean front resort based on sand dunes with hotels right on the beach. It was quiet and not very busy this late in the year, one could see how this would be crazy with tourists in the summer. We picked one of the best looking hotels and enquired about a room. We ended up getting a suite on the 5th floor overlooking the ocean for a very low price - it was a great bargain!
One of the best things about travelling after season are the hotel rates; for a room that was probably around $200.00 a night, we got it for half price. The other good thing - no people! We pretty well had the beach to ourselves and hotel to ourselves; I would guess the hotel was barely a quarter full. This was great as we were sure there was no one near us on our floor and everything was quiet at night. Only the ocean sounding like a freight train whipped by the winds disturbed our space, and that's only if we opened the door and stepped out onto the balcony.
The beach reminded me of California beaches; rolling surf a ways out, long runs of sand out to the water line, and the beach itself went for several miles in either direction. And, as it was after season, you were allowed to drive on the beach! What a cool feeling! Driving out onto the hard packed sand, with only another car or two in sight made for a feeling that we were privileged.
If you have issues viewing the videos due to the blog page format, go to my Youtube channel to view them.
ABOVE Video: Views of Ocean Shores down to Astoria Oregon
We stayed the night in Ocean Shores, then in the morning after having explored the surrounding area, we continued south along the coast highway. This was one of our goals - to take the Coast Highway from Washington to Oregon as long as time would allow. The highway offered spectacular views of long sandy beaches and broad expanses of the Pacific Ocean. As we were south of Vancouver Island, the shoreline was exposed to the raw strength of the ocean, and the beaches all showed signs of how high the storm surges would get on the shore.
After cruising down the coast we came to the Columbia River and one of the long bridges that crossed the river. This one had a span on either side, with a long floating section in the middle. It took a good few minutes to cross the bridge, such was it's length. Now in Astoria Oregon, we again had a look around town and stopped for pictures where things looked interesting. They have a Maritime Museum that highlights the maritime heritage of Astoria, as well as showing the fury of the Columbia River as it empties into the Pacific Ocean.
Pictures taken and interest fulfilled, we continued south heading for our next night stop, which we decided would be Seaside. I have never been there, and have vaguely heard of it, but I can see why people love it.
The town has history - it was the end of the trail for the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805. Here is where the met the Pacific Ocean on their westward journey; there is a statue and plaque in the roundabout right outside our hotel where they stood as they realized their journey was over.
The town of Seaside had it's origins in fishing and forestry - two natural resources exploited in all settler towns on the coast. We did some exploiting of our, again getting a hotel room on the 4th floor overlooking the beach at a bargain basement price. We carted our bags up to the room, then just stood on the balcony for a while enjoying the sounds and view of the ocean. We walked around town for a while, then decided on one of the better restaurants for dinner. We walked off dinner as we again toured the compact town, again thinking this place must be a mad house in summer time. Today fellow tourists were few, and most of them were the older set. Matter of fact, in many places on our trip, we were the youngest tourists in the crowd!
In the morning we walked along the beach for a ways hand in hand, snapping pictures and taking video to help preserve the memories. Didn't need them really, the good feelings we had will last a lifetime with out any help. Back in town we walked the main drag and sauntered into a candy shop, one of the main ones in town. This place had all kinds of candy you've never heard of, as well as candy you thought they didn't make any more. The walls were adorned with old boxes of chocolates that you or your parents will recognize; it was like looking at a candy museum pinned to the wall.
ABOVE VIDEO: Seaside Oregon
From Seaside we headed south again with Tillamook our next firm destination. The Tillamook Valley is famous for it's cheese and dairy products which are shipped all over the NorthWest. The valley reminds me of the Cloverdale Valley, gentle hills ring the valley with it's rich soil supporting a legion of dairy farms.
We just had to stop and tour the Tillamook cheese plant - it's such a touristy thing to do we couldn't pass it up! :)
They have done a great job of turning a common dairy plant into a main tourist stop complete with large gift shop where they sell all kinds of Tillamook cheese and Tillamook ice cream - yum!
The plant has made an upper floor viewing area that over looks the vats on one side where the milk is turned into cheese, and on the other side overlooks the large assembly line where they cut the large blocks of cheese and then package the smaller sizes for shipment to stores.
We spent a pleasant hour or so looking around the plant and gift store..well it did take a while to finish my ice cream! I even picked up a coffee mug with dairy setting as background on the cup, as well as a personalized "Ed" on the cup so my co-workers will know to leave my prize mug alone.... :)
ABOVE VIDEO: Canon Beach to Tillamook
After Tillamook we thought it was time to head for Portland, which was our most southerly point on this trip. Annette punches Portland into the car GPS, then for kicks punches in Salem as well. Turns out Salem is only an 20 minutes in arrival time from Portland - "well then, let's go to Salem"!
So off we go heading for a yet another city we had never been to but always wanted to. We left the coast on a windy two lane highway that ran along side a small river; you could have taken this scene directly from any place in BC, such is the common looks of Cascadia as it crosses the arbitrary man-made border into Canada.
I think my love for twisting highways was getting the best of me, as several times Annette suggested I might want to slow down so I could enjoy the view and she could live through the drive. <:)
The highway took us inland and dropped us into the Williamete Valley; again I was reminded of how much this area reminded me of sections of BC. The closest to home would be the Cloverdale Prairie as it runs along the tops of the ridges over looking the farm fields below.
As it was getting late in the afternoon, we started running into traffic heading out of Salem for their suburban homes. Still, this didn't present any problems for us as we were going in the opposite direction.
We arrived in Salem at dinner time and after searching for a local wi-fi spot, we found out where our hotel of choice was located and cruised over to grab a room. Again a good deal was had, the cheapest so far for another suite. A late dinner capped of our night and we returned to our hotel to peruse our tourist books.
Annette wanted to hit some of the local craft and bead stores, which we did. We then headed into the downtown area looking for the old section of town and any historic sites. We drove around the area a while but to be honest, besides the Capitol buildings, the town looked just like any other town you would see.
We left town and headed north to the outskirts where one of the biggest malls in the North West lay waiting for us. As there is no sales tax in Oregon, Annette broke out the credit card and did her best to stock up on "stuff" she needed. Meanwhile, I sat on the closest bench I could find to each store and guarded her purchases........
Trunk full of souvenirs we headed north to Portland which is only 30 minutes or so away. We arrived late in the afternoon, just as people were getting off work. As it was the last work day before Halloween, we seen a few downtown workers dressed up in costumes, so of which gave us a good chuckle. We did a good driving tour of Portland and suburbs but again was tempted to say "nice town but nothing special to see", but if I did I'm sure I would be labelled as "boring".
As none of the town highlights grabbed our fancy, we headed out of town along with the rush hour crowd and soon crossed the river over into Vancouver Washington. We continue on with the flow of traffic and were soon on our way to Seattle. We ate up the miles on the freeway and in a couple of hours were in Seattle. We talked about stopping for the night in Tukwila, right across the street from South Center mall, but Annette said she had done her shopping, and in another 90 minutes we could be at the border.
We decide to push on towards home, crossed over the border in five minutes, (a nice change indeed) and we were home at midnight. For a couple more hours of driving we saved the price of a hotel room that we would put towards our next week's trip to Vancouver Island.
A while back Cookie Cacher (Jeannine) and I did another of my much loved road trips that seem to take up all day and half the night. This one wasn't quite so bad, left town at 7.00 AM and back home at 12.30 AM.
As I have done several previous reports on this route I won't go into a lot of detail here, but will state that the video is great, as usual! :)
Jeannine met me in Maple Ridge, parked her car, jumped in the Jeep and off we went aiming for the first of our caches along the Sea To Sky Highway. We began at Porteau Cove, where Jeannine set about finding the caches and I set about filming....(this seemed to be the way it went all day), and we continued on through Squamish and Whistler finding a few caches on our way either in town or at scenic places like Nairn Falls and Murrin Lake.
Pemberton was the turning point in our day; that is, we turned away from our northerly path and began heading east towards Lillooet, and beyond Lillooet, Lytton and the Fraser Canyon. A few miles east of Pemberton is Joffre Park, well know for it's jewel like lake and challenging climb up Joffre Peak where you can obtain an excellent view of the glacier nestled in it's crook. Even the view from ground level is phenomenal, a little taste of the mountainous back country while standing a few hundred feet from your car.
We continued along through The Pemberton Pass as we crested the Coast Mountains on our way to the Gold Rush town of Lillooet. Much history and many ghosts linger in this sleepy town; Lillooet is Mile Zero on the Gold Rush route, all Road Houses where named from their distance to Lillooet. 100 Mile House, 108 mile House, all came into existence as road houses along the Gold Rush route from Lillooet to Barkerville. Frontier justice was served out by judge Mathew Begbie, where it's reported that several men lost their life at The Hanging Tree on an old river bench of the Fraser River just above town. A more colourful Gold Rush fact is that a local entrepreneur brought over 23 camels to serve as pack animals on the Gold Rush route. Well, they didn't last long; the other pack horses and mules were afraid of them, they smelled terrible, and the rough rocky terrain of the BC mountains was hell on their tender hoofs. If you drive through Lillooet you'll marvel at the wide main street of downtown; this was so a stage coach with a full team of horses could turn around in the street.
From Lillooet we headed along the same path as previous explorers, from First nations trading goods, to Simon Fraser following the Fraser River to it's end, to Gold Rush miners following it upstream to it's start, we took the same route as we began our slow turn southward towards home. Lytton is a small town, much smaller than Lillooet, but where Lillooet has much of it's history in the White world, Lytton is an ancient town for First Nations. For thousands of years and many generations, this has been a home to our lands first peoples.
The clean blue Thompson River meets the muddy Fraser River and is swallowed up by it's larger and dirtier cousin. It's quite amazing to see the dual colours of the waters when the two rivers first join, it's almost sad to see the Thompson waters be dissipated by the Fraser.
From Lytton it was a straight south bound night time drive down the Fraser Canyon to the cross roads town of Hope, then 70 miles of freeway travelling back to Maple Ridge. We picked up about 25 caches, an hours worth of video, and a life time of memories.
OK, what does that guy we all know as "tjguy98" do when he's not geocaching or Jeepin' or working? Well, mostly just trying to enjoy life at a nice slow pace; a chance to have some quiet down time snatched between "having to be some where" and "wanting to be somewhere".
To accomplish that, Annette and I have turned our small back yard into a free style garden that's fits some where between the mess of an English garden and the resemblance of a West Coast environment. I've lost track of how much material we brought into the yard and how much clay we took out. The figures are something like over a ton of clay removed, 20 yards of top soil brought in, 3 yards of pea gravel, 8 yards of crushed rock, 10 yards of sand, a few pick up trucks of large boulders scrounged from the Stave Lake area to make natural retaining walls and the borders for the faux creek bed that cuts through the yard, 3 yards of river rock, 3 pumps and 3 revisions of a fountain and creek set up, more plants than I can remember...well, you get the idea.
Every year there is something more to do, or fix, or change, or change around just cause it's time for a change. This year it was the sun deck; the deck covering was wearing prematurely and if left for another year, the plywood deck would have started to rot as well. We knew it would be a few bucks to get the deck redone, and to avoid it wearing out again before it's time, we decided to bite the bullet and get a roof for the sun deck. This would also help with the heat in the south facing kitchen, plus make the sun deck usable in the heat of the summer.
A couple of days ago, in the waning of a late summer sun, I took a few pictures of our new deck, sunroof, and back yard. The pictures are not as brilliant as you might think they should be; keep in mind it's mid September and the yard is reflecting the approach of Autumn.
Nice place to sit and enjoy a cool drink and listen to the fountains
3 types of Clematis climb the arbour over the path. White mini Christmas lights on the arbour help light up the yard at night, as does rock lights in either back corner of the yard. Small star shaped solar lights twinkle through out the yard in different colours. A couple of small solar pagodas add a soft light amongst the back and side gardens.
Molly the kitty loves to race around chasing bugs in the back yard. Molly was a rescue cat; some one dumped her on the side of road in Dewdney at our son-in-laws farm thinking she could be a barn cat or something. Poor little thing, only 8 months old, was no match for the barn cats, so we brought her home with us. She now has the run of the yard and house, she sure knows whose boss and it ain't us!
Back patio deck..yes, we built this ourselves. Two pick up truck fulls of clay dug out and 3 yards of crushed rock, and over 5 yards of sand, all tamped down with a portable tamper and covered in 2 truck loads of Old English Bricks to match the English style brick retaining wall. Yes, we even rented a water cooled cutting saw to cut the bricks ourselves. With the exception of the sun deck and roof, everything in the back yard was built, dug or planted by Annette and I.
Another view of the back patio; note the second fountain in the left of the picture under the second arbour where we have climbing roses.
Tufta rock burbling fountain has the water disappearing into the rocks around it. Large tub like container hidden beneath the surrounding river rock contains a pump that cycles the water back up the lava-like rock to mysteriously appear at the top of the rock. Notches on the sides of the rock maximize the splashing sound of the water as it cascades over the edges.
So, now you know another of my favourite past times, one where I can go to put my feet up and relax, or putter away at something that "seems to need doing". A cool drink, a good book, burbling fountains and a kitty chasing butterflies in the garden makes for a pretty nice retreat indeed!
More back yard pictures can be seen here (use the right click method on the link to go to the picture site). Click on SLIDESHOW in the upper right to see the pictures full size as they play through. Click here to go to the home page of my Flickr site to see ALL my pictures - ensure you have a full cup of coffee before you start! :)
Last year the Tulameen Turtles, AKA Kris Wheeler and Jordy Nielsen, hosted a weekend geocaching event in their hometown of Tulameen. The event highlighted the coal mining history of the area and how mining aided the development of the present towns, as well as towns that have faded away.
Video link at end of write up
That event was known as the Great Coal Rush; 80 geocaching addicts showed up for a fun filled weekend of searching for geocaches at historical areas from in-town places, to ghost towns up in the hills, and even on top of mountains. The event was such a hit that every one talked about it for months; those that couldn't make it to the event were sorry they missed out and promised them selves they would be at the next years.
Well, it just happened - The Great Copper Rush was held in the Princeton area spotlighting the contributions of copper mining to the Princeton region. 240 fellow geocachers showed up on the Aug 1 long weekend for a smorgasbord of caches accessible by either car, truck, 4x4, and ATV. If you felt up for it, there were even hiking caches that taxed your body but rewarded you with breath taking views and put you right in the middle of history.
Ken and I only made it up for one day of caching, but we picked the best day - Sunday was the day that Kris and Jordy chose to get married while they had all of their caching friends in town. We just had to be there for that!
We arrived late at the Princeton Fairgrounds which was HQ for the weekend; the Turtles had arranged for the use of the fairgrounds which allowed the out of towners to camp in the in-field to save on costs. Tents, trailers, and the odd camper were set up around the grounds giving every one lots of elbow room. The fairgrounds also included a covered area that was used as the meeting area at night, as well as hosting a large pot luck dinner on the Sunday night.
Catapult Jeff and Iron Maiden were on hand to help distribute the event book, geocoins, t-shirts, and other trinkets that were pre-ordered by the cachers. We got our book and meandered outside looking to get our bearings to the closest cache. Well, just down the dirt road, about 800 feet away was the first cache; that was handy! We had no sooner pulled over and found the cache when we heard an SUV rushing up the dirt road and the driver began to lean on the horn - Teddy2K and crowd had arrived on scene!
We said our hellos to the group, and quickly realized that, as unprepared as we were to find the local caches, Teddy2K and group were fully prepared and in the groove. Well, being no fools, we decided to hitch our wagons with our fellow cachers and let them take the lead as we headed out as a group for a day of caching.
As the T2K group had done a lot of the out of town caches already, they worked in town finding the closer caches. That suited us perfectly as we only had a few hours to cache before it would be evening and the after dinner nuptials would begin. We spent the afternoon enjoying the company of our fellow cachers as we did some in-town caches and some caches on Forest Service Roads on the out skirts of town. Before we knew it, time was up and we had to return to the fairgrounds.
Awards were presented for categories such as "most FTFs", "most hiked caches", "most caches overall", etc. There were door prizes by ticket, and a prize for the geocachers who travelled the furthest to attend. But the highlight of the weekend was the marriage ceremony.
Kris and Jordy are pretty laid back folks, and their wedding ceremony was just as low keyed and sweet as they are. An informal wedding with family and 240 geocachers was right on the mark for them - Jordy was dressed out as Indiana Jones, which fit his love of the outdoors, and Kris sported fairy wings to show off her whimsical side. AND, she wore a dress! OMG! :) Most of us only see Kris and Jordy out on the trails getting gritty while they search out the elusive ammo cans, to see Kris in a dress was a rarity for our group. Makes us remember that people have real lives outside of the settings we usually see them in.
The handsome groom and beautiful bride beamed at each other during the ceremony, and had the biggest smiles on their faces the whole time - it looked good on them! And they were duly moved when one of their wedding gifts was a high end Garmin GPS purchased with contributions from the weekend attendees. Plus they had a small nest egg to help celebrate their honeymoon
All in all in was a great weekend - all kinds of caching to fit each cachers taste and skill levels, complete with a Root Beer saloon, a kids movie at night on the big out door screen, and a poker game for the adults.
If that wasn't enough to wear them out, it's only been two weeks and already the Tulameen Turtles have let it drop that there will be another event next year, sure to be bigger and better than this year. A tall order indeed!
Many thanks to Kris and Jordy for countless hours of preparation time for the event. And thanks to their helpers, of which I know they worked just as hard.....to make a very enjoyable weekend for their fellow cachers.
One of the many fund raisers for cancer is the Bike Ride to Conquer Cancer; the Vancouver ride goes from Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver, south into Washington state ending at Redmond Wa.
The riders cover 250Ks in 2 days, with the first night's camp is Mt. Vernon. The ride is very well organized, with many "sweeper" teams follwing along with the riders in case some one is unable to finish the ride. As well, numerous bike mechanics are on the road with riders, plus there are bike mechanics at each pit stop and at camp. They even have roving medical teams, all this co-ordinated through a communications section.
Annette had signed up to do the ride this year, and her friend Connie volunteered to go along with Annette. They spent most of Christmas and the Spring collecting donations through such fund raising items as dog biscuit wreaths and making bracelets with various cancer symbols on them.
Two months before the ride, while Annette and Connie were on a training ride, Annette had an unpleasant meeting with the ground and broke her wrist. Six weeks in a cast and no way she was going to be able to ride on that special weekend. Annette opted instead to become a crew member with the Ride, and Connie decided to continue with the Ride on her own. Larry, Connie's husband stepped up to the plate and said that he would ride in Annette's place. A pretty big step up to agree to an endurance ride with little training.
As it was, Connie and Larry are in excellent shape, and they were able to do the entire ride with surprising ease - very impressive! Annette was kinda down about not being able to ride but she was glad she went along anyways to help out how ever she could.
The story is best told through the video; I couldn't possibly describe the ride as well as the video can, no matter how good you think I am! :)
Watch for Annette and Connie to do the Ride next year - they are talking about the Calgary Ride next time!
If the video is too wide for the blog page, go to my YouTube channel to watch
Kanaka Creek Park is a GVRD created park that encompasses the entire course of Kanaka Creek, from it's head waters in the Coast Mountain Range in the northern part of Maple Ridge, all the way to where the creek flows into the mighty Fraser River directly across from the old townsite of Derby on the south side of the river, the site of the original Fort Langley.
Kanaka Creek, indeed the Kanaka area of Maple Ridge, is named after the Hawaiian labourers that sailed on the Hudson Bay Company ships from their home port in the Hawaiian Islands to North America. Some of the Islanders liked the area so much they left the employment of the HBC, married regional First Nations women and settled across the river from the fort, at the mouth of a large, slow moving creek.
Here the Kanakans, which means "native Hawaiians" or "kānaka maoli" in Hawaiian, established a small village inhabited by a mix of Kanakans and First Nations people. Many of them worked at the fort, and they rowed daily across the river to work. At the mouth of the river are remnants of a wier that the locals made to trap fish for food for the settlement. If you go to the viewing platform that over looks the confluence of the Kanaka Creek and the Fraser River, you'll see decaying wooden posts protruding from the water.
For our walk tonight, we chose the northen sections of Kanaka Creek; this is the area of the park that is bisected by Dewdney Trunk Road. Dewdney Trunk Road, or DTR, has a pedigree of its own. It was surveyed and constructed by Edgar Dewdney, running from Port Moody at the eastern edge of Burrard Inlet, eastwards to the town of Dewdney in the Fraser Valley. Edgar Dewdney also surveyed the land for the City of New Westminster, and, if you've done any travelling in the southern section of B.C., you'll be well acquainted with the "Dewdney Trail" which Edgar Dewdney surveyed. The Trail was to run from HBC Fort Hope at the head of the Fraser Valley, 720 kilometres east along the southern edge of the province reaching HBC Fort Steele in the East Kootenay area of B.C.
We parked at the intersection of DTR and 272 Street where an old logging road starts. This road, I'm told, goes as far north as the local mountains, which is a few miles back. We weren't going that far, we were only going as far as the geocache I have hidden 10 minutes up the road. This is a great area, a typical West Coast Rain Forest in all it's glory. Various types of moss coat the cedar and broad leaf maple trees, for which Maple Ridge is named. Sunlight filters down to the forest floor where ferns and salmom berry bushes spread their leaves to gather the sunlight.
As you walk along the old road, large cedar stumps, some 10 - 15 feet high, stand as sentinels to remind us of a time when logging was a manual job. Loggers would cut a notch into the tree approx 5 feet off the forest floor, then jam 6 foot long "spring boards" on which they would stand to help clear them of the bushes and smaller trees at forest floor level. Two men would handle a large saw and slowly work their way through a tree with a trunk so big that it took 4 men to reach around it.
Now, the remnants of those grand daddy trees serve as nursery trees for the younger generations; many old stumps have younger trees growing out, and around, the stumps. In nature, with death comes life.
We walked along the forest road, enjoying the setting sun as it strained to shine between the trees, casting bursts of light that lit up the hanging mosses that still dripped water from the earlier day's rains. It was a golden moment to be sure. Geocache found, log book signed, we sauntered up the road a ways further before we turned around and headed south for another section of the park.
We parked near Cliff Falls, a section of Kanaka Park where the creek runs through a small canyon of sandstone. Sandstone is a "soft" rock, which allows the river to wear away at it easily, creating sculpted formations of pot holes and smooth sandstone beds where the river rushes over. It looks like you could "slide" all the way down the falls from one section to another. Don't try it though, I know of at least one incidence where a young person enjoying the creek during the heat of summer under estimated the force of the water and paid a high price for their fun.
From the western end of this section of the park, there are several trails that run east on the north and south sides of the creek, as far as the Bell-Irving Fish Hatchery on 256th street. These are easy trails with moderate inclines, doable by most people.
For our short jaunt tonight, we stayed in the area of the falls. The falls are known as Cliff Falls, but I've also seen reference to them as Arnold Falls, which I could not find an origin for the use of that name. We found the two geocaches in the falls area, more importantly we got to experience the power of the falls and the beauty of the park created by the forces of wind, water, and earth. Hard to beat that!
Before we knew it, 9.00 PM was upon us, as was the descending darkness. Time to quit gawking and start "gittin" home. In total, we only spent a couple of easy hours in the park, but the two hours were breath taking. If you have the time....no, _make time_ to spend a few hours amongst the beauty of the forest that is so close to home. The few geocaches may seem like the prize for coming, but you'll forget all about them once you start to walk the trails. The real prize is nature at it's finest.......
We had a young black bear come visit us after dinner tonight; he was a bit late for dinner at our house, but he was just in time to raid some of the garbage cans in the neighbourhood.
Annette and I were just running out the door around 8.30 PM to do a couple of errands, when we seen a lady across the street on her cell phone, looking at our house. As we came out she shouted "there's a bear in your yard"!, nothing new there: we have had several visits over the years since we've been here.
We went back in the house and looked out the windows into the back yard; the bear was standing on the back fence. As we have a short yard, he was only 40 feet or so from us, so we could tell it was a male! :)
The noise we made opening the back door must have scared him, as there was garbage in our back yard that he was evidently dining on. He was now on the fence, balancing on the fence like a ballerina. Annette tried to get a picture, but he jumped down into the neighbour's yard behind us and sauntered over to their garbage cans. At this point I ran and got my cam corder and started taking some video.
He dined on the neighbour's stuff for a while, then the noise from the neighbourhood on the front street scared him, so he walked back to our fence, looked over at us 40 feet away, and then jumped up on the fence and walked along the fence into the neighbour's yard behind us and one door over. There he found some more good eats in their garbage cans, and dined there until the noise again scared him away.
Back up on our rear fence, he tight rope walked the fence and then dropped into our neighbours next door. He checked out their down stairs door, then decided he had had enough of the neighbourhood talking about him. He went along the side of the house into the front street, and then ran across the street into the ravine area across from our house.
A couple of screechers from a neighbour probably got him moving further into the ravine and away from the neighbourhood. A good example of a surprise for the neighbourhood, and why the Bear Aware program is important. Easy meals will keep this guy coming back until he can't find good eats around here.
Took advantage of the break in the weather to do a little caching close to home in; corralled MrTJ into coming along, which was good, as all the caches I went looking for were his. Hard to DNF with the cache owner along!
MrTJ brought his two geohounds, Jasper and Mya, and I picked up my daughter's boyfriend's geohound, Titus the Great Dane. We headed into the north part of Maple Ridge, where the hills start to climb towards the mountains. There are a series of old logging roads and horse trails in the area on which MrTJ has planted a series of caches, some with the word "EGG" in the name.
MrTJ has placed 6 caches in such a way that you can do a loop in under an hour and pick up all the caches. The terrain is not strenous, although in some areas it is not flat. Gentle slopes with the occasional steeper uphill section are the worst that this walk provides. Wear good shoes and expect a little water on the trails, with a spot of mud here and there. Most people will be able to do this series no problem; I don't do hills well and the worst I did was a bit of huffing and puffing.
The area is highlighted by tall cedar stumps complete with spring board notches from when the loggers swung an axe to take down these huge trees. Spring boards were typically 6 feet long, the loggers would cut a notch out of the tree about 5 feet up the tree and then jam the spring board into the notch. This would accomplish two things; 1) it would let them cut through the tree were the trunk was a bit smaller, and 2) it would get them clear of the florest floor so they could swing the axe unimpeded.
If you are looking for a healthy walk through our local wet coast forest with ferns and trees and moss aplenty, head to the north end of 236th street in Maple Ridge and enjoy a stroll through what makes Maple Ridge so special.
Walk through the rain forest with me by watching the video! You'll want to go there for sure! :)
Had a great day of geocaching in Abbotsford with brothers Alan and Ken, AKA Bowser98 and MrTJ. Yes, that's right, if you didn't know by now, we are three brothers who have or have had Jeeps during our geocaching lives. We are alternatively called the "TJ brothers", as TJ is in Ken's and my caching names. Bowser98 now has a Jeep Liberty, so he's now in the club! :)
Video can be found at the end of the post
The weather was good on this day, which we were so happy for, as our last few excursions had seen us get absolutely soaked, several times in the same day - not fun! So with out a word of a lie, we were pretty darn happy to see the sun.
We started off where we left off on our last visit to Abbotsford, and that was pretty well right across the street from where we parked before. Our first cache was called "Yo Mamma", a pre-made cache that Micra Man won at a local geocaching event; the cache was complete, ready to go. Even had the cache name was attached - Yo Mamma! As the cache owner readily admits, a low effort cache to put out, just needed a place to hide it. The place he chose was the western arm of Clearbrook Park.
Clearbrook Park is a large park that has a little of everything; the western edge borders a large ravine area with the southern part consisting of open grass areas and softball fields. The heart of the park is the large ravine area, with numerous trails that gives one a good loop walk through the park. The main trail skirts the park's northern edge and leads past an active beaver pond, complete with the requesite partially chewed trees. Several caches are hidden in the forested area of the park, allowing the cacher to pick up 4-5 caches with a good walk thrown into the mix.
This write up could have been titled "Park to Park", as many of today's caches were found in well tended urban forest parks. The types of parks varied; we were in small parks with small trails, narrow linear parks along side of a hill, and parks with large lakes in the middle. All were well thought out and a pleasure to explore, a testament to the foresight of the Abbotsford Parks Department.
Some of the caches we did today were part of a series called "Mother Goose"; they were based on the various chracters like Little Miss Muffet and Jack and Jill. Like other series, you had to visit the caches and collect the clues before you could find the final cache. We got some clues today, and had done some of the Mother Goose series previously, but still have nore to find, so we are still working towards the final cache.
We did a cache called "PBC", which I still don't understand what the abbreviation means, but it was one of those caches where you opened a large ammo can to find 100 or so pill containers, all of them camo taped making it impossible to see inside; one of them holds the log book...you have to search through a whole wack of them before you find it....not difficult, just designed to be a bit of a PITA in a joking sort of way. This cache also marked Bowser98's 1,000th cache........YAY BOWSER98 !!!!!!!
One of the well known parks in Abbotsford is Fish Trap Creek Park. This is a linear park that is divided into several parts as the park follows the Fish Trap Creek watercourse; the park is large enough that several caches are placed in various sections, and it seems every time I visit Abbotsford there is a new cache in the park. The main section of the park has baseball diamonds which are well used by the local teams; it also has a large lake that is just the right size for a good stroll around it's perimeter. In fact, there have been several multi caches that take you on that very stroll collecting clues before you are rewarded with the location of the actual cache.
The stroll allows you to see the ducks and Canada Geese that inhabit the pond, as well as the thrushes and Red Wing Blackbirds that love the marsh area, just to name a few of the feathered friends you'll find there.
We had a few more urban caches mixed into the pile; some on street corners on lamp posts, some at tiny parks designed to show off the civic pride in the city. In the midst of all this was a puzzle cache called "I, Jedi". To decode this cache's secret co-ordinates, you had to first know the Jedi code, then you could find the hidden co-ordinates in the code. Wasn't too hard to figure out, the reason I mention the cache is that it was in a typical urban ravine park that was under used, therefore a little "wilder" than most city parks.
This park trail started off going down a bit of an embankment where you had to jump across a small creek, or at least be dainty enough to step around the muddy areas to tip toe across the creek. Well, MrTJ was dainty and managed to tip toe across the creek - that is after he watched me try jumping from a slippery log across the creek onto the small creek embankment. Of course, I didn't make it - but I was smart enough to roll the camera figuring I'd have some action footage, be it good or bad. It was bad, I crashed to earth - good part was the feet stayed dry, and the video camera was saved. Only casualties were my dirty knees and my pride.
Back up the other side of the ravine, up a small hill we went, along a worn out path to find the magic cache, the secret of the Jedi! The signal was a bit tough amongst the trees and down in the hollow, and the clue fit a few objects. But 10 minutes of looking brought the hidden treasure into our hands. We were just heading back when Bowser98 rejoined us; he had left to go pick up Bowser98 Junior who had bused out to meet up with us. We stopped and waited for Team Bowser to find us in the forest, and then waited while they found the cache. The players all back together now, we continued on with our day of caching.
Another urban park we enjoyed was "Ravine Park", where we found two caches. The park itself is a small park, about 4 city blocks in size, but it too is in a shallow ravine. The neat thing about this park is its raised board walks above the marsh and small waterways. This allowed us to meander through the marsh with out getting our feet wet, plus it allowed us to get close up and personal with the blooming Skunk Cabbage. A pretty shade of yellow to be sure, just not fond of it's aroma.
Ravine Park is also home to a salmon enhancement project, as the slow moving creek and marsh make for a perfect rearing area. Neat to see the city take an active interest in raising salmon in the city and helping the species survive.
The next batch of caches we found were at Mill Lake, a large lake in the heart of Abbotsford. The lake is surrounded by easy walking paths, with park areas on the north and south sides. The caches we were after today were all on the south side, and being a sunny, warm day, this was where the majority of people were concentrated. Just to point this out, one of the caches had a family playing about 50 feet away from the wide open cache hide. Team Bowser stealthly found the cache while MrTJ and myself kept the citizens busy playing fetch with their dog, complete with running commentary to them. Ahh, teamwork - gotta like it!
With the 4 caches done at Mill Lake, we moved on into the downtown area of Abbotsford. Here, on one of the local large art projects, there was a nano cache hidden. This art project was a human size goose driving a minature delivery truck; the name painted on the door made mention of one of the long time merchants in the area. There are 5 of these art projects with a block or two of each other, they are really well done and defintely lend to beautifying the downtown core. They are part of a multi cache even; you have to visit each one, get numbers off them, then add the numbers together and off you go to the final. I enjoyed doing that multi as it pointed out these pieces of art I had driven by numerous times with out even noticing!
And that's one of the beauties of geocaching; pointing out great things that had escaped your attention!
We just had time for a couple more urban caches before Team Bowser98 had to leave and head home; the sun was on it's way down and MrTJ and I decided to pick up 3 or 4 more quick ones before we called it quits as well. Caching done for the day, we turned off the GPS', took our jackets off and had a relaxing drive homewards. I ended up with 33 caches in the bucket, MrTJ had a few less as he had previously found some, and Team Bowser98 had a few less as they left before we quit. Still, no one was complaining, 3 brothers and a nephew had a fun day of geocaching and seeing some beautiful areas of Abbotsford!
A special thanks to all the cache owners of the caches we found today - "Thanks"!!
Had another chance to go caching as a member of the "Jeep" brothers, whose members are myself, AKA tjguy98, my brother Alan, AKA Bowser98, and another brother Ken, AKA MrTJ.
We set our sights on the Delta area along River Road as our start point and meet point on the day. Our first five caches were in the Tilbury Industrial area, either along side the Fraser River, or in small "green" spaces mixed amongst the big block industrial buildings. While caching along the edge of the Fraser River always gives one an opportunity to view a working river complete with tug boats, barges, and wood mills, caching in and around old industrial parks somehow provide a feeling of gloom to the day. There's nothing pretty here, just the smell of diesel from the parked semis and scattered garbage from tenants who don't care about there surroundings.
The one bright spot was a cache called "Ant Hill" which was placed in an undeveloped lot back filled with sand as these industrial lots are. The cache was placed next to a fair size ant hill, and with the warm weather the ants were once again active; a little bit of nature in this artificial neighbourhood.
The Fraser River played host to the 3 brothers today as many of the day's caches were located along the shoreline. A typical one of these caches was one of the Blue Sky caches; placed in conjunction with BC Parks, these are designed to showcase the province's parks, and at the same time promote green caching.
This cache was placed right along side River Road, a mere dozen or so metres from the roadway. Perfect for biking or a bus trip to the cache; today we were car pooling as a way for us to cut down on our carbon footprint.
The cache itself was hidden inside an huge old stump that had been washed down river many years ago, and found a home resting on the fore shore of the river. Neat to see such a large piece of drift wood on a river that appears to us land lubbers as "clean" of debris.
That cache quickly found and logged, we moved on to an historic part of Surrey called Annieville. Annieville, and Annieville Slough, have their roots back in the 1890's when the area was a bustling fishing camp complete with a cannery for packing the salmon reaped from the vast runs at the turn of the century.
Annieville Slough is a sliver of water where fishing boats can pull in protected by a few hundred feet of land that parellels the main shoreline. Old live in shacks and boat shacks line the water's edge, very reminiscent of Finn Slough in Richmond.
While looking for the cache here, a sleepy Mallard duck wasn't too worried about having 3 humans walk around him. He walked just a few feet in front of Ken, and actually walked up to me and stopped just 2 feet away! Got some great video of him as he checked us out....
From there, we moved on to do a number of urban caches, none of them very spectacular; just more green spaces or small city parks with nothing too exciting, other than the caches themselves.
The one cache that did stick out was a cache called "Lest We Forget". This is a micro cache placed in North Delta at the local community complex. I don't want to give the hide away, suffice to say it is a very well camoflaged cache container, and, as usual with these best ones, it is out in the open.
As we drove up, we seen the telltale behavior exhibited by two individuals; head down walking slowly in an aimless pattern, covering only a few feet before stopping and changing direction. Sure enough, CoachDoug and Bear were on the prowl for the cache. We walked up to them, and in typical fashion played dumb and asked what they were doing. CoachDoug says "geocaching, ever heard of it"? "Why yes we have, is that where you use the GPS units to find stuff"? About that time CoachDoug noticed the official Geocaching ball caps we were wearing and clued in that we were pulling his leg.
After a few hellos, all 5 of us sauntered around for a few minutes before MrTJ made the find; we all said "good hide, good hide"! Log book signed and the cache put back for the next finders, we said goodbye to CoachDoug and Bear, and continued on with our caching day.
A few more city caches brought us to a cache called "The Pit". It was located in a short green space right behind some houses. The pit is actually one of those large sunken green spaces that Surrey utilizes to control the water drainage from the surrounding land.
As we walked past a house through the pit area to get to the rear green space, I noticed a lady in her kitchen window not 10 feet from where we had to pass. I said, "this is awkward, there's a lady sitting there watching us". A few more feet and she opens the window and says "it's around the back, right under the *******"
Well, knock us over with a feather....she says "there's lots of you coming around looking for it".
I guess she was just trying to be helpful, and here I was thinking we were making her nervous... :)
A few more caches had us working east ward along the north side of Surrey as we headed towards Langley, if we even got that far. Well, surprisingly we weren't that far away now; the next two caches were along the new bike path that follows Golden Ears Way. The second one brought us to another piece of historic roadway, this time Telegraph Trail.
From 1884 to 1904, the only way across the Fraser River from New Westminster to Surrey was by ferry. The ferry ran from downtown New West across to Brownsville. In 1861 The Kennedy Trail linked Annieville, just down river from Brownsville, south to Oliver's Slough near Mud Bay, still Surrey but commonly called White Rock by most people. In 1865 The Telegraph Trail opened to link Brownsville with the U.S. border; in 1866 a link was extended to run to Fort Langley. It would be another 10 years before the most famous and enduring road names in the Fraser Valley would appear, that being Old Yale Road....only back then they didn't call it "Old".
It was this Langley spur of Telegraph Road that we found our selves on to find one of the caches along the brand new, modern Golden Ears Way. Quite the juxtaposition of the old and the new highways as one replaced the other. I stood at their intersection and I couldn't help but feel there was much more character to the old road than the new. The new highway shot like an arrow across the land, bisecting old residential roads, sliding under the freeway to then wind it's way between and up and over the North Surrey industrial area. The old road, on the other hand, meandered at a 45 degree angle to all other roads as dawdled along it's way to Fort Langley, much like an older person who knows there is more to getting somewhere than blasting along a freeway. The trip itself is just as enjoyable as the arrival......
With our last two caches we had made the transition from Surrey to Fort Langley as we headed for a couple of caches on Glover Road. The "Salmon River Cache" was located along the shore of the Salmon River right at a salmon fish trap used these days for catching salmon to count their numbers passing the trap as they go upstream.
The Salmon River itself is another historic piece of Fort Langley, as the original fort in Derby was located near the river. Salmon were plentiful then, and no doubt the Salmon River got it's name from the runs that filled the small river, like every other small tributary of the mighty Fraser River.
The cache itself was unique, not the first one like it in the Lower Mainland, but one that took a certain amount of time and effort to create. As a cacher, I appreciate when a fellow cacher takes the time and effort to make something special, and I always make sure to say so in my logs.
The last cache of the day was only fitting to finish up our historical tour in the area. This was a cache called "Telegraph Trail". It was located at the corner of Telegraph Trail and Glover Road on the outskirts of Fort Langley. At the location is a plaque commemorating the historic Telegraph Trail and the importance of the route.
You see, Telegraph Trail didn't start off as a road to the "suburbs", it actually was the local section of the trail blazed to string the Russian - American Telegraph that had it's ends in San Francisco and Moscow. In the spring of 1865, it had reached New Westminster from San Francisco; the first message it carried was the assassination of Abraham Lincoln!
From New Westminster it went to Yale and then along the Cariboo Road and the edge of the Fraser River to Quesnel. From Quesnel it continued to Kispiox, past Fort Fraser to Hazelton, where it was learned that Cyrus West Field had already completed laying his TransAtlantic cable, rendering the whole project obsolete. Still, it left the province with a working telegraph between New Westminster and the gold fields in Quesnel.
And this was also the end of the line for us; the overcast day that we started off in, for the past few hours had turned to rain, making us feel like wet dogs. Last cache found, signed and returned, we headed back to our modern homes, having enjoyed another fine day of caching and learning a bit more of our local heritage.
