This years first camping trip.

An early morning view of our campsite on the beach at Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island, Sat March 21st. Pretty cold, some ice on the puddles, but the day turned out fine and sunny (just as the weatherman had predicted!). In summertime this oceanfront campground tends to fill up with a few too many rowdies for our liking but either side of summer it makes a fine destination. Only two or three other rigs were set up and they were all nicely seperate from each other.

We took a long walk east to the Deering bridge over the sloughlike area of the San Juan River and then followed the road back to the south end of the beach then north along the beach back to our camp. About seven or eight kilometers total. Watched a mink, then an otter and a seal frollicking in the water and had fun with the campgrounds' resident crow population.

Watching the Olympics

We camped again at our favorite view point last weekend and watched the Olympic Mountains catch many different lighting aspects. This picture shows Mount Olympus (2428m)and the Hoh Glacier probably most of 100km distant.

Zoomed in. Notice the vessel outbound to the Pacific through the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The last of the sun's rays presenting a 'golden' appearance.

A fine weekend camping and not as cold as we expected. Listening in to the commercial fishing boats was fun, hake are the prey right now and hopefully there's plenty managing to survive the onslaught. A big thrill for us on Saturday morning was the appearance of a Humpback Whale fairly close to shore (which means about 4km distance from us). Just visible to the eye but the plume when it it surfaced was a giveaway and the binoculars gave a decent view. Too far for the camera though. Stayed in view for a couple of hours following the incoming tide and likely feeding on herring and perhaps krill, after the tide turned it made an encore appearance for another hour or so in the afternoon.

While having coffee on Sunday morning we were again treated to some whale watching. This time a pod of Orcas (aka Killer Whale) proceeded to do much the same kind of thing as the humpback, moving with the tide and apparently feeding on herring. Much easier to identify from distance with the huge dorsal fin knifing across the surface, a few breaches would've been cool but no such luck from either of these sightings.

Jackpot!!

We were camping last weekend at our favorite spot overlooking Juan da Fuca Strait and out to the Pacific ocean. I turned the camera on to see the above picture displayed on the LCD, thought I'd hit the jackpot as I hadn't known that Linda had even painted these images let alone photograph them! In miniature they look for all the world like three bars of cherries on a slot machine.
We were treated to several visits by the above raptor and it's partner, most likely a red-tailed hawk though we couldn't distinguish any red color with eyes. Unfortunately this is the only pic I got of the quick flyers, they flew above us, below us and right about eye level and seemed curious about us. If anyone can positively identify this bird I'd much appreciate knowing.

Long Weekend Camping Trip

We went camping for three nights over the Labour Day long weekend. The weather stayed fine but we'd have liked it to have been hotter. We drove out to Port Renfrew and then into the forest via the logging roads ending up at a place we found earlier this year that catches a reasonable amount of daylight and has a decent view across the valley. A weeks worth of rain had all the normally low flowing creeks (at this time of year) gushing with water. Took the time to walk further along the road to view the flow from a couple of springs that resurge from the limestone/igneous contact about 30m higher up. Impressive! Must try to find a way in when it's drier.

The first time we visited this area, about a month ago, we had three visits from a black bear. We'd set up close to his elderberry patch! The third visit we scared him off with an airhorn and he nonchalantly took a path to his berries before coming through camp. The berries are gone now so no worries of his coming back to dine here this weekend though he's still patrolling the area as evidenced by recent scat along the road. In fact we believe it was him we saw from our vehicle when we decided to move camp to a much higher point above the spur we'd taken. We positioned our chairs to get a good view of the roads in the valley about 450m below us, not much traffic (as per usual). We also stopped for a look at the Grants Grove section of the Gordon River and viewed the gorge from the bridge across it. This is a section of the river that experienced whitewater kayakers sometimes come to paddle. The 3 pics show some of the view.

A great weekend in a remote location. Complete solitude. It feels mighty fine to be away from everything.