A Fond Farewell

Much of our time in the last few weeks has been spent arranging onward travel plans and the sale of the van.   However, we have journeyed across Idaho into Washington State and up the Pacific coast to Vancouver Island.  Thankfully we now have flights to Sydney in hand, and yesterday passed on the van to it's new owners near Victoria.

Our last blog a month ago saw us leaving the Grand Tetons heading towards Idaho.   First stop was the Craters of the Moon National Monument, a vast bleak lava field where we could explore lava tubes and cinder cones; followed by a few days in the spectacular Sawtooth Mountains - a wilderness which is definitely on our list of places to return to.

We left Idaho in a rain storm but fortunately our next destination, Mount Rainier, did not live up to its title.  A few sunny days allowed us to explore the surrounding rain forest, giving great views of the glacier clad peak.

Having booked flights from Calgary to Australia, we broke our journey towards the Pacific coast to spend a day or two cleaning the van and sorting out kit.  We arrived on the Olympic Peninsular for some welcome beach time and to visit the Hoh Rain Forest in the Olympic National Park.   This amazing forest full of hanging mosses and ferns was an unexpected surprise and we made the most of the dry weather with a couple of long walks, a favourite being the 9 mile loop out to the sea at Cape Alvara - which enabled us to spend hours poking around tide pools and watching sea otters.

The indigenous fauna was not on the scale of Yellowstone, but the banana slug is very aptly named...

We took a ferry from port Angeles across to Vancouver Island, where we spent a day in British Columbia's capital, Victoria, before agreeing to sell the RV to a local couple - who kindly allowed us a week or so to explore the island before handover. 

We used our remaining days with the campervan to explore both the West and North of Vancouver Island, first spending a few days on the fabulous log strewn beaches of the Pacific Rim National Park, where Tony and Francesca were the only ones to brave the icy ocean.

On the way North we stopped by at the home of the Mars water bombers - the world's biggest flying boats, built in WW2 as troop carriers.   Two remain flying, based at Sproat Lake, and are now used for fighting wild fires.

The Northern tip of Vancouver Island has some lovely scattered fishing and lumber communities, many accessible only by ferry.  We spent a night at Telegraph Cove before taking a ferry across the Broughton Straight from Port McNeill to visit Alert Bay on Cormorant Island.  We weren't lucky enough to see killer whales on the crossing but the island was worth visiting to see the Nimpkish burial ground's totem poles, and to lunch on halibut and chips.

Yesterday we bade a fond farewell to our trusty Rialta, which has truly served us well for the last 9 months.   Accompanied by a mountain of luggage, we took the ferry from Nanaimo to Vancouver, where we have been exploring the city from a hotel room that is 3 times the size of our van, but somehow seems much more crowded.   Tomorrow we hire a car and head for Calgary.

When Daddy Fell Into the Pond...

Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey.
We had nothing to do and nothing to say.
We were nearing the end of a dismal day,
And then there seemed to be nothing beyond,
Then
Daddy fell into the pond!


And everyone's face grew merry and bright,
And Timothy danced for sheer delight.
"Give me the camera, quick, oh quick!
He's crawling out of the duckweed!" Click!


Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee,
And doubled up, shaking silently,
And the ducks all quacked as if they were daft,
And it sounded as if the old drake laughed.
Oh, there wasn't a thing that didn't respond
When
Daddy Fell into the pond!


Alfred Noyes

Geysers and Grizzlies

Before we left South Dakota, we called in at Deadwood, home to Calamity Jane and the final resting place of 'Wild Bill' Hicock (who was shot whilst playing cards in one of the local bars).

Continuing through the Black Hills, singing all the way, we parked up at Spearfish Canyon for the night and used the next morning to walk a quiet trail through the woods and meadows where scenes from 'Dances With Wolves' were filmed.

Continuing with a movie theme, we crossed into Wyoming, again, and made for the Devil's Tower, the setting for 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'.

We spent the next couple of days driving across Wyoming, stopping in the Bighorn Mountains and resting up in the wilderness beside some fossilised dinosaur footprints which were fascinating, but not photogenic!  After stocking up in Cody, we drove through the Shoshone National Forest into the Northeast Entrance of the Yellowstone National Park. The park is so huge, that it was 3 days before we saw a geyser, and we had to make do with waterfalls and wolves...

On the subject of water, the weather was decidedly iffy, but we forged ahead with the 5 mile Beaver Ponds Loop walk and got soaked to the skin, twice! Our reward was the sighting of a black bear in the forest - Liberty, however, didn't see it this way and was absolutely petrified...

In between showers, Tony and Francesca went fishing in the Gibbon and Firehole rivers. Francesca caught her first ever fish (a brown trout caught on a pheasant tail nymph), but she was disappointed about the catch and release rules which meant no fish for supper!

Finally we found the geysers, hot springs and pools for which Yelowstone is so well known. We also found full campsites and hoardes of school age children emerging for the holidays.  The girls were delighted to find some new friends to play with.

Having had our fill of thermal activity, we moved on to the Grand Tetons National Park, which adjoins Yellowstone to the South. The scenery here is very different - soaring mountains and glacial valleys.

We made the most of the good weather by taking a boat across Jenny Lake and walking up the Cascade Canyon as far as the snow would allow. We were lucky to see a moose and grizzly bear - Liberty considered herself particularly lucky that we were in the car when we spotted the grizzly!

We are just leaving Victor, Idaho, after two nights of R&R, on our way to the Craters of the Moon National Monument and the Sawtooth Mountains. We are also starting to firm up plans for our return trip via Australia as Tony has had a posting confirmed, to Scotland in October.

The Black Hills and The Badlands

The weather warmed up as we headed East and the snow turned to rain.  We had a couple of lovely days in the Wind Cave National Park - beautiful rolling downlands that wouldn't look out of place in England, except for the roaming bison and bouncing antelopes.

We drove East towards the Badlands, through Custer and Keystone, stopping at Mount Rushmore to view this iconic symbol of America.

We entered the Badlands National Park from the West, via a little dirt road, and were surprised to find lush grasslands and a perfect campsite. We spent two lazy days, watching the bison, picnicing in the hills and listening to warbling meadowlarks and yapping prairie dogs.

We had plenty of time to explore and hunt for wildlife. The girls were particularly fascinated by a huge toad, but only Tony managed to spot a prairie rattlesnake after nearly tripping over it...it slid into a hole before he could recover enough to get out the camera!