Cumberland to Sechelt
Another leisurely start on a warm day with sunny intervals soon found us waiting at Little River for the ferry across to Powell River on the mainland. So ends our sojourn on Vancouver Island, and we diverge for the moment from the route taken by the Brexton Travelers two years ago. They drove all the way up to Port Hardy for the ferry to Prince Rupert.
The Riding Fool hostel in Cumberland was very good, with a massive kitchen and living area and lots of polished floorboards and wood paneling. Cumberland is an old coal mining town, settled by people from guess where in the UK. Closure of the mines led to hard times, but it is now reinvented as a mountain biking centre, with lots of trails, albeit I suspect most of them are in the trees. It's a shame I didn't have the time (or the gold bars to pay for the hire costs) to try any of them.
The visibility is now much better than when we arrived. I've noted 'lots of totem poles' and 'a proliferation of psychic mediums and tarot carders' during our stay on the island.
The sea was calm for our 1.5 hour crossing to Powell River, where we had time for a short exploration of the town's heritage buildings - many of them century-old Arts and Crafts constructions, including the Patrician Theatre, Canada's oldest continually operating cinema, before moving on to a second, shorter, ferry from Saltery Bay to Earls Cove.
We pass under an incredible span of power lines to an island, as the high mountains on the horizon draw closer. Then after the ferry journey, an easy 50 km drive to Sechelt and Bayside Camp Ground.
A short walk takes us to a beach within this long inlet. We can look at water instead of just trees.
Pictures should be pretty much self explanatory, chronological as usual.
3 km of walking, 120 km on the road, and 2+ hours on ferries.
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