Day 36

Day 36 – July 17, 2006

Today’s position: on the dock at Ahousat village general store/fish
plant/marine ways/saw mill/hotel/café/marina complex. ( all of which is
for sale and has been for sale for some years). I feel sorry for the
owner, Hugh Clark, who has to keep all of this maintained so that he can
sell it so that he can retire; if he lets it go, then it won’t ever sell
and he can’t retire. What a position to be in.

By the way, it was his parents that donated all of the land that has
become Gibsons Marine Park, with the beach that you get to by a
“primitive” trail.

Ralph and I were here early before the crowds. By the end of the day we
had Die Flynn here and Luna Eclipse along with a visit by Delua… old
home week again!
We had a good lunch (any meal not cooked by either of us is good) at the
café; as much to support them as to ease our cooking routine. The key
find was the best buttertart this side of Robin’s that I’ve had. I had
another for dinner and at Robin’s suggestion will get some “takeaway’
for our travels tomorrow.

I wanted to get a good walk in and asked Hugh if it was possible to
reach Gibsons from here by road/trail rather than being weak and going
to the head of the bay via dinghy. He said yes, “just follow the road
until you come to a rock with a sign painted on it and turn left; and
the trail will take you about 1.5 hours”. Now comes the part where I
learned (past tense!) to ask more questions. With that knowledge off I
went. I forgot to ask if that trail was the trail to the beach or the
trail to the “trail to the beach”. The first part was a half overgrown
logging road, then it turned into a trail as advertised. The trail was
basically a tunnel through thick growth of new forest and sallel (sp?)
Then it got worse and was a scramble through the mossy, tumbledown rain
forest. It looked like the Hot Springs boardwalk without the boardwalk!
I fell a few times, even though I had cleverly gathered a walking stick
on my way. Once I almost went for a header off a log bridge about 7’
into the underbrush. My occasional glimpses of the sun told me that I
was no longer heading for the sea ( my celestial navigation lessons are
paying off!) but was in fact heading back up. I must be on a horseshoe
course. After what felt like hours, I eventually ended up not at the
beach but at the head of the “trail to the beach”. This quickly became a
bog/swamp/mud fest. Fortunately on the way I bumped into Jorg and Meika
from “Luna Eclipse” who were on their way back; they offered to wait for
me and take me back in their dinghy. I had been worried that I’d fall on
the way back on the “trail to the trail” and then become a real problem
(and I was tired) so I gratefully accepted their offer.

The beach was wonderful; I got some photos’, did short walk and gathered
some rocks/shells and headed back for my taxi ride back to Ahousat.

We bought a few fresh stuffs from Hugh to get us to Toffino, had another
meal at the café and came back to rest up before going to bed! I tried
to read a 2 week old newspaper but couldn’t get interested (except I
took out the crossword); either of us could get interested in watching
the ‘TV news that was playing in the café. We haven’t seen a newspaper
or heard the radio since Port Hardy 23 days ago and I’ve reached the
point where I’m not sure that I am keen to get a current paper or find
out what is happening.

At the dock there were 2 younger Natives who asked us if we had ever
seen a wolf skull…. He was obviously keen to show us the skull he had
just found in the woods and was taking to a friend who was an artist..
“…he’ll know what to do with it”. It was in remarkable shape with none
of the mouse gnawing that you would normally see on bones.

Tomorrow we plan on heading to Adventure Cove on Meares Island which
will put us an easy ½ day away from Toffino. This will also give us an
inside route towards Toffino and avoid the forecasted 25-30kt winds
tomorrow.

Over and out from Ahousat village.