Africa: 1 October - 24 November 2006

This is the route we're taking through Africa. There probably wont be many opportunities to update this so it may be a while before you hear from us again.

London Calling

We arrived back in London for the last time on Sunday 17th September.
So for the last week and a bit it has been a whirlwind of preparing everything for Africa and saying our goodbyes.
Went down and stayed with Tabs and Dan in Limpsfield for a night, great to get some country air.
Had a BBQ at Richs last Saturday where I (Suz) had an early 30th birthday celebration. This included a delicious banana cake from Sharon and lots of thoughtful effort from everyone, and from as far away as NZ, to give me some lovely gifts.
Caught up with our respective old workmates which was really good.
It's a strange feeling knowing this is our last day in London, hopefully not forever, but for quite a while. It's been a great home and we will miss it and all of our friends in it heaps!!

Goodbye Camper

Well today we said goodbye to our home for the last 5 weeks, and its done us proud or rather we've done it proud - no problems and 4580kms on the clock synopsis: it takes a while for it to warm up on cool mornings and also turns over slower if you've left it for a few days without running. Its a b!tch on diesel especially as diesel costs more here than gas by about 10c a litre about $130 for a full tank, recommendation save on gas get yourself a tent and a nice hybrid :) Still you won't get a piping hot shower in the frosty mornings and have a fully stocked fridge freezer where you can cook yourself anything from Hotdogs to Lasagna with oven roasted Garlic bread for the foreigners.
After leaving Telegraph Cove we headed back down Vancouver Island, staying a night in Qualicum Bay and then Nanaimo, before catching the ferry from Departure Bay over to Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver.
There we stayed at Capilano for 3 nights and walked into town over the Lions Gate Bridge and through Stanley Park, lovely walk.
It finally rained as we were finishing up on Vancouver Island and it definatley feels like Autumn/Fall is here although we have been lucky with the days in Vancouver so far.
Now we are back in a hostel for a couple of nights, seeing the sights of Vancouver again, love this place, and tying up loose ends before heading back to London.

Telegraph Cove - Grizzlys, Whales, Eagles......

After leaving Campbell River and heading up to the top of the Island, as far as the paved road takes us, we stopped in Port Hardy for a couple of nights. Then we drove to Telegraph Cove stopping briefly in Port McNeill to look at the 'World's Largest Burl' (Tree Growth) and that's about it.
Telegraph Cove is an extremely tiny community consisting bascially of a boardwalk with old wooden houses and a couple of campgrounds but there we had two of the best days of our trip we reckon.











The first we did another Whale Watching Trip, seeing more Orca's this time they were a lot more playful, sticking their heads up out of the water, rolling around and tail slapping. We could also hear them clearly thanks to an underwater microphone. We also saw a Humpback, these whales are slowing returning to these waters. It was coming up eating lots of fish and then disappearing under resurfacing miles away but one time it surfaced right next to the boat and then swam under it so we could see it's complete outline - amazing.
The next day we were up very early it just about killed us, to go Grizzly Bear watching. We could rave on about this experience for pages and no doubt will bore you silly with our stories but this was fantastic, so in brief, we saw over 20 bears and cubs in the river catching salmon, playing and testing their authority against each other. We also saw them swimming (love their back paws kicking) and catching the salmon in the deeper waters. They also walked right under the viewing platform so we saw them very closely.
For lunch we stopped at a place called Lagoon Cove where there was a Black Bear wandering in the garden, it came up to where we were having lunch, climbed an apple tree and picked apples off with it's paw. Words can not describe this.
To top of the day we also saw numerous Bald Eagles, Seals and more Orcas.
Hopefully our photos will try to put this all into perspective, otherwise we'll gladly show you our videos...

Pacific Rim National Park

From Victoria we headed up to Tofino a town just north of the Pac Rim NP our last National Park on this tour. Tofino is currently in drought and threatening to close the town down as they have absolutely no water. They are trucking water in from another town close by called Ucluelet. When we were there all was well though and we had a look around the (small) town and did a couple of shortish hikes around some of the trails in the Pac Rim Park.
We then moved from Tofino into the park itself and spent 2 nights staying in the Green Point Campground on the Long Beach (an 11km stretch of beach)
Beautiful white sands, waves and a rugged coast all make this a pretty impressive Park. The trees and islands just off of the coast are all windswept and jagged from the Pacific Ocean, they look cold and threatening but on a sunny day they are just spectacular. From here we headed back to Port Alberni and then up to Campbell River the self proclaimed Salmon Capital of Canada. Its a small city with little here that doesn't involve Salmon or fishing... We head to Port Hardy and Telegraph Cove for a bear watching trip in the next few days which we are looking forward to so much. No doubt an update will be in order.