Tuesday, August 11, 2015

"Just 2 More Km"

DAY 3


Today we woke up at 6:00am, took 1 hour to pack up and left at 7:00am sharp. We wanted to get a good early start because we knew today was going to be a long one. We walked along the beach for 3km and approached a large archway called "the hole in the wall". This large natural arch has been carved by water and waves over time and because the tide was low we could walk under it. This beach walk was fairly easy, then it was back to the trail (but we had to find it first). Apparently we had missed it and had to back track a bit once we reached an impassable area. After some serious slopes, broken ladders and muddy areas we eventually made it to Nitinat Narrows around 9:30am but ended up waiting for the ferry until 10:10am.





Unfortunately, one of the people that had started on the same day as us, hurt his knee in this area and had to leave the trail by evacuation at the narrows. The Nitinat Narrows is one of the indian reserves along the trail. They have a crab shack where trekkers can enjoy a fresh seafood meal along the way. Although it was early in the morning, we were looking forward to eating some fresh crab pulled right from the water. We ordered 1 dish of crab and 1 dish of salmon to share. Once we ordered they started to fillet the fish right in front of us. Then they pulled up a crab cage, and one by one the girl dismantled the crabs unbelievably quick, tossing unwanted parts into the water and the rest to be boiled and then eaten by us! It was quite the experience to see the crab prepared. There was a little boy on the docks no older than 3, helping out by clearing dishes and throwing remaining crab shells into the water. He was so cute, he wanted to be called skipper and also helped out when the ferry came to dock.
The crab and salmon were delicious. We left the crab shack at 11:20am. We continued inland along many boardwalks and past many rivers that didn't have any water in them because it's so dry here.


We hit the beach at km 37 and were on the beach the rest of the day. It was so hot and sunny out, another beautiful day. We wrote WCT 2015 in the sand, and leisurely strolled between km 36-38. During this time, I found a single whale vertebrae, it was huge! Towards the end of km 38, it became very rocky and slippery and we were getting tired (we had already trekked 13km today).



 
 We climbed a big set of ladders off the beach back to the inland trail and needed some energy. We were crashing. After eating an energy bar each we trekked on to Cribs Creek at km 41 to finally fill up with water (after 17km today). We were getting pretty tired and our feet were sore, but we had planned to make it to Carmanah Point. We climbed a long ladder and flight of stairs to the 2nd lighthouse and there was a display of a whale skeleton, very cool! We descended back to the beach to finally reach 'Chez Monique', a homestead on the beach that caters to trekkers by offering fully loaded burgers to purchase. We each had one. So delicious. We were there between 5-5:30pm and had 'just 2km to go' until our campsite. 
When we arrived at Carmanah Creek it was beautiful with the sun shining, but there was nobody there, and we didn't feel 100% comfortable being the only ones along that stretch. It was around 6:15pm we had walked 21km at this point, but we had heard the next campsite was beautiful so we decided to do 'just 2 more km' to Bonilla. We had to take off our shoes to cross a creek (there was a cable car, but the water was shallow enough to cross by foot), but the sand was coarse so we had to put our boots back on. After 23km of hiking to Bonilla Point, we arrived at 7:15pm (12+ hour day). It was all worth it when we finally saw the sunset over the ocean. It was bright orange before it disappeared. We really pushed ourselves today, but we're really happy with where we ended up and are very proud of the distance we covered. Bonilla was a perfect little campsite with a waterfall, to cap off the night with other friendly hikers.




Total km's today: 23
Tsusiat Falls to Bonilla Point
Hours: 12 hours, 15 minutes

Day 3 successful long trek 



1 comment:

  1. Just 2 more km? That would be just 2 more coronaries for me! Great work, folks!

    ReplyDelete