Day 28 ~ Friday 18th September, 2015

Up at 6am, and in the car and heading to the Vancouver Island Ferry Terminal at Horseshoe Bay. Big day ahead. The ferry trip to Nanaimo is 1hr 40mins and it should be a spectacular trip through the various islands! Then we have a 4 hour drive north to Campbell River. When you speak to the locals about the “Island they always say how rugged and “wild” it is over there and the further north you go – the more wild….mention Campbell River and everyone gives you the “oooh, very wild” look! 

 This will be our base for a few days where we will hopefully do a few tours to see Orca's and Grizzly Bears. We are looking forward to this part of our trip! If only the weather would be kinder to us – yes, once again it is raining and dark and miserable outside. Friday, Saturday & Sunday are all forecast to be awful. Monday it will clear up, but that is getting close to the end of our trip, so we have no time to waste doing our tours – we have to do them, rain, hail or snow! Steve is hoping to see an Orca – he wants a really good photo of one – not of a fin, but of a head at least! I hope he gets his wish – he deserves it after all the work he's put into this holiday! 

So our arrival onto the Island was smooth sailing – literally. The ocean travel was very calm, non-eventful. The boat was really nice and clean. Arrived to more rain and grey skies. We were told by locals on the ferry to take the Ocean Route to Campbell River as it was more scenic. Yeah – not really as scenic as we would have liked.

Stopped off half way for a break and we dropped into Walmart to have a look around – its just like Kmart.

Got to Campbell River by 3pm and checked into our little B&B MoneyPennies. Run by Michelle & Lorrie. Beautiful room and the highest bed ever! I am looking forward to sleeping in that tonight! Such lovely ladies and inviting of guests into their beautiful home.

Our first impressions of Campbell River…. Its a big town, not at all what we expected. We expected a small country town, something like Port Fairie or even Port Campbell, but this is big, similar to Geelong or Wollongong.

We settled into the room and then set off working out which Grizzly Bear watching expedition we should do. We were recommended one group, so we set off down the road to see them in person. Lucky we did as they were full for Saturday and they squeezed us onto a Sunday trip! PHEW – that would have been disappointing if we missed out! Then we decided to do a Whale Watching Cruise out of Telegraph Junction which is 2.5hrs up the road to a little town (which is more like we thought Campbell River would be like). Whale Watching: $99 per person. Grizzly Bears: $350 per person for a 7hr trip.

We then high tailed it up to “The Hatchery” which is the local salmon farm as there has been heaps of Black Bears there over the past few weeks. But we got to the gate at 4.15pm and they shut at 3.30pm! ARGGHHHHHH – spewing! Steve wasn't too disappointed as he didn't really want photos of black bears in a concrete box catching salmon. Me – not too fussed – its BEARS !!!! – its not like we have them back home – who cares how or where we see them, right?! How many have we seen on this trip – one….. so give me bears at the hatchery! Lol I think Steve is being very fussy! Lol If we have some time on Sunday morning before we go on the Grizzly watching cruise, we'll go there quickly as its only 15mins out of town.

So back to the B&B for some recommendations on where to eat. I haven't eaten Salmon as I was waiting till I got to Vancouver Island and Campbell River is THE place to eat local salmon. We were told to go to the local Italian restaurant Fusilli's as they serve the salmon cooked on cedar which is the local tradition. So off we went and we were seated by 5pm!! ha ha ha – just like old people eating dinner that early, but we hadn't had lunch, and we wanted an early night, so that was our excuse. So I had the local freshly caught Soki Salmon. It is more “fishy” and meatier texture than our Atlantic Salmon. The cedar gave it a slightly smoky taste. The fillet was just enough – you couldn't eat a huge portion of it. It was really nice, but something I couldn't eat every day. I would try a sushi version though. I also had a Seafood (clam) chowder for entree – yum! Steve had chicken and alfredo pasta.

Now back at the B&B where we are booking the next lot of accommodation back in Victoria, working out our itinerary for the rest of our VI stay and how we head back to Vancouver. Time is running out very quickly and there isn't anywhere near enough time to see the things we wanted to.