I won’t say that today was boring, because I did enjoy it, but we saw very little but trees on both sides of the road all the way from Oyster Bay, south of Campbell River to Port McNeill.  The northern part of Vancouver Island is heavily forested and the major economic employers are logging and mills.

We did make several stops for geocaches, as we always do, but they also were hidden in the bush. Some of them so well hidden we couldn’t find them.  Rats.  I hate DNFs (Did Not Find).

Not far north of Campbell River is a pullout on the road side with information boards about Ripple Rock.   There was no view except a bit of ocean water beyond some trees, but the whole story that was told explained why there was nothing much to see.  I don’t remember ever hearing about this navigations nightmare before, but we intend to see if we can find an old showing of the explosion. The only other scenic place we saw was unintentional.  We had stopped for gas and John drove out of the station and turned right, thinking he was back on the highway north to Port McNeill, but he was instead on the side road to Sayward.  We only realized this as we drove into the town.  Sayward is right on the coast so the road ends there.  We took some photos of their ghost ship breakwater (I guess it was a populart thing back in the day).  They have five sunken vessels that protect their harbour. Not far out of Port McNeill there was a cache hidden atop a rock hill beside the road.  We clambered all over the thing and couldn’t find it.  There was supposed to be a good view of Lake Nimpkish but all we could see was a small section of water through the trees. It was after 4 pm by the time we passed the Welcome to Port McNeill totem and checked into our hotel.  And that was as exciting as our day was.  Until the sun set, which was very pretty. Tomorrow is a very short driving day – only 50 km to Port Hardy.  We will stay there for two nights before we board the ferry for the 11 hour trip up the Inside Passage to Prince Rupert.  The weather has been really nice for quite awhile now and I hope it stays for our sailing day.