We woke in our room in Queen Charlotte yesterday morning to the type of weather I had been expecting during our three-day visit to Haida Gwaii. But by the time the ferry was loaded and sailing away at 10 am the rain had stopped and the sky was much lighter for our 7 hour sailing to Prince Rupert. We  spent  the  night  in  Prince  Rupert  and  checked  out  of  our  hotel about 10:30  for  the  413  km  (256  miles)  drive  to  Houston  (the  British  Columbia one,  not  the  Texas  one).

We had a mixed bag of weather throughout the day with rain fallling for a few miles and then sunny skies again.

We have traveled this road quite a few times, most recently, at close to the same day when we were returning from our trip up north last summer.  This is an area of forests and rivers and waterfalls.  We only made a few stops.  The first was at a rest stop to find a geocache and we discovered that the pavement and the forest floor were literally hopping with hundreds and hundreds of tiny frogs.  We had to look very carefully before we put a foot down so we did not step on them.  It was really quite bizarre.  They  also  blended  with  their  surroundings  really,  really  well.On the outskirts of New Hazelton we took a short detour to find a geocache hidden at the Outlook.  We walked for quite a distance up an ever-increasingly steep path and then learned from a descending hiker that the trail gets even steeper and is quite a bit longer.  I thought the outlook was a view over the waterfall but it took you high enough for a view over the community.  We decided to turn around and take the other trail to the waterfall.  There were many different colours and shapes of mushrooms alongside the path.  I didn’t get a photo of the bright yellow ones, but I think I got a pic of all the other kinds.

It was difficult to get a good photo of the waterfall as the surroundings were dark due to the thick forest and the top of the water was really brightly lit from the sky.  It was a nice falls.We found a few geocaches throughout the day but they were all just hidden in trees along the road.  There was a cache hidden at the salmon fishing area in Witset that was not there when we came through last so we stopped to find it.  When we were here last year there were lots of fishermen out on the rocks.  Today they had just quit and were heading home so there was no one on the planks. It is amazing how fast the river runs on one side of the bridge and how calm it is when it comes out the other side.That is as exciting as our day went.  We drive to Prince George tomorrow, then to 100 Mile House, then home.  I will likely post one more blog either tomorrow or the next day and then that will be it for this journey.