The morning began with some porridge and filling our travel mugs with coffee and tea to kick start our day. We packed up the Land Cruiser and hit the road north to 100 Mile House. There we stopped to pick up all the items that we had forgotten, such as memory cards and tooth brushes. After a quick hike to the Bridge Creek Falls we headed north again to Quesnel. We stopped at Fort Alexandria for a quick pit stop and photo op and began the hunt for the Devil’s Palisades, hoodoo like column basalt formations, unfortunately these flew by at 100 kilometers an hour before we could stop to take a picture, they were long gone.
Driving into Quesnel we admired the surprising beauty and Ricki has named it “The Cutest City Thus Far.” After walking the main street we grabbed some massive subway sandwiches and checked out a funky local coffee shop and then were on our way again. The GPS programmed for Prince George and we set off with a full tank of gas. Once we got there we got the bright idea to stop at the Visitors Center where Ricki decided to pick up a whole library full of different tourist books and I tried to hustle a free back roads map book from the kid behind the desk. With no luck I settled for a photocopied guide that showed some free overnight camping spots that allowed for “tant camping” that basically describes the quality of the book. He sent us on our way with some must see sights and a map…which still didn’t help Ricki, since she lead us in the wrong direction and we did the tour of town twice before we got to our destination.
As the rain outside suddenly stopped we arrived at Connaught Hill Park where we had a beautiful view of the entire city and walked through the tall trees and admired the perfectly manicured flower gardens. Returning to the car we saw this little guy lying in the grass, looks like some sort of fox? We will call it the exotic white tailed fox of the caribou region. After a short walk through the Two Rivers Art Gallery we DIDN’T take a picture of the central display. Which was a giant camera room built on top of a row boat that was apparently used in the Arctic for taking pictures? Ricki grabbed her free coffee (the main reason we went) and then we headed out of town and began the search for our campsite.
We arrived after 30 kilometers of gravel roads at beautiful Clear Lake, with nothing and no one in site we knew this was the perfect spot to unwind for the evening. We set up camp and could hear the fish jumping in the lake so we threw in our rods. Within minutes I had rainbow trout, but it launched itself out of the water and off my hook never to be seen again. Other than Ricki casting and her whole rod & reel falling into the lake and a desperate rescue we didn’t have much more excitement fishing. We cut our losses and had sidekicks and frankfurters for dinner. There was a family camping on the other side of the lake who had to come by and take a picture of the land cruiser and tent set up and make small talk about the area and how the fishing hasn’t been that great lately. He said it was a full moon and the fishing would be better at night…it is in reality a half moon, he must have been pretty drunk. Told us to come visit and that his “woman” would be back from town soon, we graciously declined and called it a night.
As soon as the rain we crawled into the mobile home and giggled at two really drunk guys having a very difficult time getting their boat ashore. As the sun is going down we can hear the fish jumping in the lake and the birds chirping. Tomorrow we will be testing our portable shower and head west towards Smithers.
