As we were heading south through British Columbia, we wanted to spend some time on Vancouver Island. It seemed like the most efficient way of seeing Vancouver Island was to catch a ferry from the central coast of British Columbia at Prince Rupert to the northern end of Vancouver Island at Port Hardy. We also liked this change to our route because we wouldn’t have to retrace our steps down the Alcan in central British Columbia. As it was, the 18-hour ferry trip along the inside passage was really pretty. We saw several humpback whales and really enjoyed seeing the British Columbia coast from a different vantage.
Once on Vancouver Island, we met up with Andreas and Katie from Total Composites and enjoyed several days of them showing us their favorite camp spots. It was nice to slow down a bit and enjoy the Vancouver Island coast. Another customer of Total Composites joined us and it was neat to check out their large Mercedes 1824 expo truck that is in work.
The ferries on our trip have really been great. We were surprised to count the number of times we have been on ferries and river barges on the trip; in total we have been on 13 ferries/barges. It’s really a great way of getting around, crossing rivers, and sometimes getting a break from driving.
On our way north, we passed through the Olympic Peninsula quickly, so we were happy to spend almost a week checking out all the green forests, forestry roads, and coastline as we were on our way back home. It’s really one of the prettier areas of our trip, but definitely more populated than we had grown accustomed to.
Wabi-sabi Overland 