Quarry Park to Roger Curtis

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

 
After a month in which blustery winds had battered the area we decided to see how Bowen Island had fared. We took the 9 o'clock Bowen ferry and at Snug Cove, walked up to the library. Peter King was waiting in the bus to take passengers to Bluewater and we hopped aboard. We told him we were going to Quarry Park and he volunteered to take us to the entrance. Once there, he asked where we were planning to reappear so that he could keep an eye out for us. We told him we were aiming for Cape Roger Curtis and we hoped to come out on Whitesails Avenue if there were not too many blowdowns.

Heading into Quarry Park, the paths were littered with green branch-tips but there were no branches down and certainly no trees across our way. We passed the Winter Waterfall and the Rock Garden and headed south-west up the hill at the end to enter the trees. We could be confident this time but it is far far clear that there is any path this way. The trail through the trees starts off with blue tapes until it reaches a marked junction. At this point the right blue-taped fork leads up to a viewpoint at Bob's Knob. We had been there before but gave it a miss this time and took the red-taped lower route, following the contoured trail until we reached an older red marker in a slight dip between two new bright red tapes. Here red tapes were apparent on trees on the slope below. We headed down towards them, knowing that ultimately we would exit at the bottom right hand corner of the hillside. I drifted a little too far right but angled left at the bottom around a fallen tree and then continued following the red, then red/blue tapes along the valley edge below. This is basically the start of Huszar Creek through the Fairy Fen area. When our route led out onto a trail, leading left over a plank into Fairy Fen, we took a hot chocolate break before continuing our progress to the right.

We followed the trail as it led west, soon joining a more major road and continuing downhill towards the west. After a while, we met a road leading off uphill to the right. This leads up and then left to come out on Whitesails Drive near the bus stop at The Reef. We did not take this today but noted a parked red van which evidently belonged to some surveyors taking measurements on a nearby hillside. We had been able to hear the surveyor's dog on and off for some time. The creek coming down the hillside just here was rushing across our trail down to Burke Creek which ran generally parallel but below us. After a short distance further we looked across the valley to the left to see an old house we had found on an earlier visit. The next landmark was another trail leading uphill to the right at a red taped surveyor's stick. This leads up to the lane behind Whitesails Drive and was to be our return route today. But meanwhile we continued, noticing a new access road (presumably to Whitesails Drive) before we turned left onto the main trail to Cape Roger Curtis. After a flat stretch, we dropped down the hill which today was the bed of Aka Creek (as it often is}. We carried on past a pleasant beach on the right, continuing until we reached the turnoff to Cape Roger Curtis lighthouse. We went into the beach and settled in for our lunches.
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While we were sitting looking out to a calm sea, we noticed a number of otters playfully scampering to and from the rocks, apparently carrying fish in their mouths. It took us a while tp realize that they were catching crabs and cracking them open on the rocks. It was an interesting and happy sight for everyone but the crabs. We left at about one o'clock and retraced our steps to Whitesails Drive Trail and reached the bus stop at two o'clock for the 2:35 bus to Snug Cove, However, in a couple of minutes the bus arrrived in the other direction going to Bluewater, so we took the scenic drive and kept warm instead of waiting on the street. Arriving back at Snug Cove, the 3 o'clock ferry was unloading and we were soon aboard and enjoying our 20-minute coffee break.

We had not found a single fallen tree that was not there on our previous visit. All the trails were clear and hikeable. On a previous visit to Cape Roger Curtis when the big Vancouver Island ferries had been halted because of high winds, we had been given a magnificent display of the ocean in torment. But it also had not led to fallen trees. Presumably those that were going to fall had already fallen.


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