Crunchy Sea Kelp

Sea kelp not far off Tofino coast

1. Sea kelp is edible. My kayak guide told me such and I ate it raw while sea kayaking. I ended up finishing a whole long leaf. It tastes crunchy and the salty ocean water enhances its flavor. I worried my stomach couldn't handle it though, which was not funny if I had to go on a kayak. Luckily I never had to do that out in the open or inside the kayak hole, LOL!

Never cook too hard, even when boiling eggs

2. We never bring a lot for cooking on our road trip. We keep it simple and don't cook complicated Indonesian dishes. I bring my small MSR stove and have no wish to impress our campsite neighbors. We bring packaged food and it is ready in 30 minutes max, since we always come back hungry after a day long activity.

The driving is long, but it's all for the family

3. Road trip is a hard work for the driver. I clocked in on average 500 km/day for 7 days. My wife and I cook for breakfast and after that I would drive to wherever we want to go. Traveling with kids is challenging since we have to maintain their focus and ease at the same time. Vacationing at home - watching teve or sending them for sport programs - is an easier option.

Is that a Buddha or Jabba the Hutt?

4. Get ready to discover a new experience or a family squabble during a road trip. It's normal to squabble over soft pasta and wet towel. Whoever initiates it needs not be reciprocated. The wonderful payback is the new discovery that is guaranteed to occur. My 9-year old son, for example, really enjoyed his first spelunking (cave exploring). I always appreciate this memorable moment. If you haven't got one, it could be you haven't come out of your comfort zone.

Don't wake us up until food is ready, Dad!

5. Camping is a cheap accomodation alternative for a family. Magically, camping is more memorable over a hotel, hostel, or a cabin stay. My sons always remember our camping trips 5-6 years ago much better than our hotel stays. They remember stories about early morning tea, cold nights, night walks to outhouse, or campfire. Camping is simple: tent, sleeping pads, sleeping bags, small stove, simple food cooked with water. These uncomfortable elements I think are what create the magic. It's what makes a road trip worth while.

In Praise of British Columbia

Upper Campbell Lake

I learned a lot more about British Columbia during my summer family vacation this year. It is a lot more than Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, and Nanaimo. The farther away I am from these cities, the more beautiful British Columbia becomes. 

This year we spent most of our time in Vancouver Island. You need to take a ferry from the Horseshoe Bay, West Vancouver, to get to Nanaimo in Vancouver Island as the starting point to explore Vancouver Island. It is advisable you reserve your ferry ride to Nanaimo at the BC Ferry website; you will not get caught in a local Vancouver traffic jam if you drive straight on Highway 1 from the east (Hope, Chilliwack, Abbotsford) to West Vancouver.

Don't forget to bring raincoats for your summer trips in BC. The road from Nanaimo to Black Creek, about 20 km north of Courtenay, where the Miracle Beach Provincial Park is located, was drenched with heavy rain. It made the driving a bit more challenging since the Highway 19A is lined with traffic lights until it changes to Highway 19. 

BC Parks, which manages hundreds of provincial parks in the province of British Columbia, has a great website system for campsite reservations. You need to use it since there are a lot of vacationers who travel in BC. The Miracle Beach has more than 200 campsites, for example, and all of them were occupied when we were there. 

Our faithful tents going with us everywhere

I drove to Muchalat Inlet through the town of Gold River from our campground at the Miracle Beach Provincial Park; it is about 150 km drive one-way. We passed through the Strathcona Provincial Park that straddles between Gold River and Campbell River. I found out there was a regular ferry service from Muchalat Inlet to a remote Inuit fishing village of Kyuquot. I talked to a couple who went for a sea kayaking from Muchalat Inlet to Tofino; the whole trip would take about 10 days. They make me want to explore further the British Columbia Pacific Coast and Inlets.

We went to the Horne Lake Cave for cave exploration. It requires a rather steep 30-minute hike to reach the cave. The limestone cave system has a steel door to prevent vandals from ruining the delicate calcite crystals that form aplenty in the system. My younger son learned walking on slippery rocks as he descended about 70 meter further down into the cave. We experienced a total darkness in the cave.

Sea kayaking off the Tofino coast

We went for a whale watching boat trip off Tofino - small tourist-trap town at the tip of the Pacific Rim National Park - and tried sea kayaking. Both were extremely fun and I would recommend for anyone to try. The sea kayaking, however, requires that you are fit and ready to swim in a cold ocean in case the kayak flips.

Muchalat Inlet

For our trip to Tofino and Ucluelet, we pitched our tent at the Sproat Lake Provincial Park, about 13 km west of Port Alberni. The weather was so nice and warm that we finally were able to make campfire! Yeah! We couldn't succeed making one in Miracle Beach because it was always raining. 

Whale, seal, sun fish watching off the Tofino coast

We checked out Stamp River Provincial Park for salmon jumping sights, but there was no salmon at all there. Maybe it's not the right time to see them. We stopped by at the MacMillan Provincial Park to marvel at the giant cedar and Douglas fir trees.

Campfire creates great conversations at night

If you like driving along winding roads, I strongly suggest you try the Port Alberni - Tofino (Highway 4) and Vancouver - Lillooet (Highway 99) route. The roads are narrow and have wicked curves that will surprise you! These two routes will test your driving skills! We saw a Porsche 911 owner sat in disbelief as his car got totally wrecked when he couldn't negotiate the narrow winding roads just before Seton Lake, Lillooet. 

On the way to Vancouver from Calgary, we pitched our tents at the Sunnyside Campground, by Cultus Lake in Chilliwack. It takes only 1 hour drive from Chilliwack to Vancouver, so there is no need to waste money by sleeping in a Vancouver hotel. We spent our last 2 days in Vancouver, but we didn't stay in a Vancouver hotel either. We stayed at the Best Western Mountain Retreat Hotel in Squamish, about 60 km north of Vancouver. It is a bit of a drive, but I won't mind at all testing my driving skills along the winding road between Squamish and Vancouver. 

One reason why I said that "the farther away you are from Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, and Nanaimo, the more beautiful BC becomes" is the desert landscape near Lillooet and Kamloops. It reminds me of Oregon and Nevada desert landscapes. We didn't spend time there, but it captivates me.  Other places in BC worth visiting are Mount Robson, Bugaboo, Bella Coola, Port Hardy. The list simply goes on.

Tent Flooding in the Rockies

Sleeping bag with a rating of at least 5 C is required when summer backpacking in Canadian Rockies, as temperature drops to around 0 C at night. A rating of -7 C is a must if you venture further into above treeline campgrounds.

These ratings are good so long as your sleeping bag is dry even during rain outside your tent. This didn't happen last weekend when we did backpacking at the Yoho National Park. What made it worse was I took my nine-year old son with us as well.

The rain poured for 4 hours non-stop. Our tent footprint didn't protect our tent from floor seepage, instead it ended up collecting water from the fly and channeled it to the tent floor. We could feel water pockets right under the tent floor which was flooded in less than 1 hour.

The first thing we saved was our sleeping bags. One was getting wet fast. The second thing was warm clothing. Our socks were soaked. Things were not good at all.

We decided to move our stuff out of the tent and to a hut in our campground. We were completely soaked. The fireplace there helped dry our stuff, which took 2 hours. We ended up cooking in the hut with a company of other backpackers who couldn't cook outside as well due to heavy rain. Two other groups experienced tent flooding even worse than us. We all told our stories and the evening turned out great in the end.

It was a trade-off we sought. We wanted a view of majestic waterfall and picked a low lying tent site. When the heavy rain came, we paid the price. I had to move our tent to another site and the rain finally stopped.

The rain gave a beautiful mist shroud to the waterfall. A moment of trouble became a beautiful weekend to remember. 

Pay Attention to Your Ears

Three days ago I had to wake up very early in a Sydney hostel to catch my flight to Calgary. While waiting at the Central Station, I put on my noise-cancelling headphones and was sent into a mild trance - figuratively speaking - as I listened to my favorite songs. Whatever I saw became much more peaceful and the morning sun felt welcoming. 

That's what I learned in the past 3 weeks owning these headphones. They are a wonderful invention. I don't own a TV, but I cannot live without these headphones anymore, LOL! But more importantly they remind me that I have underestimated the importance of ears, while indulging my eyes when going hiking, watching movies and beautiful things. 

The physics of these headphones is interesting as well. How the ambient sound waves get cancelled by opposing sound waves internally generated by the headphones. From optics we learned that this cancellation does not mean the energy of the sound waves is annihilated, but it is rather refracted, redirected, which in this case means reflected back. 

The headphones also tell me how to put a price on physical noises as they are not cheap (about $350) and require an AAA battery that lasts about 30 hours. I use them constantly when working or on the road, so I am thinking now of getting a rechargable battery.