Today was a hike with a local guide, Doug, looking for bears, their signs and any other wildlife we could find. So at 9am ish we got into Doug's nice new comfortable truck and set off up the road following the course of the river. At intervals we stopped and hiked into the river on old trails or trails Doug had made over the last 8 years - indeed he was very secretive with their location and we always parked the truck out of sight so we wouldn't be joined by oth...

We were up early and checked out of the hotel just before 7am. Fortuitously a bus was going to the South Terminal, where the small internal flights leave from, so we jumped aboard, along with a group from Naturetrek who were going to cruise the islands looking for wildlife - particularly bears! We couldn't check in for our flight as we were too early so we had breakfast at the small cafe in the terminal. After check in we sat and waited for the flight- there wer...

Today was a travelling day - the weather was very atrocious it rained and rained and didn't stop until mid afternoon by which time we had driven to Nanaimo, caught the 13.15 ferry to Tswassen and almost arrived at the other side. We arrived at 1515 and it was finally dry. On the crossing, it was very windy but the boat was very stable. As the rain started to clear there was a fantastic almost horizontal rainbow on the sea ahead of us...I tried to photograph it b...

When we woke and looked out of the window there was a 'pea souper' of a fog outside. Would it affect our trip, through the islands to Bute inlet, on the mainland, to see grizzly bears? We arrived at the dock just after 8am along with our fellow travellers and the good news was the boat was being readied. The fog was still thick but you could see the sun trying to burn it off. Our captain for the day was Nick, an experienced mariner; he decided to set off in a no...

The day dawned calm albeit overcast and a bit damp but all looked well for comfortable whale watching trip. Breakfast was again fun with Dan - he did our fried eggs and toast, when he brought them out he asked who liked them harder - quick as a flash I said 'John' and the harder one was put before him I then added ' but he doesn't know it yet'. We laughed and he said that was the best reply this year!!! As we were drinking our last cup of tea a black bear and cu...