Our first day started with a wakeup call at 4.00 am but we were already awake and up having been helped by jet lag and were fully functioning (almost) at 3.30 am!
After a lovely breakfast - 7 grain porridge, egg and toast - we headed out with Ryan to Beaver Valley.
As the sun emerged the landscape was shrouded in lovely autumnal mists. We turned down an unmade road and spotted some mule deer - two males had fine sets of antlers which will serve them well in the upcoming rut. That said their racks looked smaller than our red deers. As we were watching them and three female deer a lady pulled he VW estate alongside us and remonstrated with Ryan.
She thought we were parked in a dangerous position - we weren't - the road was very quiet and we had already been passed by two cars who had not had any problems. She made reference to the safety of the children in her vehicle and then seemingly oblivious to them let out an 'ffing and blinding' tirade - before moving off and taking them to school where they could, no doubt, practice what they had just learnt!!
Reflecting on the ladies sanity we set off for a stretch of river bank where we sat in nice fold up chairs, ate Dean's home baked snacks and waited for bears who didn't come. In the afternoon we went to a different spot - watched First Nations and members of Department of Fisheries counting the salmon - but still no bears.
We did however see ravens,bald eagles and grey jays, known as whiskey jacks and it was a lovely sunny autumn day.
On the way back to the lodge we stopped at an area where the sockeye salmon were spawning and could be easily seen from above ( today's photo).
After a long day dinner at 6pm was much needed and looked forward to. After sharing experiences with our fellow guests we went to bed and were tucked up by 8pm as tomorrow had a similarly early start.