The Sunshine Coast

We've spent the last three days on what they call the Sunshine Coast, a collection of villages scattered along the BC coast north of Vancouver. You can only get get there by ferry so people sometimes assume it's an island, but it's not. We took the ferry on Sunday morning in a rainstorm and arrived at Gibson's Landing, where the famous CBC television show, The Beachcombers, was filmed for many years.

This building was originally used as part of the set for the show. Now it's a restaurant and is visited by tour buses in the summer.  We were there with our friend Sue who is housesitting in Roberts Creek, where she used to live, so we got the insiders tour of the area.







You'll see that there's a bit of blue sky in this photo, but at this time of year there's not a lot of sunshine. Apparently it's quite different in the summertime, when the beaches are full of holidaying families.

We took a walk along this beach, where there's a road lined with little old beach cabins, some of which are now transformed into larger permanent homes. It looks like a lovely place to either holiday or live. These places have a strong sense of community and it was nice to get of sense of this from Sue, who lived in one of them for more than 30 years.


This photo is taken in Porpoise Bay, a protected anchorage in behind Sechelt. You can see the stunning scenery with the inlet and the mountains and the clouds.












And of course the boats. There are boats of all kinds here. Every community is built around a harbour, with a government wharf where boats are moored. In fact this part of the coast was settled by steamships and fishing boats and settlers long before the road came through.

This is a ramp coming down from one of the government wharves. Even a little rowing skiff can find a place to tie up.


Yesterday morning we headed north to Earl's Cove at the end of the peninsula, where we took a ferry further up the coast to Powell River.  On the way we stopped in at Egmont, a tiny spot near the Skookumchuck narrows.  It's a very isolated and beautiful spot, which we would like to come back and explore some time. But not in March. I think the feeling of this area would be much more welcoming in the summer time


Here's a bit of the scenery we passed on our way to Egmont. It's very moist and dark with still lakes, sheltered inlets and steep steep mountains all around.

And here's the view from the ferry as it left Earl's Cove and headed around a large island at the mouth of Jervis Inlet. This really is the north coast of BC.