We spent the day driving from Tofino on the Pacific coast, over the Vancouver Island Mountain Range to Parksville on the Strait of Georgia on the east coast, then north on BC19 to Campbell River.

From Port Alberni to Campbell River, the road is mostly a modern 4-lane divided highway that looks like this:

We arrived at our destination, Ripple Rock RV Park at Brown’s Bay Marina, around 4:00 in the afternoon with plenty of time left to enjoy the view of the Coast Mountains and Quadra Island across the Johnstone Strait:

Every campsite at this place has a gorgeous view of the water. Here’s ours, looking north…

… and south:

Around the point to the north is Brown’s Bay Marina with a floating restaurant. We decided to hike over there for dinner.

The Johnstone and Georgia Straits together make up a deep water passage to Alaska, known as the Discovery Passage. The narrowest part of the route is right here where the two straits meet at Quadra Island, the Seymour Narrows. We sat and ordered fried cod and a seafood stew, when this cruiseship appeared, so I jumped up from the table to take its picture.

I turned back to the table just in time to catch this little thief snagging my last shrimp! That’s a guilty look if I ever saw one.

It occured to me that the Alaska Ferry that leaves from Fairhaven Harbor in Bellingham might take this route, so I looked it up. Sure enough, it does, and an app I have on my iPhone showed that it was just about to pass by on its way back from Juneau! We finished dinner and headed back to the RV and not long after, along came the 380-foot Kennicott. I took this photo of it passing by from the driver’s seat of our RV.

Tomorrow’s a big hiking day.