Wednesday, August 22, 2007

queen charlottes, the "bad"

One of the main places we wanted to see on the Queen Charlottes is a remote island that has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. The totem poles were stood up and somewhat restored a number of years ago, although there is some controversy about whether they will continue to be propped up or whether they will be allowed to return to the earth as their creators desired. Anyway, we only committed to go to the islands because a tour operator we were working with assured us their 4-day tour was filling so we could go there. But when we arrived, she announced that it had not filled, but we could go on a 2-day trip that would go some of the other places we wanted to see, and then she had arranged for us to go down there by floatplane. What could we do at that point but accept that? So the trip went well. Then the plane trip was delayed a day, then the night before we were supposed to go, the boat operator who takes you from where the plane could land to where the totem poles are backed out. So no trip. We tried for our remaining few days to get there, but we were never able to. We also missed seeing an area that is supposed to have incredible marine life. We would not have gone if we knew we weren't going to get to see all we wanted to, since we will probably never get back there. So it goes...
Other minor bad inconveniences -- on the way home, we ran into a storm -- lightning all around -- so we decided not to camp. The motel we were in lost its power, but had some emergency back-up. Unfortunately it didn't cover the water pump. So no showers that night. Fortunately the power was on by the next morning... Lots of bugs -- I think I was bit by at least 3 different kinds of creatures. I was itchy.

But the good far outweighed the bad -- it's a place I'd highly recommend.

1 comment:

tcl said...

What a trip...both the good (amazing wildlife and interesting people) and the bad (the frustrations at not geting to the places desired, no pwer, etc.)

Impressed with the blog and the list. teresa