Juan de Fuca Marine Trail, Canada

Off to our next adventure…
After two comfortable days in Victoria on Vancouver Island, we got prepared for our 3-day hike on the “Juan de Fuca Marine Trail”: Buying food (naturally only Mr. Noodles and oatmeal, because of the weight), packing the tent and stowing the rest of our luggage – and off it went – Thursday morning at FIVE o’clock!!!

The bus that took us to the trailhead was an old school bus and it and the driver were an adventure in itself (good that it was so early and we hadn’t eaten a big breakfast :-) ). After a one and a half hour drive, the driver dropped us and five other people off in the wilderness. After 30 minutes we had lost the others, not because we were so fast and passed them. NO, because we took a wrong turn and got lost :-( Ok, two hours later we ended up where we had started out and so we started the hike anew. Our first goal was Chin Beach, 21 km away (please notice: 21 km on the Rheinsteig are not equal to 21 km in the jungle with 12 kg backpack per person). We THOUGHT, “Oh, easy, we can make it in six or seven hours”.

But the route turned out to be quite difficult. We had to rope ourselves down with tree roots, wade through streams and mud, balance over wooden logs and rocks, and it continuously went steeply either up or downhill, so that sometimes it took us almost an hour for one Kilometer. Well, after 12 hours we finally reached our destination for that day – TOTALLY exhausted – Jenny’s legs blue and her pants torn (after a 2-3 meter fall - “don’t worry Mom, I’m fine:-)”) – but also VERY PROUD and happy!!!!
And what we saw and experienced made up for all the pain on our feet and legs:-) We saw seals and even whales that day – AWESOME!!

Even the beach where we spent the night compensated for everything. Solitude and pure nature – with a bonfire, we let the day pass by. That evening we met two totally neat Canadians – father and son – and from then on we hiked with them together. The four of us – that was a much better feeling in bear country and sure enough – on our last day we had to pass by a bear really close because he was blocking our path. Funny, that the bear wasn’t afraid at all of Jenny’s bear bell!!!!:-)

After 43 km we finally reached our destination on the third day. Altogether, these were the three most strenuous days in our lives, but also very exciting and totally awesome!!!

GREETINGS TO BRUCE AND JAMESON :-) It was a pleasure to hike with you!
Tomorrow we leave Canada and head towards Seattle. See you there!

Love - Daniel and Jenny
P.S. We remember for Canada – bear bells don’t work!!!!