Sunshine Coast

The Sun is Out

Howe Sound from the deck
Sun Feb 6th

So a good day to be talking about the Sunshine Coast.

Not so good if you are a Vancouverite heading back from your weekend on the Coast for work next week.  

Sunday afternoon is the day when those with holiday cottages return to Vancouver.  It's also the day that BC Ferries decide to cancel two successive ferries - Langdale to Horseshoe Bay, (and the reverse sailings that got the ferry over here in the first place).




Overflow car park 

The cancelled 10.50am and 1.05pm (I prefer 1305hrs - the 24hr clock got ingrained in the World Service!) left a long queue of cars in the overflow carpark and the main marshalling area after the resumed 3.15pm had departed back to Horseshoe Bay.  Some drivers were expecting a 4 hr wait, perhaps not able to get on a ferry until 7.40pm. 

In winter the stalls selling food and drinks are closed and few will want to venture 10 mins back to Gibsons for refreshments and risk losing their place in the queue.  Still at least the sun was out, though it will get cold once it goes down.



Chatting to one of our neighbours today who had walked down to the ferry terminal to check out the state of play, I discover she is a writer, author, blogger and journalist.  

Looking back at one of her blogs, I see that our regular ferry, the Queen of Surrey, had a bit of a mishap, crashing into the dock soon after a refit in 2019.  Some three hundred passengers were on board and could not disembark until a tug pulled them clear and berthed the ferry 'stern on' (i.e. with vehicles facing the wrong way).    It must have taken ages to revers all the vehicles off.  Other links here.  Operator error according to the accident report.


While we were up in Whistler we were watching Amazon Prime and stumbled on a series of programmes by a traveller/hiker called Eric Hanson, called Epic Trails.  

We watched quite a few of his exploits, including one on the Sunshine Coast.  Not the best of his series but a good introduction to the Coast.  You may need to be an Amazon subscriber to watch this one.  

There are a number of videos on YouTube, (though some of questionable quality) if you search Sunshine Coast BC.  If you leave off the BC, you may end up watching material on the Australian Sunshine Coast in Queensland, though the accent may give it away.  Probably very nice as well, but have never been there.

Other than that a quiet local weekend.  I've been finishing off my first woodworking project, we pottered around town restocking after our Whistler excursion and I managed a 7k run up towards Port Mellon.  The first time off the treadmill for a few weeks after going A over T on the ice and bashing my knee.

West Lion in the distance

Looking across Howe Sound

 In other news .......

England lost, a well deserved win by Scotland.  Why did they take Smith off towards the end of the game.  Bonkers.

Italy looked on good form for a change and then started making mistakes to hand France their victory and Ireland played a brilliant game allowing Wales a few points towards the end.  

Our former club, Bath, returned to their consistent run of form and lost to Sarries.  Hooper's days must be numbered.  Or is that just wishful thinking.


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