A bedtime story for creekboaters

Heya all

Duncan and I have been boating our way thru the middle of BC - to the town of Likely (where the hell is Likely?) visited the abandonned mining town of Quesnel Forks - down thru the desert with truly enormous rivers (the Thompson is low at 2700 cfs) and to shiny Whister (more like Queenstown than I feel comfortable with).

The Cariboo/Chilcoten area has a feel not unlike remote spots on the NZ west coast - where the land is rugged and the search for gold is still seen in the rivers today. We've had some truly magic days on the water - highlights were the Chilko, Stein and Nahatalatch and met more lovely locals. At the cark park (read kayakers camping area) for the upper Cheakamus we met some Americans from North Carolina who are writing a guidebook to the best places to boat in the US.

Duncan decided he was not up for class 5 about the same time I discovered that low volume creeks are simply wonderful. We've been out exploring waterfalls - most memorably Rogers
Creek, a bedrock gorge with three 20 foot drops. A mandatory 60 footer! Leland laughed as we got out in the eddy before the first drop. The pools were green and it was possible to stop and surf the boils between each fall, waiting for each member of the team to plummet off the edge and land safely clear of the hole at the bottom. Leland got some truly spectacular photos as we managed to coordinate Andrea and Taylor's run of the second and third drop simultaneously. At the bottom of the drops we whooped and hugged each other - giddy with the fun of it all going so well.

We spent a few more days boating with this team (on Callaghan, Snowcap, Soo and Cayoosh creeks), before heading to Skookumchuck, and got the playboats off the roof. This amazing tidal playspot comes with rave reviews, and despite feeling sore, I had two days of fabulous surfing. Clear water, purple starfish, red aneomones and more friendly locals... bliss.

Our tour of BC was to finish at the Ashlu festival. Set up by locals to publicise and preserve one of the most beautiful rivers I've ever seen, the an 11th hour decision by the provincial govenment to support a hydro scheme means that it was the last chance to get down the mighty Ashlu.
The friendly mini-mine section and play run are gorgeous, and with encouragement from a group of truly superb group of local(ish) boaters I decided to take on the harder mine run. It's awfully big in there - one rapid "ate my lunch!" as they say here.


Our BC trip is done... the only thing left to sort is - how can I persuade the powers that be to let me move to Vancouver?

love to you all
Polly