The ferry that took me to Vancouver Island arrived there late in the evening - I got off the ferry around 10:30 pm. Since it was too late to drive to a campground, I spent the night in the parking lot of a supermarket - that's always a free alternative here in North America. In the morning, I headed north to Campbell River. Unfortunately, it rained the whole drive and I couldn't really enjoy the scenic route. Thankfully, it stopped raining when I arrived. That day happened to coincide with an oldtimer show - where you could also see some German cars.
The main reason for going to Campbell River was to see the Elk Falls Provincial Park.There are nice, short hikes here and, as the name suggests, also waterfalls. You can also visit a salmon hatchery here. Here, you can see thousands of salmon trying to make their way into the fish ladder. As luck would have it, I ran into the two Slovaks here again - and we continued traveling together.We stayed overnight at a free campground right by a dam. The water in the river seemed clean enough for small crayfish to live there. This is what it looked like from the dam in the morning: In Campbell River, I also went on a whale-watching tour. The tour lasted a total of 6 hours, with a small lunch on the boat. The weather that day was blue skies and sunshine, the boat was a Zodiac, and the group consisted of eleven people - perfect conditions.Our guide was really great, he knew everything and with his experience, we saw the first humpback whales after just 20 minutes. After that, we went to a group of dolphins. The group was quite large and only concerned with eating. They weren't interested in the boat, but we were lucky that the entire group swam multiple times right under our boat. When we were there, what everyone had been waiting for finally happened: orcas were spotted! So off we went - it was almost an hour's drive, but it was absolutely worth it!In total, we saw two small groups - one with 3 whales and one with 2 whales.The orcas were also quite focused on eating. After watching them for a while, it was time for us to eat as well. Our guide had the brilliant idea of driving a bit in the direction the orcas were swimming and then eating there.We were then observed:It was worth it - when we finished, the orcas had caught up to us and we were able to continue observing them.On the way back, we also saw a few sea lions. That was it for Campbell River and we headed towards the west coast.
