Cribs Creek Camp to Walbran Creek
At 6:30am, I woke up to wash up, fetched water. Thery woke up and carefully went out of the tent without waking Karlie up. We were setting up and preparing Karlie’s surprise breakfast birthday. Thery blew like 10 balloons and hid them in my tent. I heated up the fully loaded potatoes and put candle sparkles on them.
At 8am, with everything set up in the communal area, Lalit had his GoPro recording, Josh and Quynh were ready to take photos, and Thery had her phone for videos. We all pretended that we were having breakfast and pounded our pots and pans hoping Karlie would hear and wake up to the banging of pots.
Then Karlie came out of her tent and we lit the sparkles up the potato cake. We sang happy birthday and Karlie blew out the candles and made a wish. We all then had breakfast and enjoyed the views for an hour or so.
It was going to be scenic day of hiking and not too many kms to hike from Cribs at 41 km mark to Walbran at 53 km mark. So at 11am, we headed out and hiked along the beach. Karlie was hiking with her balloons tied to her pack and she led the way.
The weather was cloudy and cool. The beach was scenic and sound of the waves were soothing. We wished we started the hike earlier in the morning but we all wanted to take it easy in the morning.
At 11:50am, we veered to out left to the stairs leading us to to Carmanah Point Lighthouse at 44 km mark. Up near the lighthouse was an open area with 2 white houses with pink roofs. We trekked across the lighthouse to where the forested trail lighthouse that had a registry book.
After hiking for 30 minutes in the forest, we then descended down to the beach and arrived at the Burger Shack which was closed as they ran out of supplies. The only things they had were chocolate bars and some in our group paid $5 for a Mr Big bar. We rested a bit near the Burger Shack, then continued our hike along the beach at 1:20am,
The hike on the beach terrain was a mixture of rocks and sand. Also at some points on the beach we hiked on the shallow parts of the sea bed as it was low tide
20 minutes later, we reached Carmanah Creek Camp at the 46 km mark where there was a cable car. At this point, we can either take the cable car or just cross the river stream when it was low tide. We choose the latter.
At the 48 km mark, we arrived at the Bonilla Point. It was 2:30pm and the tides were still low. So we were able to cross over the shallow part of the seabed.
An hour and a half later at 4:10pm, we finally arrived at Walbran Creek. Our final destination for the night. Walbran had a lot of campers and most of the camping spots were taken. So finding an available camping spot took us about 10 minutes. We eventually found a spot near the river and cable car which is not exactly a designated camping spot as was rocky. So Lalit, Josh and I cleared the rocks from our camping space. The girls spot was just next to us separated by a tree bush.
We set up our tents and made a communal area with rocks and logs. The girls took a dip in the river and swim. So I did the same as well. Very refreshing and it was nice to wash all the sweat off my body.
Walbran isn’t like the last 3 camping spots we camped at and the sand was rocky. However, the river in front of us and the caves across from the river is a nice site to see.
I took out the 4 tall cans of IPA beers that I had left and put them in the river to refrigerate. Josh had his Wiser’s Whiskey out as well. As it was 8:10pm in the evening and the sky was still lit, I decided it was time to take out the glow in the dark sticks as the sky light was going out slowly. Josh and Lalit began helping me put the glow sticks together making eye glasses, earings, a head wreath and a hula hoop. We also had our dinner late but who cares. When your
With our glow in the dark things that each of us wore and alcohol we had left, we played Bull Shit which is a very fun and social game indeed. While keeping Karlie distracted, Thery went to her tent to secretly make and prepare the cake for Karlie’s evening surprise birthday party. The rest of us continued to play Bull Shit laughing and smiling as think we were a bit high.
Around 9:30pm, as Karlie had to use the outhouse, I signal Thery to bring the cake to the communal area were we then put the candle sparklers on it. As Karlie was coming back and approaching the communal area, we lit up the sparklers and sang happy birthday to her again. At this moment, it was dusk; and our glow things started to light up. We saw a cruise ship sailing across the ocean to the north at around 10:30pm. We celebrated and partied all night until we were tired. Quynh had her music on and some were singing along like Karaoke style. Was a good thing we camped away from the other campers as we were quite noisy.
Evenutally, we all turned in after 11pm as we were all were drowsy. The sky was completely out.
