September 20, 2018
It absolutely poured all night long … a very cold rain. This morning the sun had come out. We took all the stuff out of our tents, but left the tents set up to dry a bit as we went for a drive back to Farwell Canyon to see if there was any wildlife out. The road was quite muddy and we did not see any wildlife at all.
We drove back to the campsite and gave the truck a quick washing … talk about a lot of mud. LOL
We packed up our tents and headed to Williams Lake Information Center. Here, I organized and prepared some of the blogs for posting on the 29th. After reloading our supplies we headed to the wilderness again.We left here and then headed to Horsefly for the next leg of our journey. Where it was getting late we made our way to a recreational site that was not listed and set up camp as it was looking like it was going to rain again. This was a two-site campground and according to the guy in the other site we were lucky to get one as he felt the other recreational sites further up the road were full, but he was not sure. Cooked a big meal and then sat by the river to enjoy the view and watch to see if any black bears would come out. An easy going kind of day … nice.
September 21, 2018
This morning we headed back into Horsefly. On the way in we saw quite a few deer including 2 bucks. They were in a great position and got some nice pics.
In Horsefly, we visited the salmon channel. Most of the salmon were dead, but we did see a few nice sized koho salmon still surviving the life cycle.
We took a side road to visit Moffat Falls which was quite nice, certainly worth a visit.
Along this road was also a couple historical items. The first we saw was the Chinese Ditches which was dug by hand over 20km!!!
The other interesting historical item was the Old Chinese Oven, that was used to make bread.
We stopped at the Bullion Pit Mine that was unbelievable feat in its day. From hand dug canals, to the miles of dirt and gravel that had been removed from the area in search of gold.
The next stop was at Quesnel Forks. This was a very interesting historical site. We thought we would drive through the recreational campsites to see if we wanted to stay here. We were almost at the end of the loop when I saw 3 bear around a tent. Two of them scurried off, but the other bear went under the tarp by the tent entrance. A vehicle was in the site so this concerned me. I hollered, “Hello!” and no one answered. I hollered again and was about to walk to the tent entrance when a guy got out of his car. He asked what we would like. I explained that three bears had just come up to his tent. He was shocked about this as he just got in his car to have a cigarette and wait for the rain to stop. He was lucky.
We drove back to the main entrance to the historical site and walked around the old buildings, some were reconstructed and some were still in original condition.
During the gold rush days, this was a very busy town. Once it slowed down, the Chinese people in the area continued to mine and live in the area. There were a great deal of artifacts and items marking their presence in this region. Very interesting.
We then visited the old cemetery and saw that many people had died from drowning, small pox and more than average, murdered.
We drove to Cedar Point to find information on Cedar City which was the third city in this region that was part of the gold boom and was now a ghost town. When we entered the village we drove down a side road towards the river and just beside the campground. All of a sudden a black bear came running across in front of the truck! It had paid a motor home a visit … they had barbecue and other items outside of their vehicle unattended, not smart.
We stopped at the local museum and asked the nice elderly lady about Cedar City and she was surprised that we knew about it. She indicated that no one had asked her about that. She allowed us to look around their museum and then showed us the old pump organ that came from Quesnel Forks. She explained that there was gold dust between the keys as this is how they believe the music was paid for by the patrons.
We drove to Ladies Creek Recreational Site and stayed here for the night. It had rained for most of the day, but we were still in great spirits.
