We arrived at the office and hanger and put most of our clothing in storage. The rest was loaded onto the single engine plane and we were soon on board and ready to go.
The wind was a tad gusty, so the flight to Knight Inlet Lodge was a wee bit bumpy. A small German boy who was next to John began to turn pale and grabbed for the sick bag. The views from the plane were amazing (see pic).
Luckily, we landed just in time!! The Lodge looked amazing in the sunshine and as we landed we saw some bears on the inlet banks.
We were shown to our rooms, quite basic but very in keeping with this "out of the way" place. Each lodge has three bedrooms with a shared lounge which has plenty of seating and a good size log burning fire. Our lodge also had the large hot tub outside, very handy!! They have designed each lodge so that they all have fantastic views of the inlet which enables you to fully appreciate the wonderful sunsets.
We were taken on a wee tour of the resort, given tea/coffee and then given a wee orientation presentation by Bob, a very nice guy. If your interested in this amazing place see: http://www.grizzlytours.com/
The lodge had 2 live in dogs who were really adorable and liked to sit by your table just in case you wanted to part with some of your food. There were also families of swifts and there were 5 babies who left the nest just as we arrived - they were so tame again got some great pic's.
We had not been in the Lodge any longer than half an hour, before we put on our water jackets got into a small boat and went into the inlet to do some bear watching with Al.
The first morning we saw 2 bears brother and sister called Bonnie and Clyde, they are 3 years old but still pretty big. We got pretty close to them, but they don't seem to really notice we are there.
Apparently when the owners of the lodge started they got in bear specialists to advise on the best way for bear and humans to co-exist together and it seems to work - there are now loads of bears in the area.
The 2 bears suddenly became spooked and ran very fast to the other side of the inlet - there was another bear and cub near by, bears don't like to be too close to each other.
When we arrived back for lunch there was a seal sunning itself on the harbour.
We had lunch and then headed off for some more bear watching. This time we saw the mother and baby who had spooked the other bears in the morning. We watched them for about an hour and the small cub came out of the sage grass to play in the water with mum. These grasses are a great source of food at this time of year which is later replaced by adundant berries and Salmon.
We got some fab photo's and video - they just look so cute as the photo's show. Then we saw another bear in the distance who had 3 cubs with her - the guys at the lodge were very excited because this is the first time they had seen the bear and cubs. We also saw a pine martin, deer and blue kingfisher and numerous other birds.
We headed back to the lodge and had afternoon tea, then headed out again on a 3 hour trip much further up the inlet with Bob and Al, our guides. We saw a black bear eating mussels and cockles on the rocks just by the water - the black bears have much smoother and silkier hair than the grizzly's we saw on the previous trips.
The views up the inlet were stunning - the rocks are granite and the colours in the sun were like something from an art gallery. We stopped at an area where logging had taken place and the logs were all piled up in stacks on the water ready to be taken to the mills - about $2million Canadian dollars worth.
We then got taken to a very spectacular water fall and the boat went under the main flow so we all got extremely wet but all good fun.
During the trip we saw dolphins which loved to follow the wake of the boat - there were loads of them and we were the first boat trip to see them that day.
We got back at 18:00 for pre-dinner drinks. The weather was brill so we sat on the restaurant outside deck admiring the amazing views. We met some really nice people on the trip - John and Mary from Esher and Sarah and her son Sabotini, who live in Sunningdale, near Windsor. Sarah is a publisher for a wine magazine. The magazine, called Fine Wines, is known for it's excellent advise about everything winey!!
We had a really nice meal (the food here is good and wholesome), then one of the guides gives a presentation on a subject of his choice - this night Al (he was in the Canadian Air force for 25 years doing search and rescue) did his pitch on search and rescue which was very interesting.
After that we headed back to our cabin and there on our balcony were 3 otters playing - again the camera and video were required to capture all this.
A great day in a very special place.
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