We found babysitters! Yay!! So off we went on a boat trip to Hot Springs Cove. We were so excited I can't even tell you, just to be out by ourselves let alone to be off on a little adventure to somewhere amazing! The trip there took just over an hour through the jumble of islands and inlets of the amazing Clayoquot Sound. We went on a little steel hulled boat, the "Miss B Haven" via Ocean Outfitters. As locals, we got to go for free! Nice eh? We saw harbour porpoise, sea otters and bald eagle's along the way. I'm full of facts now....did you know that Bald Eagles live for about 30 years, mate for life and have the same nest for life!? Sometimes their nests can weigh up to 2000lbs!! They never clear out the old bones and shells and that adds up after 20 years or so! Once we arrived at the cove we hiked the boardwalk through old growth forest up the trail to the springs. The forest was so beautiful, full of crazy looking twisted trees, wierd plants and noises, it reminded me of the movie Avatar :) Some of the trees were eight or nine hundred years old or more! Sheesh! When we finally reached the hot springs it was the icing on the cake. lying directly over a fault line, water 5km underground is heated geothermically and sent bubbling up to the surface and out through the rocks. It looks like a little stream at the top, a steamy one! The water bubbles out at 100 degrees C. From there it trickles down hill, drops over the rocks as a waterfall and falls into a series of little pools betwen steep rocks and out into the Pacific. The pools are really hot at the top and gradually get colder as the cold waves from the ocean lap into the lower pools and flow through. We grabbed a spot right in the middle and literally just lay there for about two hours. It was heaven! The air temperature was probably only about 9 degrees but the pools were just like a hot tub, sometimes you got so hot you just had to sit on the side and cool down. When you're laying in the water and the sun is shining it's like being in Hawaii or something, really crazy! I think it's got to be one of the most amazing places I've ever been to.
Here's Neil with some German's on his head.
Here's me basking in the warmth of the waterfall, hahaha! The Germans had moved on so I had it all to myself :)
A tiny section of the boardwalk that extends the entire way from the dock to the hot springs.
This is a grimace not a smile. The return journey was all open ocean and was a little choppier than the smooth inlet ride on the way there. We did stop for a quick break to look at a couple of Grey Whales and about a hundred Stellar Sealions sunbathing on a rock. It gave me a chance to release my grip on the boat and let my fingers come back to life.
Oh, all these photos were taken on Neil's blackberry, I can't believe what great quality pictures it takes!!
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