June 20 – Appleton Creek Trail and More

Today we started by hiking a very small part of the very long Sunshine Coast Trail at Appleton Creek. Tonight Jennie wanted to go to a very highly rated seafood buffet at the Laughing Oyster Restaurant. After the hike we spent some time at Dinner Rock and in the village of Lund to wait until the buffet started at 5 pm.

We did a quick stop at the very nice new offices of the local Aboriginal Band to see the carvings and totems out front.

On the drive in to the trailhead we passed by a house whose driveway was guarded by these carvings.

The first one looks a bit rude but it is a squid at the top.

I should have done more research before we did this trail. The lady at the visitor’s center said that we would see a lot of waterfalls. A website said to take the trail to the Appleton Recreation Site that was 2.1 km from the trailhead. I forgot to start my GPS app, that would have told us how far we had gone. Since I couldn’t find an explanation of what was at the recreation site, I didn’t know what to look for.

I enabled the GPS app on once we turned around and it seems that we only went 1.6 km. I am not sure what we missed but one of the website pictures showed a boardwalk running along the creek.

Not that I am complaining too much. It was a nice walk in the woods with some very pretty falls. We spent so long at each one that only doing part of the trail was satisfying.

Near the end of the road in,  we had to cross a series of ditches. This section was no longer maintained so instead of culverts they just let the water flow across. The CRV had enough clearance but you wouldn’t want to take a Corvette in here.

Most of the trail was a slow steady climb along side Appleton Creek through an open moss covered forest.

Normally I save the waterfalls for cloudier days but here we have to suffer through all of our stay with sunny skies. On sunny days the waterfalls are much nicer to look at but they sure are hard to photograph.

At each waterfall you had to watch for small unmarked trails down to the creek and to get close to the falls you had to scramble down steep slippery slopes. No flipflops on this trail.

The first side trail took us down to a small cascade.

With two small falls around the corner in the shadows.

We had our lunch at the next unnamed falls. Again it took some work to get down the hill and through this maze of logs.

My perch to get the shot.

A blurred one. They are rather hard to take and get the slow shutter speed when it is so bright outside.

A photosphere.

And from farther downstream

While I wandered around Jennie built a stone sculpture.

Moving on, the next was called Sylph Falls. We only got a high view from the trail. I couldn’t see a way down that wasn’t dangerous.

Some fungus shots since there were no flowers.

Bandit Falls could also only be seen from a distance.

So many colours on this tree.

Gorge Falls was the best. It was also the easiest (but not too easy) to get down to.

Another handheld blurry attempt.

And from downstream standing out on some rocks.

A slightly wider view.

And a photosphere.

Just below where we were standing there were some small cascades through the cracks in the rock.

We continued on for a short while and the creek seemed to flatten out. Not knowing how much father we had to go and not needing to see any more falls we turned around.

I have no idea what this is. It was about 2 inches across.

An interesting small stump.

Back at the car it was only around 2:30. We could have gone back to the RV for a nap before dinner at 5 but decided to do a bit more exploring.

I had read that you could drive down for a nice ocean view at Dinner Rock Provincial Park campground. It was a very calm day.

There wasn’t much to look at so we moved on to the village of Lund.

Lund’s claim to fame is that it is the start of Highway 101, which runs all the way down to the end of Chile.

There is a small harbour and a boardwalk out to a restaurant that is supposed to have very good fish and chips.

The visitor’s booth is in this small shack with a water wheel.

The name on one of the barges was GinderDun II.

There is also a bakery known for it’s cinnamon buns. If we didn’t have a lot of stuff at home and had not been going out to dinner I would have tried one. Ditto for the fish and chips.

Lund’s other main purpose seems to be a parking lot for people that take the water taxi to the “no cars” Savary Island.

Since there didn’t seem to be much else to see and it was still early we went back to our shady parking spot and had a short nap.

We didn’t know much about the Laughing Oyster restaurant but Jennie had seen a flyer advertising a Seafood Buffet on Wednesdays only. We showed up a bit early and it’s a good thing we did because the lady said that there were almost fully booked for the night. We didn’t get a front view table but it was still pretty good.

We are on the balcony on the left side.

You know you are in a good restaurant when they worry about the little things. I heard the owner / chef telling a waitress to make sure the little sign telling you about the live entertainment was pointed the right way.

As I said we were a bit early but they gave us a table. The smell of the food as they brought it out for the buffet made it hard to wait. Right on time at 5 we were told that we could start.

There was mussel and scallop penne, salmon burritos, baked salmon, baked halibut, calamari, fried oysters, deep fried haddock, as well as salads and grilled vegetables. There was also a roast beef and some BBQ pork. Since we were there mainly for the seafood we only had a bit of the pork. They had a dessert menu, for extra charge, but we had stuffed ourselves at the buffet.

The chef was the one carving the roast and he kept an eye on the buffet. Whenever anything came close to running out, he had an intercom to inform the kitchen.

All in all it was a great meal with well trained and attentive staff. Highly recommended. There was also a seniors discount so Jennie’s meal was $4 off.

As the restaurant is a bit out of the way, we had read about package deals of dinner with a taxi ride up from Powell River. For two it was $109 pp, less if there was a group. As we left we saw two eras of taxis. A large stretch Cadillac and an old Hudson.

We waddled to the car and home.