After a perfect wedding and a wonderful honeymoon, I’m now back in Vancouver and trying not to lose that serene feeling that I had just days ago when I was totally, utterly relaxed, sitting with a beer on the deck outside a cottage 30 minutes drive from Bella Coola staring at the face of Thunder Mountain, listening to the roar of the Bella Coola River and the gentle hiss of rain that somehow made that night more magical.

Our long drive home from Chilcotin country started at 9 a.m. at Riske Creek and ended at 6 p.m. in Vancouver and we only stopped twice - in 70 Mile House and Lillooet - for 10 minutes each time. I convinced G to go the long, scenic route home - highway 99, otherwise known as Sea-to-Sky - which was gorgeous but very difficult and tiring for him. From Pemberton down to Vancouver on the Sea-to-Sky Highway there was heavy rain and heavy traffic, and we were extremely fortunate to get home when we did because 6 hours afterwards there was a horrific rockslide onto the highway just outside of Porteau Cove.

No one was hurt but the highway has been closed since and is likely to remain closed for another 4 days. People are having to re-route around Lytton and Lillooet to get to Whistler and Squamish at the moment - that’s something like a 250Km detour.

We visited so many beautiful places, did so many great things and met so many lovely people on honeymoon and I will blog about them all in the weeks to come. In a couple of weeks I should have some photos ready to go along with them too. For me highlights of the trip included chilling out on Savary Island, swimming in Unwin Lake at Desolation Sound Marine Provincial Park, the floatplane trip over the remote coastal villages and logging camps of western Vancouver Island to Kyuquot and back, finding there was more to Gold River than first meets the eye, meeting our favourite Canuck Willie Mitchell at Telegraph Cove, kayaking Johnstone Strait with Dall’s porpoises, being taken to the House of Smayusta by a Nuxalk hereditary chief, and exploring the Tallheo Cannery at Bella Coola.

For my husband the highlight of the trip was fulfilling his desire to jump off of a dock into a lake. We found the perfect snow-fed mountain lake in Gold River - Star Lake. The area was completely deserted and the lake was really quite warm so he stripped off and took the plunge. I did the photographing honours and this photo sums up the spirit of our trip!