1200 KM to 300km = 1500Km's
We left the entry in Princeton yesterday and like I said I was wanting to head to one of the local "Ghost Towns" We crossed this quite old fashioned bridge and I was a little worried about it at first but if I would have known what was ahead of us I think I would have been more worried more about that.
Most of the road we travelled down looked like this, a little like a dirt track. It was getting narrower and narrower as we travelled along it. It also went higher and higher and in places it was quite horrible and scary. Huge potholes and stones, broken trees and in areas where we got very high up, there was still snow!
One of the locals, pictured below.
As we got deeper and deeper into the forest the road was getting even worse eventually we came to a sign that said No Entry unless you have a two way radio, please turn back, all we could see ahead of us was even more bigger rocks. Most of the trees in the area were damaged because in 1997 there was a lightening strike which caused 100 acres worth of forest fire.
As we headed back on the hour drive back to where we almost started I noticed a sign saying Granite City. We didn't even have to drive as far out as we did we had completely missed it. We pulled over to have a look.
I've done a bit of researching on this "Ghost Town" and found a webpage on it, I'll share the information with you as there wasn't any signs in the town its self apart from the stone below.
During its hayday Granite City was more prosperous than, Victoria, Vancouver and New Westminster. Of course now it isn't as they have all left. During the time Gold was the most popular mineral for the miners to find but as they were finding this they were also finding a silver coloured mineral as well. They didn't know at the time this was in fact Platinum and were throwing it back thinking it was worthless.
Three local business men took a gamble on this strange mineral and started to look for it, the government was testing it in Ottowa and then found out that in fact it was Platinum and paid out $0.50 a pound for it this is the 1800's and I'm sure the three men became very rich out of it. The mineral was shipped out to California, New York and London to be made into Jewlery.
A local dog that wanted to be our friend, it was like our shadow.
The "Ghost Town" , not much there.
One of the pictures as we were driving back
So we were right back to where we started and both Neil and I were quite annoyed we had wasted about three hours on nothing. I was told we were never going to go on a road like that ever again, some of the journey was now in silence. So from Princeton we headed down Highway 3 and headed to a place called Hope.
Hope has a populated of 6,185 and is located 154Km's east of Vancouver.
This is a restaurant we stopped at for our dinner. I had one of the best burgers I have ever eaten here. If you are in Hope, stop by you won't be disappointed and its quite reasonable.
Hope is also know for its Chainsaw Carvings which take place at the beginning of September all around the town there are carvings the one below is in rememberance of Chip a police dog that was killed in the line of fire on duty. The poor thing got stabbed protecting his human partner the story is quite sad so I'll leave it there. The Town of Hope erected this statue for the brave dog.
We travelled onto Chilliwack and this is where we are staying for the night before moving on to Vancouver tommorrow.
Chilliwack isn't one of the nicest places we've been to to be honest.
Chilliwack is mostly agricultural with an estimated population of 80,000 so one of the biggest places we've been to. We are now only 100Km's away from Vancouver so not that far at all now. Its taken us this long as we wanted to pace ourselves. I'm looking forward to getting there now and to stop travelling in the car for a couple of days.
I'll update you tomorrow, bye for now. | 