Fort St James To Dunster

Fort St James To Dunster

So leaving Fort St James was difficult given the superb treatment we had been given and the things we had done made it a special place in both our hearts.

We left down the long straights heading toward Jasper, we had been told that Dunster was a nice place to camp which is 160km short of Jasper so we tentatively aimed for this.

Mrs Garmin also sent us AWOL at Prince George so we did a few unintended back streets .... found the NAPA store when we didn’t need one. 

Along the way we were treated to a black bear crossing the road ... it would seem he didn’t like DR650’s tho as he ran off ... or maybe we just smelled bad.

Upon arriving at Dunster we faffed around trying to find out where the camping spot was, turned out where we were at the community hall was it, power, water, dunnie, soft grass to pitch on and picnic tables ... and free!!!



I asked at the general store and the lady there said no worries at all, we settled in and waited for the sun to go down as it was some 30 degs C plus, we decided to have tea first, salamis and green peppers with smoked mayo in a hard bread wrap fit for a king, also chamomile tea brewed from Mels garden in Fort St James.

We set up after looking around for a quiet spot, the neighbours were very quiet!



No sooner we had tea and a local drove by turned around and came back, curiosity catching is mind with the bikes.

Richard (as he turned out to be) came and said gidday so we chatted about farming for a while and life in general, turns out he had been to New Zealand and knew quite a bit about it which was well cool, he then left, we set up camp and decided to go for a walk down to the Fraser river were there is a groovy lattice and concrete bridge which had caught my eye earlier ... Two Photo Kiwis at it again!!!



Nice lattice work





The flowers on the bridge abutments, beautifully done and a huge improvement on designa grey concrete





Some local toilet sheds for when they have their music festival, the mozzies were seriously friendly here and both Ellen and I had a black cloud following us so if you were to use these it would wonna be a quick downtrou.



We came back across the bridge to find Richard watering the pot plants at the end of the abutments, he said “I left you guys a wee gift worthy of drinking”, we said well we better go and deal to it eh.

So we went up to the camp in his Jeep, on arrival we find a bottle of Argentinian Malbec Red wine with three glasses and a genuine Greenstone Tiki from New Zealand from when he was there many years ago.



The Tiki was a gift to Ellen, Richard asked that we return it back to New Zealand, we will and we will also take Tiki on a tour of South America first.

The bottle was levelled pretty quickly among three of us and more chats and a quick photo session was held before Richard parted for home and we settled in to bed.



Yet again with no planning or expectations thing just work out, something that just seems to happen.

They also have a swap shed for locals for any unwanted but reusable items, Richard said see if there was anything we wanted and go for it, also if we did want something we could leave it there for someone else to use.



Ellen wanted some jandels and well you wouldn't believe it, neat jandels with a groovy pattern and the right size, thank you to Dunster for these.