Coho Festival and White Pine Beach at Belcara

Another great day weather wise and we headed down to the Ambleside Beach for the Coho Festival. There were lots of activities for kids, mostly related to the environment and how to promote a safe environment for the return of the salmon each year. This was a big weekend in West Van with a concert on the night before featuring, Sheryl Crow, Neil Young and Sarah McLaughlin. We looked at all the exhibitions and watched some of the entertainment and the mountain bike riders exhibiting their skills.

We decided to take a drive to White Pine Beach at Sasamat Lake in Belcara Regional Park. We had to go all the way around the Burrard Inlet. When you are at Deep Cove you can look across the Indian Arm to Belcara, and from Cove Cliff it is only about 500 meters across the Indian Arm to Belcara. To get there by road you have to travel back across the Ironworkers Bridge over the Burrard Inlet, along either Highway 1, or the Barnet Highway to Port Moody, and around the inlet towards the Indian Arm. It is around 40 km either way.

We were heading to White Pine Beach, which Paula had been to before, for an end of year excursion, with a Kinder class that another Aussie teacher has out in Maple Ridge. We arrived at the carpark area and headed for one of the beaches. Paula had organised a picnic, so we had something to eat while sitting in the shade and watching people playing in the water. They were using all types of blow up lilos and kids play toys. Some people were swimming across the lake which was quite a distance, given that the track around the lake was 3.2 km. I did walk around the lake which took around 40 minutes. When we left we drove to the Belcara beach area for a view of the area from there. The whole area is very wild and scenic.