"The books" call it a main artery, but along every bit of the route I felt I was the only person in the world. Always wanting to find the routes less traveled, I hit the jackpot on this one. And going through Strathcona Provincial Park was just an added bonus.

Highway 28 (the Gold River Highway) takes a left off of the island's Highway 19 near Campbell River and heads west, 50 some-odd miles to the village of Gold River. A few miles beyond the village the road ends, at the inlet to Nootka Sound and the Pacific Ocean.

It wasn't a sunny day. Rather, it was dreary, and with an ever-present low cloud of fog covering portions of the mountains. I had waited as long as I could for the weather to turn, but I finally succummed. The grayness turned out to be to my advantage, and I can't beleive I just said that.

but somehow the weather matched the atmosphere of my eerie surroundings on this remote part of the world. Somehow, a bright sunny day would have not set well, would have been in contradiction with the mystery of the journey, with the tall rocky cliffs that lined the constantly curving road.

Highway 28 travels right through Strathcona Provincial Park, B.C.'s oldest park, established in 1911. I stopped at the park's lodge, the central point of a wilderness resort and outdoor education center that offers outdoor adventure activities such as kayaking and rock-climbing. I felt a little odd carrying a camera rather than a paddle, but I spent an hour or so walking around watching adventure hounds do their thing.

Autumn was clearly setting in on the Highway 28, and as it turned out, the weather couldn't have been better. As it turned out, the journey itself was the destination.