After Barkerville and our unexpected change of route plans we continued our journey along the Cariboo gold rush trail down south. Not just because of its awesome history, but also because it’s already the westernmost southbound road to get to Vancouver Island!
Towns along this route have weird names: 150 Mile House, 100 Mile House, 70 Mile House and so forth. This dates back to the times where miners hiked and less often rode horses along this route to and from gold mining spots. Within a couple of years gold miners rushed north to find the source of the gold traces in fraser river and its inlets. The most remote successful town was Barkerville. Along the trail starting from Cache Creek and Lillooet so called Roadhouses were established to accommodate miners. Names for those hoses were then just taken from the corresponding trail milepost. Most of the original roadhouses are gone. Sometimes villages and towns took their places – still called after those mileposts.
On our way towards south after a stopover in Clinton, we came by Hat Creek Ranch, one of the last couple of remaining original roadhouses.
Soon after this milepost we left the gold rush trail in Lillooet and kept on driving towards Whistler. We found a nice campground including scenic falls in Nairn Provincial Park.
