Cultus Lake Provincial Park is located near the small community of Cultus Lake, and about 11 kms/7
miles southwest of Chilliwack, BC. It
was close to 11:30 when we pulled up to the park gate. No, we do not have reservations...and since
we wanted to stay 6 nights, sites that we would fit into were limited due to
reservations made for the weekend. 
We
were assigned site M85 at Maple Bay Campground.
The site is in what is considered the overflow section and backs onto a
main road—I don’t think we’ve been to a Provincial Park where the campgrounds
and day-use areas are side roads off a major road. Usually you enter the park and all
campgrounds are contained inside the boundary of the park, away from
high-travel roads. Fortunately, there
are trees between the site and the road that offers some privacy (doesn’t do
much for the noise factor, though).As we pulled up to our site, we had our doubts as to whether we would fit in it or not. A park attendant happened to be stopped talking to some other new arrivals (John and his wife, who we had just met at Fort Camping) and she came over to chat with us. After calling the main gate and confirming larger sites in the main campground were all reserved for the weekend, she took a drive through the overflow section just to see if any other sites would be better for us. It turned out to be this site or nothing but she said that if we didn`t fit, we would get a full refund.
Doing the old toe-to-toe measurement,
Steve figured we should just fit and there should also be room for all
sliders. So we thought we would give it
a try. As usual, the roads aren’t wide
enough to provide much room for Steve to maneuver the truck but after a couple
of tries, he managed to get backed in.After getting leveled and unhitched, we both went about our business of getting all set up. Unfortunately, the campground is too heavily treed for solar power and a satellite signal. So we will be without TV for the duration of our stay here...good thing we have some programs taped. We’ll also be able to watch some of those downloaded movies that Dennis (my brother) copied onto a memory stick for us. We have strong cell/mi-fi signals though...yay!
After lunch we decided to go for a
walk. We walked through the empty main
part of Maple Bay Campground. The
attendant had suggested that should we return to the park, we should reserve
site M23...it has easy access and is long.
We checked it out...yes, it is definitely larger. Most sites are too small for us...it is an
old, heavily treed park built for tenter’s and small RVs. We walked down to the boat launch area...There are lots of cottages along the shoreline...
Once back at our site, we sat
outside reading...and waiting for the park attendant to bring firewood. Other than the May long weekend when we were
camping at Lake Cowichan, Steve and I have had very few campfires in the past 6
months, so tonight we were going to have one and roast hot dogs for
dinner. It was after 5:30 when Steve
flagged down the attendant as she drove by...she didn’t have any firewood with
her so we gave her our cash and she would be back within a half hour. Now....campfires, which are an integral part
of camping especially in the dark, cool, heavily treed provincial parks, are
now discouraged...they don't even normally deliver wood if there aren't many campers.
Later on, we headed inside to watch a recorded program before going to bed to read...no TV...what a unique experience (haha)....
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