| Road and rail lines meet with some squalor at tiny BRITANNIA BEACH ,
53km from Vancouver, whose BC Museum of Mining is the first reason to
take time out from admiring the views (mid-May to June, Sept & Oct Wed-Sun
10am-4.30pm; July & Aug daily 10am-4.30pm; $8.50; tel 604/896-2233,
www.bcmuseumofmining.org ). Centring around what was, in the 1930s, the
largest producer of copper in the British Empire, the museum is housed
in a huge, derelict-looking building on the hillside and is chock-full
of hands-on displays, original working machinery and archive photographs.
You can also take guided underground tours around the mine galleries on
small electric trains.
Beyond Britannia Beach a huge, chimney-surrounded pulp mill comes into
view across Howe Sound to spoil the scenic wonder along this stretch,
though Browning Lake in Murrin Provincial Park makes a nice picnic spot.
This is but one of several small coastal reserves, the most striking of
which is Shannon Falls Provincial Park , 7km beyond Britannia Beach,
signed right off the road and worth a stop for its spectacular 335-metre
waterfall . Six times the height of Niagara, you can see it from the
road, but it's only five-minutes' walk to the viewing area at the base,
where the proximity of the road, plus a campsite and diner, detract a
touch.
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