Vancouver Island

We left Vancouver on our bikes heading east for Banff. The first day we spent getting through the city. In the afternoon we were exhausted and crashed on a campsite just past Vancouver, set up our tent and went for a short walk. There were suddenly noticed bear warning. That came a bit as a surprise. The campsite was near a village and was very busy, though when inquiring at the reception, it turned out that from time to time some bears were wandering around the campsite. Fortunately we already had a bottle of bear spray out of the giveaway bin of the hostel. We tested the bear spray, put all our food in our paniers and went to sleep. It wasn’t very quiet, the bears left us in peace but the campsite appeared right next to a train track with trains who kept on driving all night and as a warning sign honked once or twice so loud that you almost could feel the ground shaking underneath your tent.

The next day we drove further east. Beautiful landscape with fields full of blueberries merged into a mountain landscape full of wild rivers and snow-covered mountain peaks. It was a beautiful ride on winding mountain roads. It feels so good to drive your own motorbike through Canada. At the end of the day however we decided not to continue to Banff. The whole round-trip that we wanted to do was 2000 km. That’s a lot and we didn’t really know how the roads would be and how many kilometers we’d make in a day. For 5 days in a row we drove on, our record is 200 km a day in a quiet area. On most highways you can’t go past 80 km/u. Not to bad because we don’t go much faster with all our luggage. We adopted a bit of a Spanish pace, after a few hours of driving we’ll pause more often because we suffer from sore buttocks, back, right hand, etc. In addition, we don’t want to stay too long in Canada. Although it is very beautiful here, it is also a really expensive country and so far we have not been able to stay within our budget for one day.

We returned to Hope after the decision, and slept in a roadside motel. I always wanted to go to a motel like this, just like in the movies hihi. It was exactly what you’d expect. A little dodgy. An unfriendly owner and a woman walked around in a very short red dress of whom we suspected was a prostitute. The rest of the day we spent watching all the Canadian TV programs.

Here we didn’t sleep well either because the trucks started to drive at 5 am, as I said it was a roadside motel. It didn’t help either that our neighbor walked his dog at 5 o’clock, yelling at it: “Come here you little shit ”, “ come here now ”. “ aargh I’m gonne kill you, you little shit ”.The new plan was Vancouver island, so we drove back all day, straight through Vancouver downtown and Stanley park. What a madhouse, it is nothing like the center of Rotterdam. We rode over the huge Lionsgate bridge and put up our tent at the only campsite near town, just underneath the same busy bridge. Despite that, we slept like a log haha, finally!. in the evening we went for a walk and saw a seal in the river mouth and relaxed in the hot tub at the campsite.

The next day we drove to Horseshoe bay where we took the Ferry to Vancouver Island. The first night we slept on a beautiful campsite in the middle of the forest. Near our tent was a beautiful owl in a tree. But there again we had little luck sleeping, our Chinese neighbors came home and chatted loudly until 2 am. When Erik took a look they were eating. Then were wakened at 7 am by the same neighbors .. aargh!

Vancouver Island is beautiful. Meanwhile we are standing on a lawn behind a motel in Port Alberni. It is a little dodgy. There is a camper next to us that is falling apart in misery with two older people in it smoking weed all day. They told us they just came back from vacation…. Erik made coffee this morning whilst accidentally setting the picnic table on fire. Oops .. luckily it was extinguished quickly and there’s no trace left. We visited Cathedral Grove, with extremely high cedar and douglas firs. The highest was 85 m and circumference 9 m, it was over 800 years old. And we went to a market hall with goats on the roof at Coombs, that was a bit of a tourist trap. To port Alberni we drove over one of the most beautiful roads of Canada. But the best part is yet to come …

Canada is a great country for camping. Although it seems we do not have the most practical tent, we have a tipi model with only one pole in the middle. Nice and quick to set up but it is very dependent on its pegs. If the pegs are not well grounded the pole falls over. And coincidentally, most campsites here have nice gravel or sand that we almost can’t get through with the pegs… The tent almost collapsed several times because one of us tried to pull himself up on the pole with a sleepy head during the middle of the night haha ​… We are now also in possession of our own bottle of bear spray. Buying it is another story. Bear spray is seen as a weapon so we had to fill in all sorts of forms. We are now official weapon owners :$. In the store where we bought the spray they sold all kinds of guns as well. Still seems a bit strange, a display full of guns.

The people here in Canada are very friendly. And when they see that we are driving around with Dutch license plates they often stop for chat. Sometimes we are honked at on the road and we get a thumbs up from the driver. Or they open a window for a small chat, if they are in a jam next to you. From two older ladies on motorcycles we talked to we got a pin with the Canadian flag. Furthermore, we sometimes find it funny how big everything is here. In the supermarket it sometimes is difficult to find a small package of something, with our limited storage space that would be very practical. Did you know that the Netherlands is known here for “Dutch Chocolate” and “old Dutch Chips”?, real Dutch specialties, ahum. At the campsite there are campers that are really huge buses. The toilets and toilet seats are huge and even the toilet paper rolls are much thicker and wider haha.

Today we had a day off from driving. After 5 days in a row that is necessary anyway. Tomorrow we will probably drive further to Ucluelet. But we do notice that planning too far ahead is not working too well yet ..