Canada: British Columbia

Tuesday 1^st May 2012 

Up painfully early, well 6am.... but small one was hung over and complaining about it. Still were not sure if this helicopter over the Rockies was going ahead or not, it was kind of cloudy outside, but not as bad as yesterday. Tried phoning them, but they were closed until 8am. Phoned after 8am and was told it was going ahead and our pickup was on his way to collect us. Quickly had a breakfast in the hostel cafe, coffee and a cheese sandwhich (which somehow still took them half an hour to make). Checked out hostel with all bags and the Helicopter shuttle arrived. Driven by some young fresh faced Canadian boy who looked about 16, but was 22 and had a helicopter license. We were his only pickup sin Banff so we drove the 20 minute drive down to Canmore.

                Paid the $120 each, then sat through a boring video, got weighed and then waited for our turn to go. Small one was pretty nervous, but in the end was looking forward to it. We watched 2 helicopters take off and land, up into the misty mountains around us. Small one text his father that he was just about to go up in a helicopter. A minute after he pressed send the girl from the front desk came up to us and whispered, “i’m very sorry guys the weather has changed to bad, there’s now too much fog for the helicopters to fly”. Small one noticed that two groups of four were still queuing and she had not told them, she’d just told us in private, he asked about this and she said that they won’t be going either. We got a full refund and at least they weren’t stuffy about well we’ll keep your money until you can come back, they were pretty apologetic and nice about it at least. Got back in the shuttle with the same lad, drove 20 minutes back to Banff and was dropped at the bus station – at the very least we had got a free ride from the hostel to the bus station (all be it an hour trip in all). Small one text father back, helicopter called off.

                Stored our bags at station then went to McDonalds for an hour. Small one asked for a McChicken sandwhich only for the woman to say “we are still serving breakfast what would you like from the breakfast menu?”, small one said “nothing, i’ll wait the fifteen minutes until it’s over”, she sharply added, “actually it’s 20 minutes...”. Back to the station, and finally the bus turned up at around 1pm. The driver pointed out that our Unlimited Discovery passes ended today, but let us on anyway. Small one sat tired, hung over and complaining. It was only an hour and a half to Calgary, and on the way we saw a herd of Elk in the birch trees by Canmore (which the lad who drove us by here earlier had told us all the trees are dark from 5foot down from all the Elk scratching on them), we also saw half a dozen gopher standing on their dug holes by the highway.

                Arrived in Calgary and it was tipping with rain. Stepped off bus and into the station (for our third time in this one), only for two large men dressed casually, approached one of us each and spoke softly saying “I’m from the Transit Security” showing us a badge which could have come from a cereal box. Tall and small were a bit confused, but went with it. They were ‘interviewed’ separately and told that they were free to leave at anytime, then were asked where they were from, where they had travelled, where they were going, can I see some ID, do we use drugs, do we have drugs on us, have we seen people using drugs? Apparently they had smelled hash when people were getting off the bus and obviously we looked like the likely candidates. They wished us well and off we went, walking 2km in the rain to get to the airport shuttle stop in town.

                As we walked up the highway into the CBD, infront of us was a girl walking on her own, purple rain coat and a pink umbrella – only she had deliberately turned the umbrella inside out, and so walked with it above her head with it catching all the rain like a bowl. She then would occasionally stop and lower the umbrella, look inside and see how much water was there, then hold it back up and keep walking whilst singing to herself. Tall one presumed (and later was found correct) that she must be Asian – as most Asian girls are loopy. Finally found the bus stop, waited half an hour. Just as the bus pulled up a large woman started talking to us asking the standard questions, “so where you guys from?”. There was the usual long pause to see which of us would be bothered to answer, small one pretended to be counting his $8 in change the bus website had told us we’d need. Tall one did the conversation thing, but thankfully was cut off by the bus arriving. Got on the bus and tall one put in his $8 in change in the money box thing and walked on, small one got on to pay, but the driver told him that it was only $2.75 from town to the airport, so tall one had thrown in enough for both and then some (been having bad luck getting the correct info from websites recently). Half hour later off at the airport about 4.pm, found free wifi and power points (where we sit now opposite Starbucks). Tall one checked us in (flight leaves at Midnight though), and found there was only two seats left next to each other on the way to Toronto, which was fine, but the connection to St John’s only had either 2 seats one infront of the other, or two seats in the same row but the otherside of the plan. Finished the process then went back to Starbucks to sit and wait until Midnight.... great stuff.

                Went for a ‘proper’ meal in some grill place, $20 each. Half the other customers seemed to be not touching a thing on their plates and walking off. Small one asked the waiter if he could have mayonnaise, he brought back this little dish of spicy orange stuff?? Went through customs relatively painlessly, then sat on some soft chairs facing out over the planes, occasionally nodding off for 10 uncomfortable minutes. Boarded around 11.45pm.

Monday 30^th April 2012 

Up bright and early around 5.45am. Showered and ate a dry bagel with some very small creamy yoghurts for a dodgy breakfast. Sundog shuttle was due to pick us up at 7am and take us to Banff, arriving 11.30am. We stood outside the hostel from 6.45am, and waited and waited.... At 7.20am we dug out their phone number, small one had to topup his phone and we called their office as several marked and unmarked shuttles had driven past us with drivers looking bemused. The office said they were on their way. It finally arrived just after 7.30am, after waiting 45 minutes out in the cold. The driver was a craggy faced local, not all that friendly and not very talkative. We got on the minibus and presumed he was late due to all the pickups, only to see only 2 other passengers??? We then spent another half an hour picking up another 2 people, one was a English girl who almost knocked small one out with her backpack, and then sat behind us coffing non-stop for the whole trip. The other was picked up at the H.I. Jasper, which looked pretty grotty – was basically one old wooden building 15 minutes out of town into the woods, no running water, and was just one big room with 40 beds (we had read about it online).

                Shuttle set off, and it was a pretty foggy day, though no snow or rain. The mountain road down through the Rockies was pretty nice, tall jagged snowy topped mountain ranges. Around the Columbian icefields there was still thick snow piled up buy the road and covering all around – the first snow we’d seen since leaving the Yukon. As we drove down the mountain road looking for bears, the German backpacker at the front of the bus pointed to something ahead of us in the road. The driver slowed down and right next to the shuttle bus, jogging alongside, was a grey wolf. It paid no attention to us, other than one quick sideways glance and continued to trot along up the road. We did see as we went past that it had a black tracking collar on, which the rangers presumably had caught some of the pack to track them. We took a rest stop for 20 minutes at a random cafe / lodge, where a banana and an apple cost $4.20! Small one said he’d put the banna back. Back in the shuttle and arrived in Banff about 11.40am. The driver pulled some bizarre driving techniques, as when hotels came up for the drop offs, he didn’t like to swing across the road into their lay-by’s, he’d keep driving and find some turning point 5 minutes away before turning around and heading back so he could pull into the lay-by on the same side. He dropped of one guy dressed in baggy jeans, baseball cap who was carrying three suits on hangers, and had so much luggage the hotel had to bring a trolley out for him.

                Finally dropped at the Banff-Y Lodge where we’d stayed back in March. Reception informed us that as there was an issue last time with some very noisy drunk neighbours, they had upgraded for free to an ensuite private room. Dropped bags in room and headed into town. Small one on the hunt for a barbers, but was soon told the cheapest was $20. To the post office to post some books tall one had tried to buy in Nanaimo and sell on ebay, with not much success at gaining any profit. Had a Mcdonalds with free wifi, before stopping for small one to buy some new hiking boots (his old one’s smell like death itself). The only size that fit him was a children’s girl’s size 5.5, UK size 5. His feet must have shrunk with the sweat in the last pair. They then headed to Banff Old Cemetary and hunted around to find the grave of Banff historic figure named Wild Bill Peyto, who tall one had just finished reading a book on in McDonalds. They paid there respects, with small one jokingly pointing to a small bone next to his grave asking if that was his leg? On the way back to the hostel phoned the helicopter company we had booked a flight over the rockies tomorrow with, as the forecast was terrible, they said phone in the morning as they cancelled all flights today. Then phoned the wwoofing organic farm in St John’s who had still not replied to our email or questions after 2 weeks. After a few attempts a women answered (the one they’d been dealing with was still in Arizona), tall one spoke as if it was all confirmed and definite, asking how to get to the farm on Wednesday. She said she’d check with the husband, who could be heard gruffly saying he was not doing that, and did not want to be put on the phone.... Still, wasn’t all bad, as she did not say “I have no idea who you are”. So, although still a bit sketchy, we’ll just turn up Wednesday morning, without having had a confirmation or response for certain.

                Back up town and into James’ Gate Irish Pub. Seated by the open fire by the waitresses all wearing very short kilts. Convinced her to give us the special offer on 2 for price of 1 on appetizers, so ended up with a bowl of irish nachos heaped a foot high with chips coloured green, whiteish and orange. As well as a bowl of ten beef and horseradish stuffed Yorkshire puddings, onto the mains (which were smaller than the appetizers or we’d be dead), a rib eye steak and Shepard’s pie, then a sticky toffee pudding. Staggered painfully onto the street and up to a bar called Melissa’s (which stunk of fish downstairs). There we met Pat and Maude who we last for drinks in Toronto before they left for the Blue Mountains. Many stories to tell, especially the long saga involving wwoofing with Mary and Rolland up in Whitehorse.  Got back after midnight and small one was dying, he’s not able anymore.

Sunday 29^th April 2012 

Another lie on, though small one was up at 6am to see Celtic thrash Rangers. Out for a celebratory breakfast at A&W where they had an offer for 2 egg and bacon sandwiches for $5. Back to the hostel to shower, and noticed how the toilet’s flush is broken – making the water (and anything in it) constantly spin round in an endless, hypnotic circle. Ate a box of Wagon Wheel’s for lunch and headed out for another walking trail about 3pm.

                This trail was on the other side of town, called the Mina Lakes trail. It started taking us past the back of everybody’s houses, so you could look right into all their bedrooms as the trail headed up and along the ridge. The weather was due to be terrible today, but actually was quite warm and sunny with clouds. This trail was very quiet compared to yesterdays jog-a-thon. Small one had bear spray at the ready and was constantly on the look out. Made it to the Lower and Upper Mina Lakes, both half frozen still. The first lake was a bit marshy round the edges, and tall one was trying to get to the edge as they had seen a group of 3-4 beavers playing at one end of the lake. Luckily the camera had a good zoom and they could see later on what they actually were.

                Followed the trail up hill and then started coming back down towards a river. Caught up with some German girl walking alone, who was the first person we’d seen in an hour, she had shocking English so we kept walking. At one point the trail hit a fork and there were no signs as to which way to go. We took the narrow path heading down the steep ridge. Luckily it made it to a clearing with a road, where an unfriendly old couple were walking an Alsatian and a Jack Russell. Ten minutes down the road suddenly a herd of huge Elk came running out the woods towards us. These things are pretty huge and powerful, even though the two males were pretty young and had only small antlers, it was still a bit nervous to be so close to them. They didn’t show much fear at all, and grouped on the edge of the forest chewing grass and watching us. We edged past and made it back into town. Stopped off for a pizza hut offer, which strangely was combined with a KFC using the same cashier to make both orders? Back to hostel to have a good tidy up ready to catch the shuttle down to Banff tomorrow. Tried e-mailing the wwoofing farm in St John’s, who as yet had not responded to our email sent a week ago asking her to confirm we were all go to work for her from t he 2^nd May when our plane landed. This was a bit worrying as we don’t want to end up with no wwoofing farm, especially after blowing out the Dublin guy who was asking for two many hours for no pay.

Saturday 28^th April 2012 

A good lie on until 9-10am. Headed into town, was a great sunny, blue sky day (forecast for rest of week is rain). Found out that the Greyhound bus we had planned to take to Banff on Monday did not take the direct road through the mountains to get there (a 5 hour drive), but went east to Edmonton, change bus, then down to Calgary, change bus, then west back into Banff, taking 13 hours in all. We priced a shuttle to take direct, which was 5 hours for $70 each or a scenic full day with stops for $129....

                Got to the railway depot to speak to the two car rental companies inside to see if we could rent and drop off in Jasper. National Care Rental had a little sign p saying ‘Off Cleaning a Car back soon’, the other rental company Avis had a sign up saying the exact same thing. We also tried another car rental company, Budget, but they were also closed for lunch! Later we got the prices, but it was an additional $250 to drop off in Banff, so probably take the shuttle.

                Train station had an enormous CN Train arrive, which seemed to take an endless amount of time to pull past us slowly, filled with a variety of carriages from new cars to timber to passengers. Stopped in the information centre and got some info for local trails, small one asked if there was any horse riding in town but pronounced it ‘hearse riding’, the poor woman was very confused. Then headed out of town. Followed a trail over the river and a good forest trail up to Lake Beauvert. The trail was however full of tubby middle aged men and women jogging messily past us, seemed like some kind of group activity or race. Also headed up to Lake Annette, and were both shattered from walking having been cooped up for the last 2 days. The lakes were very something, they were both turquoise blue and crystal clear water to the bottom. Last time we were in the Rockies in March they were all frozen solid, but now they were pristine with the odd frozen part which was even frozen blue. Saw plenty of deer which seemed tame as sheep, though with the amount of people about was not surprised. All our thoughts of seeing bears vanished when we saw how many people were about, though the trail back down the Athabasca River was pretty quiet. Got back to town exhausted, and brought ourselves an ice cream. Small one brought a whole cooked chicken for dinner and we sat in the hostel eating it watching housing programmes.

Friday 27^th April 2012 

Staggered bleary eyed out of McDonalds around 6.30am, after an adequate breakfast. Walked back to the bus depot, small one ready to collapse with tiredness. It was pretty full but soon everyone left on a 7am bus and it was just tall, small and two young idiots on their own. The bus to Jasper wasn’t for another 5 and a half hours.... Small one did phone Budget car rental in Kamloops to see how much it would be to rent and drop off in Jasper, they said $50 per day, then $950 fee for drop off in Jasper! Small one said he’d have a think about it.

                Small one curled up on the bench and tried to sleep on and off for a good few hours. Meanwhile tall one sat watching Castaway on his laptop. A fella in a leather jacket waltzed into the depot telling the office he’d missed his bus when we the next one? He then had to phone someone to tell them he;d be late and started pestering some poor Asian woman by the phone for change. He stood at the end swearing and banging the phone as it took his money and was asking for another $2.70 to make a call. To calm him down the Asian woman kept feeding him quarters until she ran out and he had to come over to tall one, who gave him 1 quarter. He made his phone call which consisted of him shouting “well then wire me the money so i can get home, i’ve been stuck here 3 days!”. He then smashed the phone on the receiver a few times and stormed out, never coming back for the next bus he’d asked for.

                The hours dragged by very slowly. It was a real dingy depot, with brown tiled walls, and uncomfortable blue plastic chairs. The cafeteria was huge, but everyone from the bus driver to the 80’s perm behind the ticket desk were telling passengers to avoid it. Announcements occasionally came over the speakers to the 4-5 people now sat in the depot, including “attention passengers... a John Grisham Novel has been found” or the other one was “Attention Passengers.... a ‘beat box’ has been found in the toilet’.

                It started filling up pretty near to 12pm, but then a sign came up saying the bus we wanted would be 2 hours late! Tall one ran down to Tim Hortons and got back with chilli, sandwiches, muffins and orange juice for him and small one. Tall and small had been sat at the front of the queue for the Jasper Bus since 6.30am, but this didn’t stop a snotty nosed woman pushing her way through to put her bags in front of ours, or a huge lump of a young lad in a gothic ‘Iced Earth’ t-shirt, who breathed really noisily and made dull conversation – who also just walked round the barrier and stood infront of all the bag lined up.

                Soon our line of plastic chairs was full of old grey haired ladies, and a couple of young lads. They all were strangers travelling alone and suddenly all started having a big community discussion.... it was quite bizarre to behold, as people queuing for other buses started pitching in. They talked about any old nonsense from 80 year old women smoking pot, to how in regard to Gay men you should hate the sin but love the sinners. Then the bibles literally came out and they started looking up bible quotes together.... tall one and small one looked at each other both thinking “get me out of here...”. Still, finally the bus rolled in 2.30pm, we’d been in Kamloops for over 13 hours, and not slept since the3 day before.

                The driver was this bald fella with a beard who was the most unenthusiastic, miserable man you;d meet doing such a public job. He made no announcements of where we were or how we were doing with our schedule (considering we were over 2 hours late), which meant everyone kept asking him how much longer, only to receive a very short flat responce. He drove the bus with his head propped up on one hand, a miserable sulky sight to behold. There was some great scenary coming into Jasper at least, which we would have missed on the over night bus we’d planned originally. Saw a moose drinking from a pool byt he side of the road, and plenty of huge snow topped mountains. Arrived to Kamloops at 9.30pm local time, 15 hours later than we had planned. Walked up the street to the home accommodation we’d booked. There were no hostels at all listed for Jasper, with the exception of a 40 bed dorm in a HI hostel, which was a 20 minute shuttle outside of town?? There was however a good website where people had converted a few rooms to private rooms and rented them for around $50-60 a night. We headed up Geike Street looking for number 102. Walking past a nice big wooden lodge numbered 120 we kept walking wishing we had booked that one. We then got to house 104, then the next one was 100 ( a run down little bungalow). There was no 102?? House 104 was a big double house with a sign for accommodation, so we thought we’d knock there. As we walked up the path two young girls came out carrying BBQ food, small one asked if this was Patti Clark’s place and they couldn;t seem to understand a word he said. Finally we got a no out of them, and headed back down the street to try the 120 house. Luckily it was correct (must have written down 102 instead of 120). It was basically a basement floor of their house, with three private rooms (one ensuite). Our twin room was really nice, TV, fridge, kettle, microwave, very clean. Patti who let us in also seemed very nice, and the price was pretty reasonable. We were soon in bed asleep though as we were both extremely tired by now.

Thursday 26^th April 2012 

Up around 8am, our bus today (according to the Greyhound website at least) as due to leave at 1.45pm and was a direct bus to Vancouver arriving at 5.30pm, then at 6.15pm we left for Jasper arriving 6am the next morning.... that wasn’t to be as we’d find out at the depot, but first we had breakfast. Downstairs in the hostel was a mad house, last night a bus of students (more like school kids, all around 12 years old) arrived screaming and running round the hallways. This morning the kitchen was over run not just with students but with snotty teachers. They’d arrogantly stand in the way as if they owned the kitchen, we had to squeeze around them and ask permission to use the kettle which they were boiling and re-boiling for the kids. Small one was even told to sit down and eat his breakfast by one of them before they noticed he had a beard.

                Headed down to the bus depot, stopping briefly in Shopper’s Drug Mart to get a stamp and some other bits. Tall one was looking at the cheapest sun cream to buy as they had got sun burnt a couple of times. Whilst stood there looking a customer walked up (middle aged plump woman) clutching a china mug of hot tea in the middle of the store and started explaining the best sun creams to buy and commented how he had good skin and so factor 30 would be best. Small one to to tell the ginger woman behind the till that he wasn’t taking her to dinner tonight after promising her he would if he wont he lotto last night. Next down to the station and a stop at the British Lolly store again to buy Quavers, Monster Munch, Black Jacks, Lion Bar, Milky Bar Buttons and a Galaxy.

                At the bus depot it was quite busy and a queue was already pretty long. We had to check out the hostel at 11am, so we arrived at the depot at 11.30am even though we were due to leave at 1.45pm. We asked some stuck up woman with a Greyhound jumper on for our ticket, she said we could go to Vancouver either on the next bus leaving very shortly or wait till 1.30pm, we regretfully said the 1.30pm. She then told us for some unknown reason that we would not be on the direct bus, that that was not Greyhound and costed $50, we told her it was listed on the Greyhound website (Greyhound use other partner bus companies like Tofino Bus and Pacific), she said that if you want to travel with OUR company it’s $50 and we could nto use the Discovery Pass. Small one pointed out the Greyhound logo on her jumper and said “your company is Greyhound”, she continued to tell us the website was wrong as well, but said we could catch the Greyhound bus at 1.30pm, but she could only give us a ticket as far as Nanaimo? (Usually they just issue you a few tickets to cover each transfer to your final destination, or just let you get on with your Unlimtied Discovery Pass). So now we had to change buses at Nanaimo, get a new ticket, wait 40 minutes for a bus that would drive literally 5 mintues up the road to Departure Bay and catch the ferry there. This is what we did, after sitting in a bizarre Asian coffee shop round the corner until 1.30pm. Even when we got on the bus the driver told us he did not understand why she did not just give us a ticket to Vancouver, that’s what they usually do....

                The two hour trip to Nanaimo was of course full of monster passengers. There was a very fragile and very slow moving elderly English couple, stooped over their walking trollies who slowly wheeled up right to the front of the queue and got on before everyone else who’d been waiting for a good 45 minutes before them. Not that anyone minded, but they seemed to be expert queue jumpers. Small oen asked them where they were originally from and they said London, when he asked where Tall one was from and he said Maidstone, he held his fingers to his nose to signify that the place stunk. There was also an old mute man on the bus as when he wanted to tell the driver (whilst in motion) where he wanted to get off he started to mimes of waves with his hand and pointing and signalling, the driver was still non the wiser. Later on the bus a young lad got on wearing green jeans, black sunglasses and a white sailors hat. As we pulled into Nanaimo he started singing the words to a Queen song from the very back of the bus very very loudly and abruptly, everyone wondered what the hell was going on. He then started yelling “OOOH GET ME OFF THIS FUCKIGN BUS, GET ME OFF THIS FUCKING BUS, THERE’S MY LITTLE GIRLFRIEND!”. Much to the bemusement of the driver.

                Got our second ticket, the ticket office confirmed that with all these transfers and changes we would get in to Vancouver at 7.45pm not 5.30pm as on the website, and so missing the 6.15pm to Jasper and there was not another until 6.15am the next morning. We got to the ferry terminal eventually and boarded. Once on board we had a meal from the cafeteria, tall one went healthy with a chicken salad, small one a curry. Found some where nice and quiet to sit, only to then be joined by two women and one very noisy pig noise making little girl. There was also a young football team on the boat who ran up and down the floor above us making it sound like the boat was blowing up. We could not seem to get away from children today. We did at least see a lot of porpoises out the window on the way into Horseshoe Bay, splashing and spread quite far and wide in the ocean.

                Got off the ferry around 7pm and had to get what was now a third Greyhound bus to Vancouver. They had only brought an 11 seater mini bus out and there were 19 passengers to take (all with pre-purchased tickets). Luckily we had carried out big luggage on and so had got to the front of the queue. People were not happy and the driver had to send 7 people off in three taxis paid for by Greyhound. One fella with a huge beard and a big yellow jacket asked the driver if he had collected his bags from the ferry bag collection okay, the driver told him that they didn’t do that you were supposed to get it yourself. The bearded guy then said he wasn’t going to go back and miss the taxi/bus to Vancouver and said it was only a towel and some other stuff maybe they would send it to him (it was literally just in the arrivals gate 1 minutes walk back). On the 45 minute drive to Vancouver the driver said we could catch the 8.30pm bus to Kamloops which is halfway between Vancouver and Jasper, and they had a 24 hour bus depot plus a 24 hour McDonalds / Tim Hortons. Are only other option was to sit in Vancouvers (rough) depot from 7.45pm until the next bus to Jasper at 6.15am.... that was a long time and the driver said the depot closed for a few hours as well, so we decided to get the bus to Kamloops where’d we’d arrive at 1am and catch the Jasper service when it came through there at 12 noon next day.

                Inside the Vancouver depot it was filled with smoke and also a huge bright studio light, they were filming some kind of big Bollywood dance seen for a movie or something. We would definitely not stay here tonight. On to the ticket office and the very very glum girl gave us a ticket to Kamloops and said we had the last tickets, the bus was full so queue up now as its first come first serve. We stood by the depot number an hour early, a huge queue formed behind us. Some young couple arguing and bringing out the tears to the bus driver that they’d lost their ticket and he let them on anyway. We got on the bus first in the front seats and we noticed a young guy arrive late but just walk past the queue of some 30 people to the front, hand his bag to the driver and get on – another queue jumper who nobody thought to stop.

                Bus drove through the night to Kamloops, arriving at 1am, the large driver named Giovanni kept being very loud at all the bus stops on the way shouting at passengers to smoke AWAY FROM THE BUS! He’d then get on to the announcement speakers and talk so softly and quietly nobody could hear him. At Kamloops he announced that the sandwiches in the cafeteria here were out of date and advised not to buy them. Small and Tall got off and locked their bags in a depot locker for $4 for 6 hours. They over heard the young couple with the “lost” ticket telling the Kamloops cashier that they’d never been issued one and they could show her their visa as proof?? The depot did seem to have a lot of quite larey / starey people, so we headed out to McDonalds up the road. 24 Hour place where I am typing now, we sat down in a small booth and brought a coffee and cheap burger. A sensible looking middle aged man with glasses and a red jacket came in and started talking to us that we had some pretty nifty looking laptops, yeah he hd some just like it. Tall one nodded politely and turned away, small one ignored him. He then sat behind us and tried talking again, but tall one had some head phones in (plugged into nothing) pretending he could not hear. When we failed to talk to him he stopped some poor young girl working for McDonalds (this was 2am) and started telling her some bizarre story how they’d tried to assault him in the hospital and it became sexual and that every child had the right to grow up normally....??? She politely nodded and agreed and kept walking away, he kept talking and she kept having to stop, but finally she got away. He stayed behind us for a good half an hour making loud chewing noises, occasionally getting up and briskly walking past out the door, we’d sigh relief until suddenly he’d come back in just as briskly and sit back down again. Coming up to 2.30am now, not sure how long we’re stay in McDonalds. Our other options our Tim Hortons (no wifi) or the depot itself which at least has some benches we could lie down on if we didn’t get mugged or turfed out.

Wednesday 25^th April 2012 

Up pretty early, and the sky was overcast but no rain. Took a wonder out and stopped in a strange little asian run cafe – had a microwaved then grilled bacon/egg muffin, followed by a cup of tea which was made suspending an open bag teabag skewed on a lolly stick across the top of the cup.  Walked down along the harbourfront to the fishing village. Four –five rows of cute little floating houses along various piers, all decorated quirkily with hanging baskets and random junk. Further along the pier two Harbour seals suddenly popped out the water just a few feet from us. They must get fed a lot down here by tourists as they just floated their looking at us all fat and spotty, occasionally going under and turning over and over under the surface. Walked a lot further round to the long concrete pier which stretched out into the harbour, at the end was a red and white beacon where an old man sat whittling a stick. Walked back along the slippery rocks that went around the base of the pier. Stopped to use the free wifi next to a cafe filled with policemen drinking coffee. Small one had received a letter at Canadiana which apparently said the tax office had only received his refund form not the return form. Small one stormed back and after reading the letter which Canadiana scanned and emailed him, was on the phone to H&R block about it. Ironically it was tall one last year in Australia who had all the problems, and it was also him who had the inexperienced fella in Toronto who almost mis filed his return for half the actual refund he was entitled to. We will see what happens.

                Mid afternoon headed back out. Took small one to the medical centre, another $90 fee and then $77 for the prescription.... There was only one doctor (a woman) on duty. She was taking 2 patients at a time putting them in conjoining rooms and going between the two. Small one went in and she was very sympathetic about this being his third time in and all his fees, so she said she’d see if she had any of the prescription he needed hanging around, and gave him 5 days of loose pills for nothing. Before she came back in she went to see the other patient in the conjoining room, it was a young lad also staying at our hostel. Small one could hear their conversation perfectly through the door, he was saying “I only noticed them this morning when i got into the shower, i shaved there so i could see better...”, her response was “oooh yes look there they all are”.... apparently he had crabs.

                Meanwhile tall one popped up town to buy a few bits. He ran into one of the lunatics who stayed at Canadiana Hostel in Toronto. It was the middle aged bald guy who dressed completely in black with a black bowler hat, he did not stop to speak to him but did follow him all the way into the Dollar store where tall one lost him in the envelope section. Tall one headed back to the doctors via a British Sweet Shop (stocked up on Monster Munch, Lion Bars and Black Jacks). While in the waiting room waiting for small one to come out, a big fella on crutches to his left leaned over and asked him “do you mind if i asked you something.... how comfortable are you in those shoes?”. He indicated the trainers talls one had on, tall one looked confused, the big man continued, “those are very flat soles, i used to wear flat shoes like that in my skate boarding days about ten years ago, i need a pair of comfortable shoes, so do you find them comfortable?”, Tall one nodded slowly, “I guess so, i don’t know?”. There was then a long silence, and Tall one got up and asked the receptionist how much longer for the small one?

                After small one came out, they stopped off in Shoppers Drug Mart for the prescription where they had to queue behind the crab guy from the hostel. They then stopped for a cheap Burger King meal, and whilst they sat by the window eating a pickup truck pulled up and stopped at the lights. In the front seat was a woman driving and two middle aged guys squashed in next to her, the one in the middle was reading a colourful children’s animal story book out loud... it was then we saw three little kids all sat in the backseat of the pickup as well. Then back to the hostel with us, to finish up the H&R Block case up over small one’s tax return, and then pack bags for the bus trip tomorrow to Jasper.

Tuesday 24^th April 2012 

Small one feeling a bit under the weather, he’d not able for this drinking lark anymore. Fumbled about all morning and we managed to make a pretty good breakfast of soup and cheese on toast. Had to get some air in the afternoon after spending the whole morning cooped up. It had been raining all day but went out to buy a magnet and some new blind man’s shades for small one. Stopped in a small cafe with huge walls, walls covered with movie memorabilia. Was served by this enormous but awkward black guy, who gave small one a Cappuccino covered with cream and chocolate shavings which small one preceded to scrape off. Soon left back to the hostel to stay cooped up a bit longer. Was going to get dinner in the hostel cafe, but when we asked what their $6 Pasta of the day was she told us it was ‘Vodka and Peppers’... we said no thankyou. Headed out after 5pm and got a subway sandwhich up past all the drug addicts and looney staring tramps. Then on to the cinema for the first time in a few months to see The Hunger Games, which small one hated. It also seemed like no one in the audience could control their bladder as literally not ten minutes would go by without yet another person struggling by to go.

                Back at the hostel around 9pm, brought some fresh water and small one is claiming his throat is acting up again, this is after twice now having paid the $70 odd fee plus prescriptions to see Medical Centre Doctors. Online we had received a response today from our Irish wwoofing host in Newfoundland, after he’d been adamant on asking for 40 hours a week work for food and board, we found another lady by St John’s who is only asking 25 hours a week. We told him circumstance shad changed and we couldn’t make it and he was actually pretty okay with it considering this had been arranged back in January and we were only pulling out now just over a week before we were due. Also in the news was that debris from the Japanese Tsunami last year has now been confirmed found washed up on Long Beach, Canada. Which is basically where we were a few days ago and where we found similar objects listed, such as spray cans and bottles (floaty things I guess). Anyway, it’s still raining and going to bed now. Rain due tomorrow as well so we were lucky with the sunshine for the whale tour yesterday.

Monday 23^rd April 2012 

Had a cereal breakfast in our room, eating out of washed out soup cups from Tim Hortons and stolen soup spoons from the same place. Had some fruit and yoghurt (there is a fridge in the room) but halfway through the yoghurt noticed it was almost a month out of date. We then got a knock on the door about ten minutes before we headed out for the day. Some guy told us our room was meant to be open, the English girl who checked us in last night gave us the wrong room ad someone had booked it today. So we had to move everything, thankfully just into the room opposite, then when small one took down the old room key he could hear the same English girl now checking in a new person into our old room, before he’d even returned the key and before it had been cleaned.

                Had a walk round town, down the main streets – Douglas and Government. Then onto Beacon Hill Park where an elderly couple with a map needed our help. They kept telling us that we were on Blanche street, and we kept telling them no we our on Douglas street – and despite pointing to the street sign saying Douglas street they were still hard to convince. Into the park itself, on a nice warm sunny day. A few ducks ponds, filled with turtles lined up on a floating log. A good lookout over the bay with the snow capped mountain range of Washington State in the background. Small oen spoke to a Canadian couple who’d rented mopeds for the day. Left the park walking past a man sat in a bush drinking tea out o a china cup. Watched a peacock in the carpark where small one took some photos, and a man in the car behind us kept spitting loudly onto the pavement.

                Had some food before our Orca/Kilelr Whale boat tour at 2pm. A small diner like cafe, and ordered a cheese Panini for $3.99 and a smoothie for $4.50. The cheese Panini turned out to be just toasted cheese sandwhiches (normal bread). The diner’s toilet’s had little number code pads to unlock and get in. Small one asked the English cashier what the password for the toilet was, and the man said it’s “5, 6, 7, 8” whislt counting 1, 2, 3, 4, on his fingers?

                Into the Springtide Whale Watching office. Two bubbly girls made us sign some stuff, the hostel had booked our tour for the day, but they had written us down as “Haggarty and Bart” instead of “Hegarty and Barton”?? Was then led down to the docks, followed by some foreign guy with an enormous camera, this looked more of a TV Studio camera than anything we’d seen, with this bizarre mechano like metal framework built around it. Thankfully he was going on the  cruiser boat, not the raft-like Zodiac boat we were.

                In the end it was just us two and four middle aged Australians. We were sweating with the heat of the sun and then were told to put on this padded water proof overalls, these were also life jackets and protected yu from hypothermia if we fell in. Our Captain of the boat today was a Dublin Girl younger than us, she’d be driving and was being trained by a droll speaking middle aged Canadian man. The day went perfectly fine though.

                Headed out the harbour at 7 knots an hours, very slow. Small one had forgotten his sunglasses and when he asked the Dublin girl for a spare pair he was given a pair of plastic workshop wrap arounds – no shades on them, just clear plastic. Outside the harbour we sped up to up to 50km, bouncing over the waves. Took us half an hour to get to a small pod of 3-4 Killer Whales, all the whale watching companies had radios and seemed to tip each other off on the locations, and so we were there with another 3 boats. The large male Orca came out the water, his large fin cutting through the waves and then back down again, followed by the two smaller ones. The boat was not supposed to be closer than 100m, but occasionally they’d surface a lot nearer to us, but still no closer than about 50m. Then we’d lose them for a good ten minutes until they’d come back again. Sometimes we’d speed on parrell to them to try and keep up and then stop again for a while. We watched them for around an hour and a half. The captain informed us that the snowy mountain range in the distance was Washington State USA, and that we were now infact in American waters. Around this time small one received a text from his phone provider to tell him he was now on roaming charges as he was out the country! Finally we left the whales and before heading back to the islands where we stopped to look at some fair size colonies of Harbour seals which were laying in the sun on rocks (rocks just below the water surface so looked like they were lying flat on top of the water), as well as several little seal heads just bobbing up and down out the water. Back to the harbour just after 5pm, so over 3 hours in all for $88 each. Was much better than the Whale tour in Sydney, and gave us a glimpse at the wwoofing work we’d be doing for the Grey/Humpback whale company in Nova Scotia in June.

                Cooked a fantastic dinner in the hostel, sausages, amazing backed potatoes, guacamole, beans AND HALF  RED ONION EACH. Headed out for a pint at The Irish Times where Paul O’Brien was playing live. Turned out he was Irish, but raised in Birmingham UK – so spoke with a brummy accent, then was now resident in Victoria. He played some Christy Moore, Nancy Spain, Ride On for small one, which made small one happy. Had 3-4 Guinness each, Guinness was actually very good, best so far in Canada. Followed by an Irish Coffee each, which again was one of the best we’ve had – the cream was thick and last on the top for the whole coffee. When we told the bartender the Guinness was good he wanted to know why it was good, and started spouting on about how he’s taken American training courses in pouring Guinness and has been pouring it for over ten years in Irish Pubs across the states.... snzzzzzzzz. We were also joined sat at the bar by a middle aged Asian man on his own. He sat at the bar and ordered their ‘Irish Taster’ special, which was four half pints in a little box – one of Guinness, one of Kilkenny, one of Smithwicks and one of Harp. He then sat there on his own taking sips from each one simultaneously. Then a married couple came and sat at the bar next to him, they could not get away from the fella. He pulled his stool up close at started having what looked like an intense, close conversation with the husband while the wife sat their bored and staring on. It was a good night, we don’t have many out on our budget. Headed home, small one the worse for wear.

               

Sunday 22^nd April 2012 

Up earlyish and a brief goodbye to our manager and the dannish person we had both come to love. Small one phoned home after trying and failing to phone for the last few days. Went to Greyhound and was given a printed ticket all the way on the 6 hour bus down to Victoria. Randomly the cashier guy (who looked a bit like that guy from ‘House’ but with long hair) started chatting to us about how our bike had broken down the other day, and when he handed us our tickets he also gave us a piece of paper with his two sons’ Eric and Dylans phone numbers on. He said give his son’s a call maybe we could go skateboarding or ‘get high’ with them??? This was his own son’s he was telling us to go get high with.... we wondered what age they were, probably 14. Then we wondered if we really looked like the kinda of people who’d want to meet stoners and skateboarders?

                Brought a roll, coffee and kitkat from the grocery, which tall one only seemed to be charge half for. On the large Tofino Bus with only about 8 passengers. The bus driver was this strange, very twitchy, sweaty man with a goatie and glasses. He made very strange dry commentaries which were neither funny or clever, but just weird. When he fluffed his rehearsed jokes Small one could see him shaking his head and tutting to himself for getting to wrong. When we got to Nanaimo we had to change to a minibus as there was only 5 of us in total going on down to Victoria. One of the passengers was Mr Bean who stood eating a banana very slowly and stunk of hash. Another was an old thin lady who moved and spoke very quietly, we think we had opened a jar of pasta sauce for her in Nanaimo a few days ago. Arrived in Victoria about 5pm and the driver after a nervous cigarette said he’d drop us outside the hostel. He took us up the main ‘Government’ street and told us some sights, then went on his way.

                Hostel was very nice, quite large with a combined bar, cafe and guests kitchen which was a little strange, as you had to trudge through the bar and cafe with your own food to cook. Upstairs to our room and you had to go through this enormous prison or zoo like metal barred gate. We wondered who they were trying to keep in, or out. Was given directions to a supermarket and headed up the road, finding a Subway, Tim Hortons, Dominos, McDonalds all within 2 minutes from the hostel. We still made it to the grocery store past a lot of homeless and general crazy people outside a shelter. There also seemed to be a few weird larey guys with shaved heads hanging about.

                Had a walk down to the harbour after dark, was nice to see all the lights and boats all lit up. Watched a swearing magician doing some street entertainment to a group of people trying to keep their distance so they wouldn’t have to pay. Walked back up Government Street, it was a quit enice part of town, old buildings, nice boutique shops, harbour etc etc. Started to look into what was the best Orca whale tour for tomorrow as well.

                Back at hostel they were having a Blue Grass Traditional Music session in the bar, with 8 people playing banjos, fiddles etc, and singing stupid lyrics in loud voices. It was quite nice though they seemed to stop playing once we sat down. Had our fourth beer of the week (the most this year so far!), only to be ID’d by the 18 year old bar girl. She couldn’t work out the maths on tall one’s ID, we could see her trying to add up on her finger show old he was if he was born in 1983 – in the end she asked how old he was, and he said dryly, “29”.

                Went to bed after small on destroyed the toilet outside the room. A hoard of loud, annoying ‘young’ people were making too much noise enjoying themselves on the stairs. Getting too old for this....

Saturday 21^st April 2012 

The young American couple left the hostel, but we were still stuck with a lone Denmark lad (who lived in Germany, so was just another German). He insisted on making strange comments such as “you are on your second breakfast now no?”, when we had cereal and toast one morning.... the bastard, how dare he!

                Saturday was just a lie on, then struggled up with aches and pains from the bike ride to go on a brief walk down to the third beach again. Explored the wooden walkway and then paddled in the ice cold Pacific Ocean before running home. That was about all we did, except cook some jacket potatos and pasta, with the manager making a brief appearance to point out how we’d been using his gas BBQ everyday.

Friday 20^th April 2012 

Up early, croissants with stolen jam, and packed lunch with avocado sandwiches. The sky was bright blue the sun was out, no rain today. Re-took some of the harbour photos no with the bright sky, much better. Headed to the bike rental place (also Greyhound bus office). A hippy woman with dred locks rented us the bikes- $15 each until 4.30pm, and a $150 deposit. She claimed that she was a ‘pot head’ and even she could ride these bikes for 20km. She said we could have the “cruiser” bikes which were only one gear, but could rid eon the beach, or the 3 gear bikes which could not. We went with the cruiser model, and so struggled and ached the whole way there and back.

                We set off through town on the cycle path to the information centre (Which was closed), ringing the little bike bells like children which occasional made frogs in the boggy roadside ditch call back to us. After 50 minutes of cycling (11km cycled from Tofino) we detoured up Radar Hill. It was steep and so we walked the bikes up most of it, but it was worth it. Great views of the mountain and bay and forests below. Signs were up warning of wolves and cougars in the area, but the only wildlife we saw was a hummingbird, which was quite nice.

                Cycled much easier down the hill (can’t think why), but then small one’s gears broke. Though the chain was still attached and the pedals still turned the chain, the pedals would not turn the actual wheel. We phoned the rental company and the ‘pot head’ had trouble working out where we were, even though there are only about 3 things on this 20km road and Radar Hill (we were at the junction of the turn off) was one of them. We waited about 50 minutes until a van drove up and gave small ne a new bike and we were on our way again....

                Finally made it to Long Beach itself, some 16km from Tofino. There were signs at every turn stating “Park Permits” $7.90 per adult. Seemingly we were supposed to buy a permit just to be on the beach or up at Radar Hill. We never bothered, it seemed a bit steep just to sit on a beach for ten minutes. Luckily we never saw a Ranger.

                Sat on Long Beach and had our lunch, overlooked by crows sat on huge bits of dry drift wood. Cycled up and down the beach for a while before heading back. Stopped off a few km from the beach to do a woodland 1km walk to Schooner Bay. Weaved on a slippery walkway through big mossy trees until we came out on this fantastic little beach cove with a little island, and again heaps of old driftwood. By the beach collected in a pile was some random garbage, including a bottle and a spray can both with Japanese writing on. We thought it may have been washed across from the Japanese Tsunami last year, as there had been reports to expect wreckage in Canada about now. Stood about for a bit and then came back.

                Exhausted now, with knees, arses and arms killing us. We strugglde back to Tofino. Was past by two middle aged men, one holding a flaming Olympic Torch. Small one thought it was THE Olympic torch and so stopped them. Turns out they were just some charity running the world, had ran around Ireland back in 2009.

                Finally made it back to town around 3.30pm, after cycling about 34km in all, we are not in the best of shape. Wanted a beer by the waterfront, but the pub had closed at 2.30pm! Brought a six pack and went back to the hostel – the first beers we’d had since leaving Rivendell.

               

               

Thursday 19^th April 2012 

Walked into town and posted our post cards. Found a coffee shop with a printer to print something for tall one. The coffee shop was run by this loud arsehole who was rushing around and making stupid comments. The printing was 50 cents for 1 page and supposedly another $1.75 to use the computer (even though it only took 20 seconds to stick in a USB and press print). Then it was out of paper and had to wait for the arsehole to finish serving two people before he could get some. We then had a cup of tea (which was made with some very fancy lacey teabags), and noticed the jam portions on the centre of the table. We had had our croissants this morning with cheese and butter, and so subtly stole some jam portions from the arsehole.

                Headed up the length of the small town, asked a few places for bike rentals. Got up to the EIK Cedar tree which was 800 years old, in 2001 2 men climbed the top and sat in its branches for 37 days to stop it being chopped down – it’s now protected and even has iron struts stopping it falling down. Back into town and it was now raining pretty hard. Had some lunch – tall one had some dodgy fish n chips whilst small one had 1 pizza slice for $5! Headed out on a forest trail for 1.7km to Third Beach. Lots of signs up warning about wolves, but all we saw was under age kids drinking beer and smoking hash in the woods. The forest was very nice, huge trees of all shapes and sizes, their branches dripping with thick swampy green moss. The beach was nice, even though it was wet, rainy and very misty.

                Back to hostel, and plan to rent bikes for the next two days to go to Long Beach and a few hike trails. After that not sure what we’ll do here as all the boat tours (to see bears or whales) are too expensive. Decided to go to Victoria 2 days earlier (a City at the south of Vancouver Island), to get an extra 2 days there (apparently it also has resident Orcas). Asked the manager at the hostel here if we could get a refund on our last 2 nights, he claimed he could keep 50% of the money even though we were giving over 48 hours notice. In the end after bugging him and complaining about his wifi going in and out, he gave us a full refund. A young Canadian couple checked into the double room, and small one BBQ’d some chicken for dinner. Tall one sat and watched the Green Mile on his laptop.

Wednesday 18^th April 2012

Up early and showered, snuck out of the hostel before th German Hiccup backpacker found us again. Told reception how we’d broken some little plastic cover on the wall, it just came off when we moved our bag, she couldn’t care less, but was friendly none the less. A walk up the hill to Tim Hortons, very busy, so busy they had run out of most things we asked for. Finally on to the Greyhound depot, was given 2 tickets to Tofino leaving at 10am and arriving 2.30pm. Sat outside in the cool watching 4-5 different buses moving about, wondering if we were gong on 1 of 3 Greyhound buses, or a small white shuttle bus or a Tofino Bus (different company) bus. Then as we sat waiting and wondering in the distant we heard him.... “hiccup!” came from down the street, He was there, the little friendly German fella was back. He brought his ticket and we all got on board, he sat on the seat to our left, we didn’t speak too much at least – small one had head phones in his ears which weren’t even plugged in to anything (as tall one had either broken or lost the 2 MP3 players they’d had since Australia). We then watched the driver (balding guy with a big hat) load the Geyhound Express parcels on-board. He gradually got more and more careless and faster and faster as he worked his way down the trolley. The final parcel was marked “FRAGILE “in huge letters, and we watched him literally throw this thing underneath the bus, with an audible sound of something breaking.

                The 4.5 journey was not bad, though it felt like 12 hours. Nice scenery down some windy roads on the edge of a lake, surrounded by hills and islands of pine trees covered with banks of midst. The lunch stop at a 7-Eleven was hideous, tall one ended up being over charged and all he really ate was a Kinda-Beauno bar, whilst small one broke his teeth on a rock hard Chicken Burger and had to take it back. The downside was the other passengers, infront of us was an old married couple celebrating 50 years together (they were harmless enough in fairness) though the driver (who was wearing slippers) kept showing them photos on his phone of ducks in a park, and even claimed that he knew them by name (and he did not mean the breed, he meant the ducks’ names??). The Native couple to their left looked like they were dying – coughing non stop with their blood shot eyes. Behind them was the German lad who still kept letting out this loud Hiccup sound every half an hour or so (no a fit of hiccups just one at a time). Behind us was a George Hamilton like American with his pristine grey hair and cord jacket – he kept doing this weird noise where he’d clear his throat very abruptly and kept going back and forth to the toilets. Speaking of the bus toilet, there was a sign above the seat which said “Men at Sea Pee Sitting Down” and had an illustration of a man sitting down to piss.

                We arrived in Tofino and found the hostel just up the road. It was an upstairs of a detached house, and quite nice. Only four double/twin rooms, and had been closed all winter. He told us we would be the only people staying here so made ourselves at home. Went ot the grocery just 2 minutes down the road and spent $103 on food, eating well for a change. As we sat preparing dinner and using the wifi we then realized we were not alone. The manager (middle aged Canadian man from New Brunswick) started came up from downstairs and started cooking his dinner in the kitchen. He then checked in the George Hamilton throat clearing guy from the bus (thankfully there was no sign of the hiccup German). Tall and small quickly tidied up all their mess spread around the small floor and bathroom that they presumed would only be used by them. Small one then asked the manager if he could use the BBQ and spent ten minutes cleaning it. Before he could use it himself the owner jumped on it to finish cooking his own dinner, and then left to eat it downstairs without cleaning it. Small one then had to scrub the thing clean again to cook our burgers. The food was good, and we sit typing in the lounge. George Hamilton just came out of his room and swanned into the bathroom wearing a bizarre black neck scarf where he proceeded to cough of something or another. We’ll go hide in our room if he sits down to have a chat, we’ve already had the whole “where you guys from?” line of questioning from the manager.

Tuesday 17^th April 2012 

Left the hostel around 7.30am, sopping by reception for small one to write in the guests book “please clean the showers”. A hurtful walk to the station with bags in tow. A McDonalds breakfast and then queuing for the us we realized there were only 8 of us going. Then our little ginger driver (twice from yesterday) came up and was taking us again today. Oyt came the pad and pen to write down our Discovery Pass details again. Today was a bit different we were put on an 8 seater mini bus to take us the half an hour to Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal. From there we had to get our own tickets and walk on ferry going to Vancouver Island – at the other end another bus would pick us up and drive us the 10 minutes to the greyhound depot on the island. We sat with our eight passengers, next to tall one was a rough man with a cleft lip who stunk from arsehole to breakfast time – he was making this erratic scratching noise (Tall one thought he had a coloring in book) but when tall and small glanced over to him they saw he had a stack of instant scratch to win cards, he worked his way through these for a good ten minutes. Infront of him sat a miserable old bastard travelling alone, who would not stop complaining about ht eservice how he had to get off the bus and walk to the boat with his own legs, and get back on a bus the otherside – he also had a strange habit of tapping away on a Blackberry phone but would hold it clasped secretly in his hands held literally an inch from his face. The other passengers were old doddery old women (actually about 80% of the passengers on the ferry must have been over 70).

                Ginger driver dropped us off, and he had to tell the rough smelly man to stand back as he was smoking right next to all of us, the smoking man was being awkard saying he just wanted his bag.... well you can wait for your bag over there. On to the ferry ($15 each), and while tall one hunted for the toilet small one was left upfront looking at a pod of feeding dolphins in the water – all one had the camera with him so small one could only watch, and tall one came back after seeing nothing.  Tall one treated them both to a fry up breakfast, and then the ferry arrived around 12pm. Onto another greyhound bus, with only four passengers total now – this time it was a 30 seater?! Dropped into Nanaimo, and after another tiring walk made it to the Painted Turtle Hostel.

                It was a lovely hostel, only 30 beds, and the receptionist was very friendly, place very clean. We walked into town and saw the waterfront (it was a very overcast day), did some food shopping (where a strange young local lad was trying to stare tall one out of it for some reason), headed back to the hostel after stopping to buy some old books to try and sell online. Back at the hostel the wifi was working well, managed to get all the back dated CSI episodes we’d missed, though Ted Danson was not Grissam. The hostel started filling up with annoying lonely German backpackers – all of which you could see on the prowl to latch on to someone to start talking and socializing. We didn;t want any of it, but this one lad in particular just kept coming back to sit next to us (hiccupng constantly) and making little questions and suggestions (let’s cook dinner together!) . Unfortunately he was going to Tofino was us in the morning, and there is only one hostel in Tofino so there will be nowhere to hide (hopefully they’ll be booked out). We ate one of the 2 pizzas listening to the Australian owner training two young girls in to receptionists – he was talking the biggest load of guff we’d ever heard. Finally went back and hid in the rooms, as there were too many backpackers to avoid now.

Monday 16^th April 2012 

The alarm did not go off, but awoke around 6.30am, managed to shower and be out the door by about 6.50am. Walked down to the Greyhound bus depot and got on board the bus for 8am, the one that was taking us to Whistler for the day. On the way out of town past a very rough looking guy stealing a supermarket trolley, aggressively pulling it up over the curb by the bus station, we had seen him in McDonalds earlier playing children’s computer game son his laptop.

                The bus journey up was only 2 and a half hours, small one was driven crazy by the squeaky noise the windscreen wiper made every time it moved – tall one just thought he was crazy. Arrived about 10.30am, and got some advice from the info centre where to do a quick trail, and also took a ‘how to avoid being eaten by black bears’ leaflet. Just outside of Whistler Village the bus driver had shouted out “Bear” and pointed somewhere off to a ridge by the side of the road, but we didn’t see anything, apparently they only have black bears up here, no Grizzlies. Wondered around the village for a while and brought some groceries. It was kind aof similar to Banff, but the village was a long windy, quite enclosed highstreet, with pretty modern looking buildings – so in that sense nothing like Banff, with it’s history dating back to the 1900’s, and it’s large grid like town. The scenery was similar, the snow had thawed enough so that the lakes and rivers weren’t particularly frozen, but unfortunately it was quite over cast so could not see the mountain tops at all.

                Headed out on our loop track around Alta Lake. Was looking for bears, but saw none. Though we did see an Otter come out of a hole in one part of the lake which was still frozen. He peered at us before going back into his hole and peeping back out from the safety of the water. Further up we also saw three-four chipmunks chasing each other along the side of the road. Plenty of people jogging on the trail, but only half of them seemed to have bothered with the bear spray, which some clutched in one hand. There also seemed to be a lot of new big houses being built along the lake. Was getting a bit too over developed, nice as some of them were – they were pretty close to each other.

                Got to about 1pm and we weren’t sure if we’d make it back for the 1.30pm bus or have to wait until the 4.30pm. Small one got fast legs from somewhere and we walked that final 1.8km in record time, getting back in time to queue (it was a busy bus) for the return journey. It turned out to be the exact same short ginger driver we had had on the way up (only 3 hours ago). If he remembered us he didn’t say, but they usually do remember as the unlimited Discovery Passes aren’t all that common, and they have to go to the bother of getting a special slip and copying down all your details on it for each journey.

                Bus back was another 2.5 hours or so. Vancouver had pretty blue skies compared to the fog we’d been in the mountains with. Went for a bit of a shop, headed to a large bookshop down the road from the hostel, called Macleods books. It was a big shop, but had too many books that it couldn’t hold them all. Shelves were so close together and books stacked precariously infront of each other too high to balance properly, that it was quite scary trying to navigate around them with the threat of  domino effect avalanche of books crushing you. Managed to make it out alive and after a bit more looking around the Granville High Street, back to hostel to struggle with the terrible wifi.

Sunday 15^th April 2012 

Awoken at 2am this morning by some big hoo-ha out in the alley outside our window. All we could here was the shrieking argument between a male and female tramp. The male tramp was yelling “FIND YOUR OWN ALLEYWAY I’M HAVING A SHIT!”, her response was “fuck you fuck you fuck you CUNT”. This went on for a good fifteen minutes, amidst the sound of bags of cans being raided. Finally back to sleep.

                Awoke again around 7.30am, headed out for breakfast and tried and tried to find somewhere that was healthy and cheap. It was hard work as the only cheap breakfast ($5 breakfasts) were your McDonalds, Subways and Tim Hortons – which we are very sick of eating. Found a food court and had a $10 breakfast of fruit, yoghurt, bagel and coffee. Small one went to use the gents toilets in the food court – only to find that the stall doors where these short saloon like doors (only as low as your knees and as high as your waist). So when small one went to go into one he could see face to face with the man sat down having a shit, who exclaimed “somebody’s in here”, and looking straight back into his eyes small one said “yes, there certainly is”. Walked along the water front and sea wall. It was quite overcast so you could not see the mountain range the other side of the bay, but it did clear up in the evening for us to go back down. We headed into Stanley Park and walked around the Totems, up the east shoreline and inland to Beaver Lake – where there are apparently beavers, but all we could see was a big muddy twiggy pile in the lake and a lot of gnawing on the trees which the council had covered with chicken wire. Headed out to the west shoreline, down the beach and tall one ate a messy, sticky chocolate and strawberry crepe. Further down we crossed an endless bridge to get across to Granville Island, this was to save the $3.25 return on the little rainbow ferry (a 30 second ride). Small one got shouted at by a very angry cyclist man for almost stepping out into the cycle lane, he bellowed something not quite coherent and we presumed it was one of the many crazy people in the city and just kept walking till he almost ran into us.

                Granville Market was alright, just Market area – similar to St Lawrence and Kensington in Toronto but a half an hour walk across a bridge to get to. As we walked out of Granville there was some drama queen in a high-vis top on his walkie-talkie, saying that all the taxis were parking where they shouldn’t be and they just keep coming and he didn’t want to be fighting against some taxi uprising so what should he do? Small one wanted to stay and hear more, but it was all gonna be a big anti climax anyway, as this uprising he spoke of was currently two taxi cabs parked in a loading bay. Small one now very tired, so headed back to the centre to stop and buy tall one a new hat (he was avoiding his Toronto Maple Leaf hat as Vancouver are big on their Hockey), and also buy tall one some hair bobbins to experiment with his long hair.

Saturday 14^th April 2012 

Tall and small had boarded without incident at 11.15pm last night. There bus changed at Kamloops about 6.15am. Small one had had the worst night on a bus in his life, the spaces between the chairs was pretty tight, he ached from the kayaking and had not slept on the ferry the night before either, not only that the sound of tall one breathing through his blocked up nose was infuriating. On the last leg down to Vancouver we noticed everyone getting on was pretty rough. All quite young 20-30 year old blokes on their own. All of them getting on stunk of hash wearing their track suits, baseball caps  and hoodies. The scenary changed quite radically from big green, but bare valleys, to very snowy mountain topped with huge snow drifts by the road, back to barren fields, then to the big City as we got into Vancouver. We’d not been inside a City for well over a month and weren’t used to such a sight.

Dropped off in Vancouver bus depot at 12.15pm, walked with the bags (Still painful) across the City which looked quite nice on this clear blue sky day with its sky train, waterside park and weird giant golf ball. Made it to the hostel, which had a small side entrance, but led upstairs to a quite large, but somewhat tatty place. It wasn’t ultra modern, but it had its certain charm, the staff were very friendly. Checked in and was pretty cheap for a private room. When we got into the room itself we opened the blinds and the window (we both stunk from the constant travelling for 2 days), looked out the window onto the alleyway below only to see a group of woman stripped down to their skimpy underwear posing for a seedy old man with a camera... it wasn’t quite what we had expected. The hostel also completely stunk of hash... it must be a ‘Vancouver thing’??

                Headed out after small one had a nap and then got his internet fix. The hostel is in a pretty good location, and so we headed straight into Gastown – with it’s older brick buildings, laneways, fancy coffee shops and a steaming clock. Then we walked about one block south (towards Chinatown) and we have never seen a City change it’s spots so quickly. Suddenly we were surrounded by rough hookers and drug dealers, plainly doing there thing in the open. Tramps were walking past in groups rambling out loud to themselves, giving everyone the eye, a sideways glance down an alleyway revealed another group of tramps all busy at something, under dustbins or arguing about something. It was pretty un-nerving, and yet in the middle of all these dregs you’d come across a fine dining restaurant, with hoards of toffy nosed business executives sat by the big glass windows drinking wine, whilst outside we felt like we were going to get stabbed. We got out quick and made it to the inside harbour, following it down under the bridge – this area reminded us more of Sydney. Finally up the main shopping street, Robson Street. Brought some ld pizza slices and wedges (9 exactly counted out by the depressive cashier in 7 Eleven), then back to the hostel to sit in the hallway on the wifi whilst eating and smelling hash. Our first impressions of the City were pretty mixed, it seemed a much more trendy and hip place than Toronto. The good streets were a lot flashier and cleaner, with much more fancier bars and clubs full of rich wanker swanning in and out still wearing sun glasses after dark. Next to that was all the hobos, addicts, hookers and lunatics – at a first glance worse than Toronto, but overlapping more with the other kind. Scenically was nice, not many big buildings, the big ones seemed to be big shiny apartment buildings. In the background sat a snowy topped mountain range which couldn’t be argued with. We’ll see of the City tomorrow, but are not so inclined to extend our stay past the 2-3 days.

                As the wifi is so weak, we have to sit out in the corridor to use it, and so managed to lock ourselves out of our room. Their reception closes at 8pm!! This was about 8.08pm.... we tried to jimmy the lock (as it was a terrible lock with a huge gap in it anyway) but no luck. Small one then went about the hostel in search of the on-site staff. We found one of their rooms at 8.15pm and he wasn’t happy at being disturbed at 8.15pm.... It’s a big hostel, much bigger than the Corkman, so should be opened a little later than that. We had originally planned to arrive after 9pm, and they had e-mailed us a complicated list of directions at how to get in as no staff member would be there at 9pm. They were a bizarre set of directions (thankfully we didn’t need as we changed to an early bus) they went as follows: 

As you may be arriving outside of our reception hours (after 8 pm), we’re going to make both the front door and room keys available to you. It’s a bit of an adventure, so you might want to print this off to have at hand.
When you arrive at the front door, you will see a hollow combination lock. The combination is 6834. Pull the black switch and it will open up and inside you’ll find the key to the front door. Please ensure you replace the key and re-lock the box after you open the door as there may be other guests arriving later.
Head up the stairs and open the second door (which is unlocked) and turn to your left - you will see the white and blue reception desk. In front of the reception desk is a small table with a stack of maps, a guest book and next to it, a chair. And in the drawer on the left-hand side, you will find your room key. There should be a list as well to let you know which room is yours. If you arrive before 8 pm, you may disregard these instructions as we will be here to greet you and check you in. Let me know if you have any questions, and good luck!

Thanks, Adam

Friday 13^th April 2012 

Boarded finally, went on the darkside of the ferry away from the bright lights, German Thomas went up in the kids section and slept face down with a scarf around his eyes. Treated ourselves to chicken burger, chips, coke and a kitkat.... hooray!

                Awoke in the middle of the night an could not see any other passengers, only to find nearly all of them asleep on the floor opposed to using the reclining chairs. Awoke later in morning about 7.30am, and there was a misty view of the large bay. A long train stretch across the mainland through the mist, and small and tall stood on the end of the ferry Titanic style on the 100^th year anniversary and on Friday the 13^th.

                Off the ferry and German Thomas said goodbyes and that he was walking into town along the railroad tracks?? We kept walking through the car park trying to hitchhike with our huge bags into the town. Then Thomas re-appeared and told his actually he was gonna hitchhike as well and started walking with us. We thought we’d never be shot of this guy, and now cars would not stop as it looked like 3 people to fit in! We slowed down enough to flag down a large 4x4 and told the woman we were not with him, and got in. It was a first nations woman who drove us right to the greyhound bus station in Prince Rupert, she pointed to the road out (where we’d seen deer the other day) and told us she just seen a wolf there that morning.

                The greyhound station opened at 8am, literally a minute after we arrived. The guyw as happy to hold our bags whilst we went to Tim Hortons with the slow staff an the craggy fishermen. Back at the station tow ait for the 10.15am bus to Prince George, then transfer down to Vancouver arriving 12pm tomorrow. To our horror the little 65 year old Canadian woman with the screwed up face and crew cut was there, doing her hair and rustling her many bags. She started talking to tall one like a machine gun “where you from, where you been, what you do, where you work, whats it like, where you going?”. Barley letting tall one answer before asking the next. When she tried the same with small one he turned around an ignored her, she called “hey! Hey you!”, he just ignored her and left her huffing behind him. Even the Greyhound desk clerk shook his head at her, when she machine gunned down some other poor travellers or staff – on she went telling some poor old deer about the discovery pass “you can get 7 days 14 days 30 days or 60 days it has an expiry date and a start date and it is unlimited travel between those two dates you can go anywhere and i do....”. Though the staff were just as ridiculous, as we overheard a woman buying a ticket today and she asked why it was more than the other day she arrived, only to be told it was weekend prices.... she said this is Friday morning.... apparently that’s the weekend??

                Got on the bus before the crazy woman and sat in the nearest front seat much to her annoyance. The driver was British from Portsmouth, and soon we knew all about him, he’d met his wife online and so married into the country, just brought a house in Smithers but she still lived in Vancouver, he also showed us his Portsmouth F.C. Sailor tattoo and told us bad Irish jokes.... Before we even left Prince Rupert he announced the coach was broke and pulled in to swap it for the still dirty bus he’d only just drove in on that morning. The screwed up faced woman starting shrieking about Friday the 13^th Friday the 13^th! Tall and small helped in transfer the bags into the new bus, an before we left small one suggested he looked in the trailer as well, “oh yeah, forgot there was a couple of parcels in there too”. Infact at 2 other stops during the day he almost forgot to drop off parcels.

                It was pretty misty so not as good a views as coming in. The driver did a droll British speech to the passengers about how “if you get too hot.... take your coat off.... if you get cold.... out your coat back on....if you have any problems... let your doctor know about them or keep them to yourself....”. He also noted how for Friday the 13^th we had 13 passengers.

                He was replaced in Smithers by a younger stocky driver, who was virtually mute. He made stops at places but never said where we were or how long we had there. When the screwed up faced woman started chatting to him he responded with only “hmmms” or one word answers, until finally he rolled his eyes and got up and walked away into the car park. Bus journey pretty un-eventful, other than the fact we were both getting sick of these long haul trips – especially trying to use the chemical bus toilet, which was like trying to urinate into some great blue soup that smelt strangely of marzipan. Finally arrived in Prince Rupert after 8pm, have to wait now until 11.15pm to change buses for Vancouver. Sat in the very greasy cafe in the terminal to use there free wifi (which only works for small one not tall one), eating very greasy chips and chicken infront of the big glass windows – whilst passengers queue the other side of the glass gawping less than a foot away from us as we eat. Roll on 11.15pm!!!!

                Well to finish up the blog for the day, we headed out to the supermarket opposite the depot and who got behind us in the queue, none other than the crazy sweatshirt wearing, 65 year old woman with the screwed up face.  She noticed us at the last minute and we ran.... Then back in the depot we sat in the seats nearest our gate waiting for our bus to leave southbound in another hour and a half. The woman came back and started shifting all her many many bags right in front of the door, she saw tall and small sat by it and asked where we were going? Tall one told her down to Vancouver, and she said well she was going back to Prince Rupert. Tall one pointed out that she’d just come in from there (it’s a 10 hour bus trip from Prince Rupert to Prince George which had got in less than 2 hours ago!!), she said “yes I know!”. She then sat down next to tall one who had made the mistake of acknowledging her. Small sat on his tablet as if he was deaf and dumb, whilst the woman got a wall calendar out of her bag and showed tall one a date with the words “86” written on it. “That’s the Queens birthday!” she exclaimed, “I wrote it on the calander there you see, she’s 86, can you believe it, she looks so well for 86!”. Tall one (trying to read his book) made a hmmm noise, but she continued.... “Would do you think of Kate?”. Tall one looked up wondering who Kate was, “I don’t know her” he responded. “Well she’s been seeing him for a long time over ten years, I would have dumped him by now that’s too long!”. Tall one kept his eyes on his book as she went on and on, and occasionally he made a grunting noise to her, “why does she have her hair so long iw onder it makes her look so old, she’d be much better with short hair” (this is coming from her with a crew cut) “she wears skirts much to short as well doesn’t she, don;t you think?, down to here  just below the knee”. Tall one had had enough, he got up and pointed to the Gents and started backing away from her, she continued to talk as if he was not walking away, “then there’s Charles of course, he’s been around we all know that”. Tall one didn’t even know what that meant, but by then he’d made it into the toilet and stood doing nothing for 5 minutes hoping she’d wonder off. Thankfully not long after her bus was called back to Prince Rupert, going the exact same 10 hours return to where she’d just come from.

                Small one noticed the bus driver taking her back there was the bald driver called George who had taken us there last Easter Sunday. He went and asked him what the deal was with that woman. George laughed and said how she’s been doing it for years, all she does is go back and forth back and forth on the buses with a discovery pass, he’d even known her to start at one point and travel the day to get to Mackenzie, do her laundry in the depot, then travel a day to get back to where she’d started. He didn’t think she actually had a home at all.... complete and utter fruit cake.

Thursday 12^th April 2012 

Up in the morning and small one lit the fire again (he likes lighting fires), to finish drying the socks off. German was up saying how he had nothing to do today, and kept hinting for us to invite him along to our day Kayaking...we never did.

                Walked to the Kayak station and the lady came out just before 9am. Gave us gum boots, extra floats, tow rope, water pumps, extra oars, covers.... we didn’t know where the hell all this junk was gonna go. She then showed us the ropes on kayaking, steering and rudder use etc. She said the small one looked nervous but competent. Small one was nervous about going and had wanted to call the whole thing off. The lady took us to the water edge and sent us in, small one took to it like a duck to water, no problem at all, tall one was another matter. Rocking back and forth, he could not balance the kayak, very slowly and shakily paddling his oar, too afraid to even turn his head – only looking straight ahead. The lady called out suggestions for him from the beach, but he could not hear a thing and could not turn to look at her without slowly paddling the kayak around to face her head on.

                They headed off around the nearest large island. Small one happy as a lark, tall one petrified of rocking the kayak over into the dark abyss below. An hour later small one was ready to throw in the towel on the whole day as tall one was still useless. They pulled in on a slippery seaweed covered beach on the large Lina Island. Small one urinated, tall one took some photos, then they headed off again – but this time tall one was absolutely fine... no idea why.

                Headed off on the woman’s suggested route round three islands, down the edge of the large Lina Island to three more islands. One of which she cheerily announced had a great native story about how a tribesman ran away with the chiefs daughter, so the chief had everyone killed on the island. It was amazing scenary, the endless dark water of Skidgate Inlet was as smooth as silk, and the sun came out with a blue sky and reflected everything like a mirror. We did not see another human face or boat all day. Surrounded by nice little clusters of islands covered with pines, and in the distant snow topped mountains.

                Stopped maybe once every hour for around ten minutes, where small one would urinate and tall one would take more photos. At one of the three furthest island they found a lost little fish on the beach flipping around, but he seemed to die once tall one put him back in the water. They also found a star fish clinging to the beach, which small one turned over with his foot. Loads of waterfowl and ducks, which fled whenever they came near them.

                Had our cold microwave pasties for lunch. Were now both exhausted by around 2pm. The lady had told us low tide does not finish until 3pm, then we can head back along the otherside of Lina Bay – but warned us not to go earlier as it will just be 8 foot deep mud (telling us a fisherman got stranded there trying to wade through, got stuck then the tide came in and drowned him). Small one struggling now as we started returning back along the southside of the island. We had not seen a single seal of this seal colony she had said was on these three islands, then they all started popping up around us. Little beady dog faces started popping up, could have been 2, 3 or 4. Kept slipping to the surface, peering at us for a minute then going under and re-surfacing somewhere else. Great to see, made our day.

                After the seals we continued along slowly, shattered. Backs aching, legs hurting, arms killing us. Was now about 4.30pm when we got to the south island pass, and to our surprise the tide was still not in, it just faded out to mud. What do we do?? It was a good 2 hours or more to go back the way we came, and we were just to tired. We made it to the beach of the island (paddling in about half a foot of water), then wondered up the beach to see if we could just carry the kayaks around the mud and re-enter further up. The otherside of the mud it did clear up to water again so went back for the kayaks to find them now floating in water.... the tide must have risen almost a foot in that time. We started carrying one kayak to the water the otherside of the island before we noticed that now the mud was almost all gone. In the space of about 20 minutes there was now water leading all the way through about a foot deep. Back into the kayaks and made it through to the otherside. Small one thought he saw a small black bear cub along the shoreline, but then again he had left his glasses at home.

                The inlet opened out again into the wide open waters, and we could see far far away the peninsula with the town and the kayak depot. This was the hardest part of the day, another long hour of hard hard paddling, both aching all over and tall one with cramp in one leg. Finally made it back just before 6pm, that was almost 9 hours of kayaking! It was an amazing day and experience, and all the better because it was hard work for both of us.

                We met up with the kayak lady who first asked small one how many times tall one had fallen in? She obviously hadn’t expected him to make it far after seeing his shaky start. She was then nice enough to drive us back to the hostel. Small one being nice said that he hoped her son would get better soon, and she made a grim remark about how that wasn’t going to happen. Back in the hostel and a goodbye to the elderly couple in reception. They warned us how there was a new German in the hostel with Thomas, and this new one had all these black holes in his face and was full of metal.... So we headed back to the hostel expecting a monster, but it was just some quiet German lad with a pierced lip.

                We heated our ham and cheese sandwich, half a bowl of cornflakes each, half a boiled egg and made a great cup of tea, after a good shower we started packing. Thomas asked how our day was and then said that he wished he had done something like that today instead of just the museum. The other lad (the new one) just sat there, not speaking, not reading, doing nothing but staring at the back of Thomas laptop screen. Finally we left with our backpacks around 7.30pm to hitchhike to the Ferry Terminal. We walked for a good half an hour up the main road (its 6km to the terminal and we weren’t spending $5 on another taxi!). Cars drove past and just shrugged or shook their heads at us with all the bags. Finally a young lad pulled in with a small green car and was happy to drive us in. His car was covered with socks and jocks, and when talking about our travel history he wanted to know “do they carry guns in Asia?”. Now sat int he terminal aching from head to toe, needing a Kitkat, and waiting to board the ferry around 10.30pm to leave at Midnight.

Wednesday 11^th April 2012 

Small one prepared cereal, tea and boiled sausages (we had no oil) for breakfast. We then set out to walk to Skidgate (6-7km), passing numerous Bald eagles on the way. Nothing at all in Skidgate other than one takeaway, and a community hall raffling off tickets to Jasper along with a free spaghetti meal. Just outside the town we’d stopped for a coffee at a place called Jag’s Bean’s’Talk. Going inside it was literally somebody’s house, shoes off at the door, and into their kitchen which they’d erected a counter in the middle of. Had tea each as the coffees were 4.45 each.... Drank and got out, as Tall one did not like their ‘Canadian Breakfast Tea’. We then walked up the hill to do the 1 and a half hour loop track around Spirit Lake. It was good to get out into the big forest, few people around. Lots of big trees, though mostly fallen down into the dark waters of the two small lakes. Headed back very tired, and took a few attempts to get picked up hitch hiking, from a man with little conversation – his main point being that he didn’t know anything as he’d just moved there. Dropped off at the hostel and paid the nice little Canadian woman. Invited in the back for a cup of Australian English Breakfast tea by the husband, limping around on his bad hip. The tea was nice enough, and had a long chat about Australia and Canada, and how he’d get a pension in the unlikely event of her dying first. Back to Hostel for sausages and pasta. The german fella had left 5am to hitchhike the 107km up to Massett and another 107 km back, he just got in as well.

Tuesday 10^th April 2012

The ferry was more comfortable and substantial than we had thought, we slept alright through the night. Though strangely the nearest bathroom had a huge window with no curtain or blind which reached down to the floor, and so if you stood or sat going to the toilet any passing boat or anyone in the harbour could see you clearly. Slept on the reclining chairs in a dark corner after moving away from the brightly lit kids area. The loner with the camp gear stretched out on the floor in a sleeping bag.

                Was awoken by the announcement that we were half an hour away from docking. It was still dark, and so a shame that we saw nothing of the harbour view at either end of the trip. Disembarked and stood in darkness by the terminal, unsure of how to get to town. The hostel had told us there was a shuttle, but the ticket desk then told us there were none anymore. We ordered a taxi (asking the loner camping gy if he needed a ride, he spoke no English so we just waved). The taxi had no meter running and he charged us $15 for what was only a few kilometres away through a dark, road in the woods.

                The hostel had told us to just go round back and intot he hostel until they were up. It was a B&B, and in the back car park was a small free standing cabin which kinda f said Backpackers, He tried the door, it was open. Inside was a wood burner, some cosy furniture, small kitchen, small tv – we weren’t sure if we were actually just walking into somebody’s private house. Still, we sat down at the breakfast table for a few hours. Hunger finally over came us, and we walked up the main street, now in daylight. It was a fantastic view across the bay, little pine covered islands came out the still waters, mist was rolling in across the forest behind us and the water infront. All the grocery stores and the cafes we found were terribly expensive, so we brought a pizza and a microwave pasta for breakfast. The guy in the Reception came down, he was a very old Australian man who had not long got married, very hard to speak to, could not seem to finish a sentence, and then left very long awkward pauses. Finally away from him and back into the cabin/hostel (he was sending his wife down to us). In the cabin the only other guest was now up, a young German guy on his own. He started chatting away chirpily, and then started to be a bit too over helpful. Telling us when our kettle had boiled, even though we could see the thing a few feet away and see it clicking off. Offering us his own tea bags and advice. People can’t help but try and mother us, it becomes irritating despite their good intentions. Then after he left the wife came in full of questions about where we were from, where we were going (small one loves to answer these), then a middle aged man with a very tight t-shirt, large gut, died ginger hair came in. He seemed a bit confused and so were we, but apparently we was working there. The woman left him to it, and he wa sin and out of the three rooms. He came to us and asked how many people slept in that room last night. We said we did not know we just got here this morning, “yes, but how many people slept in there, 1 or 2?”. “We don’t know we got here this morning, and they had already left...”. It was hard work. Finally he left.

                It was a warm sunny day, with patchy clouds. So far still no rain that was promised. Small one made an appointment with the medical centre, which she confusingly said would either cost $100 or $34, but could not specify which yet?? Small one went back for his 1pm appointment while Tall one sat in the information centre for an hour and a half. Small one was condescended by the nurse who asked the problem, he told her tonsillitis, and she said “we’d better just put down soar throat”. He then had to wait a good half an hour, while she kept condensing him. Finally when he saw the doctor, the doctor had brought a student with him. The student was then left to diagnose on his own, when the doctor came in he checked the students notes saying “no no no.... you can tell that from the patients bad breath.... that’s wrong as well”. He then deleted the page of text the student had written up and just wrote three lines. Small one finally got his prescription and left.

                Walked down the road looking for a car rental to drive up the north of the island. This lying or useless woman kept telling us different prices, starting at 20 cents charge per km, but ended up on 25km, she added up the approx cost with insurance, rental fee, KM charges and petrol costs for our day trip at just over $100, we worked it out ourselves more realistically (and correctly) to be more like $160. We checked out a Kayak rental which was only $25 a day, the woman had to run to take her son back to hospital, but we could go tomorrow around the bay – the only worry she had was the tides, if they were out we could get caught in 3 foot mud.

                Back to hostel via a $50 food shop, no German thankfully. Still a great sunny, warm day.

Small one BBQ the chicken, and then lit the wood burner, sending us all to sleep.

               

Monday 9^th April 2012 

Had a bit of a lie on, before leaving about 10.30am to make a free coffee in the hostel. Unfortunately two middle aged women came and sat down with us, one of which started making small one’s cup of tea for him – he had to interrupt and insist on making it himself. They then wanted to know how long we’d been travelling, where from, where to???? Back to the wrong quickly, grabbed the bags and heaved them into a small locker the cleaner provided us with, then went out to explore Prince Rupert.

                After being warned that it rains 250 days a year here, we arrived in great weather yesterday and had great blue skies for most the day. Headed up and followed a trail of various Totem Poles across the town. Found a Hospital for small one to ask about another prescription for tonsillitis as it had now moved over to the other side, despite having just finished a course of penicillin. He asked the receptionist how much for a consultation, and she told him $700... small one said it could wait and left walking past a strange dishevelled man standing outside in nothing but  thin gown.

                Walk down along the harbour front to Cow Bay, much more scenic than the somewhat run down, shabby buildings of the main town. There seemed to be little or no tourists around, and all residents were either First Nation natives or craggy looking fishermen. Cow Bay was very nice, picturesque view with fishing boats in the foreground with colour craft and tea shops, in the background sea planes flew over snow topped mountains surrounded by tall pine trees. We also spotted many Bald Eagles flying over head, and a lone spotted seal in the bay.

                We then walked down the highway to the Ferry Terminal to see if it was walkable. Tall one was carrying 60 pounds in weight in his two bags and said no, though later small one forced him to walk it anyway. On the way down they were caught by suprise by the sight of a large deer sat in the tall grass just feet from the roadside. They watched it a while and presumed it had been hit by a car, then they noticed that a few feet away was sat another one.... so presumed that this was either  a very unlucky road for deer, or they were just very used to people.

                Back to the hostel and picked up the bags, snagged by the old ladies again, but managed to get out in tact within 15 minutes. Found a cheap restaurant to eat in, one claiming to be Vietnamese and Canadian food. They offered us an enormous menu (reminding us of our trip o South East Asia a year ago) and then the staff sat down to watch America’s Strictly Come Dancing. We had burger/pork chops and milkshakes, then left for the arduous walk to Ferry Terminal.

                Got to the terminal about 7pm, we were the only one’s there for a good hour. A strange (presumably English) lone traveller showed up, complete with saucepans and roll tent on his back. Then came along a couple of enormous First Nations women carrying the smallest baby we had ever seen. Boarded about 9.30am, and small one and tall one hunted around the lobby for any seats with power points, only found 2 places, either in the restaurant or one under a TV by the Kids area (but with reclining seats). Went for the Kids area and prayed that no family would come near us. There we sit now under a mirrored ceiling, typing this up and drinking our flask of Barrys Tea.

Sunday 8^th April 2012 

Small one went for a shower in the Prince George Hostel, but was accosted by the big Biker owner who came out wearing a silky Robe and accompanied y a little ugly dog. He kept asking if small one needed a towel even though small one had one wrapped around himself. After the shower he came out and the owner was still there, but at least was now clothed, but in Biker Leathers. He told small one if he ever needed help anywhere in the whole country to phone him, as he has friends everywhere.... Small one ran back to the room, but then remembered he had to fill the flasks with hot water for the bus trip today to Prince Rupert. Back into the kitchen only to find NO KETTLE?? Luckily (or unluckily) the owner was there and boiled water for him in a saucepan?? This took forever and so small one was trapped into a boring conversation, whilst tall one sat un-wrapping a giant chocolate cat for Easter Sunday (which was originally a gift for Mary and Rolland, but to hell with them).

                Down to the bus station for 8am (via a Tim Hortons Breakfast and supplies for lunch). The cashier was a bit awkward asking our bags to be weighed, telling small one to take his sleeping bag off his backpack (only for him to reattached it after), telling us not to fold our passes like we had, and then saying that we can’t travel today on our Discovery Passes as it was a ‘black day’?? It would be a black day for us if we were stuck here, we thought. Finally she changed to, as its a public holiday (or black day?) paying passengers get priority, so if the bus fills up we’d have to be bumped to another day... great. We sat in horror watching the station fill up, but the bus never filled completely. Tall one finished his Tim Hortons coffee and threw the cup away without checking the ‘roll up the rim to win’. Five minutes later some rough woman on our bus went over to the bin and dug it out and checked it herself, while tall and small sat ready to rugby tackle her should she get the car.

                Got on the bus (our bald drivers name was George). George pulled over half way into the trip as someone was clearly smoking on the back of the bus (everyone could smell it), no one owned up so on we went... Pretty straight forward trip, the weather was quite warm (very little snow left now), sun was right on us and the air con strangely only worked on one side of the bus (not our side). The scenery between Smithers and Prince Rupert was very impressive. It was nice to see lakes and rivers thawed, and so see the mountains reflected in them. The woods looked deep with massive pines, and thick with green moss and brown swamp waters. Did not see any wildlife though, other than some of the native passengers. Did see a few signs about the highway being called ‘Highway of Tears’ (as per Mary and Rollands story of many hitchhikers being killed and the killer still not found), there was also a large sign saying “HITCHHIKING DON’T RISK IT”  and had a bizarre haunting illustration of a girl sticking her thumb out surrounded by ghosts coming out of the road and woods.

                Arrived in Prince Rupert around 8pm. Station by the large harbour so got our first glimpse of what was presumably the ocean, but will see open waters tomorrow on the ferry (first time we’ve seen the ocean in Canada). 15 minute walk up to the hostel which was full of all these cosmopolitan lovies drinking coffee, thought we’d walked into a coffee shop. Pressed the buzzer to be let in and a foreign man was telling us what rooms he had free, we kept telling him we had a booking, and finally he let us in and came down. He seemed to be Russian of some sort, and finally gave us the room – which was actually pretty plush, with a TV and very clean looking.