The Longest Day, part 2

18th August

Sadly, we were now on our way home. Our slightly snippy host had warned us that the drive to Swartz Bay ferry terminal could take a very long time as the road is slow in places, and our ferry was booked for 11:00 so we'd probably hit some rush hour traffic heading into Victoria.

So, we woke up at 6am, did our final bits of packing and tidying (always like to leave a place at least as tidy as we find it), and headed south on the highway towards the ferry.

 

The roads were busy but nothing too bad, and even stopping for a Tim Horton's breakfast (sprinkle donut for A, croissant for K, maple nut donut for me, just because) we arrived at the ferry port in time to get the earlier ferry to Tsawwassen. We even had time at the ferry port to browse the market on the quay and for Alana to spend her last few dollars on a metal Gryffindor sign for her bedroom door.

 

The boat trip was uneventful - we were all sad that it was the last time we'd see the island, at least on this trip. Once we disembarked, we headed for a large Walmart to get the last few bits of shopping - some Cheez-its for the plane, and some other bits and bobs. Then headed for the airport, dropped the car and put our big bags on the conveyor belt. Then realised that I still had my penknife in my carry-on bag. Sad times. I had to leave it behind at security.

Our flight to Calgary was, again, uneventful - Kathy and I watched a re-run of the Spain v Sweden semi-final, and Alana watched Super Mario Bros, laughing out loud at time! It was a little un-nerving seeing the extent of the wildfires, both from the plane window and also when we were in Calgary airport - the Calgary sunset was massively shrouded by the smoke. We hadn't noticed it before when we had arrived at Calgary, or when we had been in the Banff/Radium Hot Springs area, but the forest fires are much worse in that area now.

Our final flight to London was also uneventful. Neither Kathy nor I got much in the way of sleep, but Alana did manage to get a few hours, which was brilliant. As we approached Heathrow we flew over the Olympic Park in Stratford, and got a great view of Tower Bridge and the Thames.

The queue at passport control was not great - about an hour, and there were several families with young children who were obviously very tired and the kids were struggling to cope. But we managed just fine, luckily, and Tom met us the other side of baggage reclaim. Both Alana and I dozed a little on the way back to Basingstoke, and then I had an hour's nap while Kathy and Alana chilled with grandma and Tom.

Then we loaded our bags into our own car, and drove home, arriving just before 7pm. We had a brief de-brief with Karis, Jim and Henry who had been wonderfully house-sitting for us, had some tea, and fell into bed just the 32 hours after getting up.

It was so good to be home. 

Adventure score: 3/10

Tiredness rating: 9/10

Meeting people #2

16th August

Up early again, said a sad farewell to Rae and Honey, and got back on the road north to get the first ferry of the day from Earl's Cove to Saltery Bay at 8:20. This ferry wasn't bookable so we had to turn up and hope. Luckily we arrived in good time and even more luckily this route is also free - bonus! The views were, yet again, absolutely stunning.

Short ferry ride, and then another relatively short drive to Powell River where we had a booked slot on the 11:10 ferry across to Comox on Vancouver Island. We had plenty of time to kill, so wrote some postcards on the harbour front, had a look at the boats in the harbour, avoided some Mormons, and found an excellent coffee shop (Base Camp Coffee - the feta, spinach and egg panini was delicious, and Alana certainly enjoyed the fudge slice!)

The ferry was quite exciting - we saw a group of 3 orcas from the deck! I'd spotted that a group of people were looking intently in one direction, and some had binoculars, so Alana and I headed over to see what they were looking at. Then we saw the telltale signs - water spouts and dorsal fins, and someone with binoculars confirmed that they were orcas! We watched them for as long as we could :)

Straight from the ferry we drove to Betty Anne and Bob's beach house in Kye Bay, where we met Betty Anne, Bob, Kathleen, Gwynneth and Margaret for the first time, and Cathy and Earl for the third time. We had a superb afternoon with them eating, chatting, walking on the beach, paddling, swimming, playing, trying to work out the family tree and how we are related (we think that my maternal great grandmother is a cousin of Betty Anne's grandmother, perhaps... will need to dig out the family tree to confirm!), and just thoroughly enjoyed the excellent and relaxed hospitality. I wish we could have stayed longer!

After supper we hit the road again and headed south to Nanoose Bay to our final holiday accommodation: a lovely loft with views of the bay, and a slightly stroppy host who seemed to be a bit peeved with our arrival time... apparently us being half an hour late made him miss a social engagement, and didn't we know that AirBnb hosts don't offer a concierge service... In our defence, half an hour late doesn't seem like a disaster to me, and we would have been fine with him giving us the information on how to get in to the property rather than waiting at the end of the driveway for us...

Anyway, it was a lovely loft, very well appointed and very comfortable. We decided to be the better people and left very positive reviews, despite him being more than a little sniffy. 

Adventure score: 4/10

Tiredness rating: 4/10

Whales!

17th August

About 4 years ago, Alana saw an advert in a magazine for adopting an Orca through the Whale and Dolphin Conservation trust, so we set that up for her birthday, and since then she's been getting regular updates on Holly, a 40-something grandmother orca living in the Georgia Straits with her family of up to 6. One of the big events of this already big holiday was the opportunity to go whale-watching and perhaps even catch a glimpse of Holly herself (though obviously that was a very very long shot). The whale-watching trip we booked had seen Holly in July, so there was a chance...  hang the expense, this was an end of holiday experience of a lifetime. 

So, after a good sleep, Alana and I went for a short run to explore the neighbourhood and get our legs working again after so long in the car.

Then, we drove half an hour down the coast to Nanaimo harbour where our trip was based.

We had a picnic on the harbour front, watched sea-planes, boats, starfish, some people catching huge crabs in almost industrial size crab nets, and then got a quick ice-cream (I had Nanaimo bar flavour - it's a local speciality; chocolate and coconut base, custard and more chocolate as far as I could tell - delicious!) before checking in at the boat trip office. We had a conversation with the fabulous team in the office, and between us we worked out that the Holly that Alana has been sponsoring isn't actually known as Holly locally - they were able to recognise her from the dorsal fin image on the WDC website (I know, impressive!) - she's actually called Sonora, part of the northern resident population, coded as A42. The Holly that is part of the southern resident population is the one that they have reported sightings of. We'll have to get in touch with WDC and enquire why they are using a different name. Disappointingly, the northern resident population don't come as far south as Nanaimo, but one of the team in the office has seen Holly/Sonora/A42 earlier this year when she was working further north. :)

Then we got ourselves kitted out in our very fetching but oh-so-hot bouyancy suits, and got led out to our boat. Our guide was Aly and our pilot was Rodrigues. Because Alana is keen, we got the front bench on the boat - great views, but also the greatest opportunity to get splashed.

The next 5 hours were just amazing. We were driven sedately out of the harbour and round a few small islands, saw a bald eagle and a blue heron, then the pilot drove at what seemed like a very high speed up the coast for about 20 minutes, with Alana squealing with delight and Kathy and I clinging on with white knuckles. Then the boat slowed and turned back - there were three boats from the same company out at the same time and they were communicating well about sightings. We got close to another boat and saw two young orcas swimming close to the shore. One named Inky, again identified by his size and his dorsal fin; a teenager who is unusual in that he's living independently; most orcas live in matriarchal groups (sons live with their mothers all their lives, daughters create their own pods when they have calves). The other orca wasn't so easily identified, but was also a teenage male. We tracked these orcas for about an hour, never getting closer than 100m (that's the rules, to stop them getting too stressed by the engine noise), and saw them surface many many times.

Then we were again driven at speed out into the middle of the Georgia Strait, far deeper waters, and met up with another whale-watching boat (called the Prince of Whales!), who had sighted a humpback. We tailed the boat for a while, along with the other rig from Nanaimo, and saw the humpback breach and blow about 5 times. Aly the naturalist did tell us what the humpback's name was but I can't remember... Humpbacks don't stay at the surface for long, so we didn't have much time with this one. After it had dived for the list time we headed back towards Vancouver Island, and headed south to a good location for seeing seals and sealions.

It didn't turn out to be such a good location for the seals: we got there just as two orcas were killing a seal, and a third orca (a very young one) was watching and learning how it is done. Aly identified the whales, and explained that many people find that aspect of whale watching a bit too gruesome, but if they don't eat they don't survive, and there aren't grocery stores for orcas... to be honest, we didn't see anything gruesome. Aly said that she saw the seal in amongst the whales, but we didn't. What we did see, aside from plenty of dorsal fin action, was about 20-30 seals and the same number of sealions all on a rock in the sea about 10 metres from the kill, all watching intently like meerkats to check when it might be safe to go back in the water. One of the orcas did a little spin in the air when the kill was complete, and then the other one also raised out of the water to check the surface. It was brilliant!

Again, we tracked this pod for about 40 minutes after they had eaten, following them south long the coast, and then turned back to get a better view of the seals and sealions. Then, as it was getting late, we headed back towards the harbour, arriving nearly 5 hours after setting out. it may have been an incredibly expensive thing to do, but it was truly a once in a lifetime experience, and will stay with us for ever.

I've grabbed the best photos taken by our naturalist Aly and put them here

We had got totally soaked but loved it, saw animals and birds closer than ever before, and just had an amazing time. Alana also managed to get a free sticker of the southern resident Holly's dorsal fin.

We drove back to the loft, cooked a gourmet supper of pasta and flopped into bed all salty, wind-blown and sticky.

Adventure score: 9/10

Tiredness rating: 4/10

Meeting people #1

 15th august

After a sweaty night’s sleep, we got up early and bought some delicious pastries from a local artisan bakery, where we met another British family (from Woking) who were stocking up for a similar trip to ours today. Had a brief chat, and then headed south on Highway 99 to Whistler, where we picked up Kieran from his beachside accommodation, and took him into the village centre. It was so lovely meeting up with him. 

 

He gave us a very brief guided tour of the centre, and also walked us through the park to the ski gondola so we could see the bottom of the mountain. After only an hour we had to say a fond farewell, and we headed back on the Highway to Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal. (Mountains, lakes and trees being replaced by mountains trees and the sea!)

We had to wait nearly an hour and a half as the ferry had been delayed due to a medical emergency on the previous crossing, but eventually we got underway. The views were stunning, and the crossing the Langdale was smooth and fast. We landed and headed straight to Sechelt, to Rae’s new home with stunning views of the Georgia Straits and across the Vancouver Island.

Had a quick guided tour and then went to meet Bev and Toni for dinner at a local restaurant that overlooked the harbour where the seaplanes dock. Unfortunately we didn’t see any taking off or landing, but there was one docked, so we got the general idea!

It was so good meeting up with them again, and reminisced a lot about our times in Sydney in 2002 and in Vancouver in 2014, and also introduced Alana to them - for some reason they thought she is awesome!

After dinner we asked the woman sitting behind to take a photo, and it turned out that she and her family are from Yorkshire, aspiring folk musicians, with an ambition to play at Shrewsbury Folk Festival! What a small small world.

(The view from Rae’s deck)

Then we headed back to Bev and Toni’s house to have a quick look around and more chat before going back to Rae’s where she made up a couple of songs about Alana and then it was bedtime.

Adventure score: 5/10

Tiredness rating: 3/10

Water and water and water

 14th august

Woke up early to watch dawn’s light touch the treetops in the valley. Then had an outdoor shower with quite simply the best views ever, followed by breakfast on the terrace, talking to the horses, cows and dogs.

Left the stunning ranch accommodation, and headed back down the shorter route to Little Fort, which involved taking a free ferry across the Thompson river. Back on the Highway and south towards Kamloops with no particular plan. We found ourselves in a riverside park in the city centre, with free parking in July and August and a massive water park and beach front area. Walked across the train tracks to a supermarket and found lunch, took it back to the park and ate it in the shade before Alana got herself totally soaked in the water park. It was awesome!

When she had cooled down (it was about 38C), we dried her off and got her changed, then back in the car and back on the Trans Canada Highway westbound. After about an hour and a half we stopped at Marble Canyon and all had a beautiful beautiful swim in the lake, with ducks and fish and dogs, in the shade of the canyon walls. Alana got a bit spooked by a fish swimming a bit close to her, ad. Temporarily forgot that she’s an excellent swimmer… but after taking a few minutes to calm down she got back in and we swam some more. It was 

 beautiful. Just beautiful

We dried ourselves off and carried on to our accommodation at Lillooet - a traditional motel overlooking the canyon. There were several helicopters carrying what we think may have been cloth buckets of water, a sign of potential wildfires nearby.

We headed to the Lillooet brewing company for our tea, and had some delicious pizza and I had a lovely beer. We had intended to sit on the deck overlooking the canyon, but we’re surrounded by wasps as soon as we sat down, so scuttled back indoors to eat unmolested. We bought some more beers to take back to the motel, and headed back. It was still absolutely scorching, so we sweated rather than slept… ah well

Adventure score: 4/10

Tiredness rating: 5/10

Saddle up!

13th august

We had breakfast on the terrace overlooking the Fraser River (the best salmon river in the world, allegedly!) in glorious sunshine, which was just perfect. 

Then spotted a pile of fresh bear poo right by our bathroom window 😱

Packed up our things and headed south towards Vavenby where we went for an hour or so trail ride. Yes, us, riding horses!

Our guides, Darcy and Nora were in incredibly lovely, patient and friendly. As with the orecious one time I’ve been on a horse, they put me on the biggest horse there… this time I had Tilly, and Darcy warned me that she thinks she’s a giraffe and eats every leaf she sees! Alana’s mount was Frosty, who smiled when they met, and Kathy was riding Frankie whose hair was the exact same colour as Kathy’s t-shirt and jeans!

Our ride took us down through some leafy lanes along the banks of the Thompson Rover, and back up to the ranch. It was just perfect. My horse did indeed eat everything despite me hauling on her reins each time. Alana’s horse did a little canter to get up a hill, which although scary was very exciting, and Kathy’s horse was laid back and chilled. Just perfect.

After our ride Kathy sat down for a while to recover, then we got ice creams at the village store and headed south towards Little Fort. Dodgy sat nav connectivity and an interesting route choice meant that we took the back roads for an hour along very bumpy dirt roads… not great in the back of a Corolla. But the best part was that we finished listening to HP and the Deathly Hallows (we started listening on the drive from Halifax to Louisbourg half a lifetime ago!)

Bones truly shaken we arrived in what can only be described as a little patch of heaven. A small family ranch way off the beaten track, and we were staying in the hayloft: I mean, not really a hayloft, but a purpose-built space on the end of the hayloft overlooking meadows and woodland. Superbly crafted with beautiful touches (timber cladding inside made to look like a mountain range, for example), incredibly comfortable and with an outdoor kitchen space on the very large deck. Just perfect.

I don’t even think Alana noticed that there was no tv. She certainly didn’t mention it once!

Cooked halloumi on the grill and ate while the sun set. Then after A had gone to sleep I looked out for the perseids. Managed to see a couple and took some fairly nice stars photos…

Another great day.

Adventure score: 8/10

Tiredness rating: 4/10