Out to Canada

Port Renfrew

After our brief sojourn back in the UK, we were soon heading off again, this time to Canada. We had a flight from Heathrow at a sensible time, so we didn’t have to be getting up at silly o’clock to get there.

Mind you, it did cause a bit of confusion, as for some reason, when Nic booked our accommodation, he had got it in his head that we were on an overnight flight, so our hotel near the airport was booked for the night after we arrived in Vancouver, and our Airbnb in Victoria was booked from the night after that. Thankfully, he realised this shortly before we left, and was able to change the hotel date for Vancouver, and booked us into a hostel for our first night in Victoria on the Friday.

Port Renfrew

We arrived safely in Canada, and had a nice easy bus – ferry – bus journey over to Vancouver Island the next day. We had booked a nice little Airbnb flat in Chinatown, and we soon got ourselves signed up to the local gym and even to a yoga studio, where we cold drop in for whatever classes we wanted. Within a few days, we had filled our fridge with healthy and diet friendly foods, and so we were all set for the next stint in our weight loss campaign. Little did we know then, that things weren’t going to go quite to plan, but we’ll come to that later.

Port Renfrew

We didn’t really have any great plans for Victoria, as we’d done most of the touristy bits that we were interested in last time around. In any case, we were going to the gym most days, and all that buying, chopping and cooking of vegetables seemed to take up an inordinately large amount of our time. I seriously wonder how we ever found time to go to work – but then I guess that’s why we had ended up always eating quick, unhealthy meals and going out for dinner so often.

A seal with its looted fish, Port Renfrew

What we did have planned, was a day out on Sunday with Jen and Gav, a British couple that we had met in our hostel in Puerto Varas, Chile, earlier in the year. It had worked out nicely that we had been able to coincide our time so that we could meet up again here. Mind you, we were missing the real superstar of this family, as Ruby The Landy, whose adventures are being written about in the Land Rover magazine The Landy, was still boxed up in a crate her way here from Santiago.

A seal with its looted fish, Port Renfrew

 With no Ruby, Jen and Gav had hired a much less colourful vehicle, and so Gav drove us all out to Port Renfrew. It took a bit longer that we’d thought, so we ended up just having lunch there and wandering along the pier for a bit, before we needed to drive back again.

It was a pleasant place to visit though, and we rather enjoyed watching the seals in the little harbour; they were quite happily taking advantage of the remnants of the fish that were discarded into the water after the fishermen had finished filleting them on the dock.

A seal, Port Renfrew

We nearly had a problem on the way back, as we needed to fill up with fuel, but there weren’t exactly a lot of petrol stations around. We spotted a sign for gas, and followed it to what seemed to be a dry dock and RV park. We were a little doubtful, but sure enough, we found a huge vat of fuel, and someone willing to sell it. It was then we realised that we were lucky that we had left when we did, and they were due to close at 5pm, which was only five minutes away. Phew!

It was great to catch up with the two of them again, and while we didn’t do anything very adventurous, we certainly talked a lot.

Port Renfrew

A seal looks horrified as it drops its fish, Port Renfrew