Vancouver Island

We're on Vancouver Island visiting friends.  We've just spent a few days with Seb. and Tasha. It was great to see them again and great to stop off at someones house for a few days, get stuff washed and sleep in a bed.

Tracy and Ridley

Seb and Tasha have a dog (Ridley) and we enjoyed taking him for walks. Anyway, we spent a day in Vicoria (see picture of Tracy in Vicoria), and I got the bike sorted out with an oil change and a fitted a bolt back onto the pannier rack that had fallen off somewhere in Canada. Nothing too technical or demanding and the bike is running like a dream - long may this continue.

Tracy in Victoria

Apart from sitting on the sofa, drinking wine and watching Premiership football the only other thing we did was go on a little paddle. Seb. took us out in a Canoe. We saw a seal and Tracy thinks she saw a sea otter.

So, rested, revivied and something else beginning with R we set off on Monday morning for Tofino, on the Islands West coast. I knew the weather report suggested rain but we just needed to go and see the west coast. We got there, put the tent up, bought some wood for a fire and cooked our Pasta and soup. Then at 8 p.m. it started raining, and raining and raining. It rained all night. How do we know? Becasue we didn't really sleep. My tent is 13 years old and the seams aren't really waterproof anymore. By 4 a.m. we had a puddle at the foot of the bed, my feet were wet and Tracy's hair dangled off her sleeping mat into a pool of water.  What made it worse was Tracy has a new down sleeping bag and we all know how down bags like water.
  We got up at 8 a.m. (it was still raining) and packed up a sodden tent. The whole point of going to the west coast was to walk around the coastal trails. Rainforest no less! There was no point us not doing this so we spent the day on the coast (in the rain) walking around the forest trails. It was good fun and interesting but, you guessed it, wet. I learned that this area of Vancouver Island gets 3 metres of rain a year  - I can believe it. We left the area at 3 p.m. (it was still raining) and headed inland. I'm typing this in a Motel surrounded by drying clothes. Oh the joys of motorbike travel. I'll add some photos when the camera dries out.
P.S.  Tracy IS still talking to me but only just...

800 year old tree

PPS The camrea has dried out - here are some pictures.

One wet tent

Tracy points out the puddle

Pacific coast

Tracy having fun in the rainforest

Hysterical

Still having fun in the rain