Camping or Cramping?

A week ago we left our farming lives behind us temporarily and set off to see some mountains!

The first day was a bit busy, after we’d packed up and said goodbye to our hosts, we caught the ferry from Gabriola back to Vancouver Island with most of our camping gear and our winter tyres in the car. Our first job was to pick up some sleeping bags before driving down the road to drop our winter tyres off for temporary storage in Parksville. We dropped in to see the beach here, but it was very crowded, which was alarming after spending so much time on a quiet island. We drove a bit further north to the town of Courtenay in the Comox Valley where we picked up a few more camping essentials and groceries, before taking the last spot at Kitty Coleman Park campsite. The only shop still open had sold out of camping gas… but we had been sent off with salad mix, tomatoes and cucumber from the farm, so we had a very nice dinner anyway. It had been getting a bit late when we arrived, so we put the bed up and shoved stuff in where we could. We spent some time the next morning organising things more optimally, but this is still an ongoing task.

The next couple of days were still a bit admin-focused. We found some camping gas, had a failed hunt for a second hand tent (for potential multi-day hiking) and did a grocery shop for camping friendly food. We visited Nymph Falls park and finished sewing magnets into our curtains here. We visited a campsite on Comox Lake for the second night and had Mr Noodles with organic veg and a sunset view over the lake! On Monday morning we had to hang around for a Skype interview for a potential house-sit over the winter, unfortunately we didn’t have enough farm machinery experience. But after that we were off!

We drove to Strathcona Provincial Park and did our first bit of driving off the paved roads to get to Strathcona Dam Recreational Site. It is owned by BC Hydro (the electricity provider here) and is free to use for the public. We got a lovely spot with a bench and private access to a lake where we had a swim to cool down after the warm drive and filled up our water supply using our new filter. We had beetroot risotto for dinner and a good night’s sleep.

Our first day exploring the park was pretty lazy, we were in no rush to get up early so didn’t have enough time to tackle one of the day hikes. We just had a look at a few waterfalls and forest trails and went back early to claim our same camp spot for the second night.

The following morning we got up earlier and drove to the bottom of Crest Mountain for a 9 o’clock start. 20 minutes later we were back again as Ollie had lost the button on his trousers and they had fallen down. Armed with some safety pins, we started our second attempt on the mountain. It was very steep! 1300 m up in about 5 km. Mostly through old forest, the vegetation changed to alpine meadows as we got closer to the top. The weather wasn’t perfect, but the views were still pretty impressive! No bears, but we did see several ptarmigans, which had been re-introduced to the area (Rosie was too exhausted to take a picture of them). There was a lake at the top, where people often camp over night before heading back down, and a weird antenna thing (any ideas?) at the “false summit”. Most people call it a day here, but on our navigation app, it told us the true summit was just a bit further. It wasn’t. It was another 40 minutes walk on a non-existent trail and the views weren’t any better. Ollie insisted on getting to the actual top before we could eat our hakuri and peanut butter sandwiches though. The way down was tricky and several slips occurred… Also, we got drenched. Pretty exhausted and sleepy, we drove back to civilisation and ate cold baked beans for dinner because it was too rainy to cook outside.

The next day (Thursday) was equally rainy, so we decided to collect our winter tyres and get the ferry to Vancouver a day earlier than planned. It was very busy, as all the Canadians are going on local holidays this summer! We’ve dropped our winter tyres off in their more permanent home, met up with our friends and are currently pet-sitting for a very fluffy Himalayan cat called Milky.

Writing this all out makes us realise how much we’ve crammed into our first week away from Workaway. Hopefully Milky won’t meow too much tonight, so we can get some sleep to recover…