Today the weather is lovely and sunny!!
We arrived in Vancouver British Columbia, Canada, at our friends Mary and Carl on Saturday 26th April; it was so lovely to see them and we had a great weekend, on Monday we went to a Mercedes Garage that Carl had found for us at Fort Langley about an hour from their house, the trucks were inspected and an appointment made for next Monday 7am, (we will arrive Sunday night), we then went to another work shop that Carl had used for Big Foot (his truck) I would like the spare wheels taken from the inside of my “shed” and put on the back doors, the guy said he could do it but Mercedes have said NO! I will have to try and come up with another plan! The wheels are so big and heavy as you can imagine and they live at the back of the shed I cannot manhandle them (or even lady handle them) there is also so much of my and some of L n M’s dross in front of them, if I had a “P” it is a nightmare and very hard work. So any ideas of how to store 2 large tyres in my shed will be gratefully received!
While at Carl and Mary’s we met lots of their friends all with travel stories also their lovely family, one of their grandchildren is the same age as the lovely Alex which made me feel home sick! We also had a fair drop of rain. Because we have to wait until next Monday we decided to go over to Vancouver Island paying a visit to my friends Cathy and John whom I met in Blanding Utah last year www.singingquilter.com check out the web site its lovely, we had a really nice visit with them, they took us to an English pub that sold English beer, best pint since I left home! they also sold English food. In fact thus far Vancouver, British Columbia is very very English no one pays any attention to our accent, the other day we went to an English butcher and got PORK PIE it was very good I also got Robertson’s Ginger Jam (jelly) but drew the line at £4 for a jar of Branston Pickle - decided I didn’t really miss it!!
We spent a couple of days driving into the Island and The Pacific Rim National Park, the weather is very damp! On our second day it rained the whole day none stop - am I at home? I wonder, I thought the weather was only this awful in England! We did have a wonderful walk in the Temperate Rain Forest, all the animals were in hiding, the walk was very enjoyable and we were very soggy at the end of it, did not feel up to putting our soggy things back on for a walk in the bog - hopefully tomorrow it will not be raining.
No rain so we walked the bog which is very interesting, there were more birds and insects around it is so amazing that all this and the rain forest all work together to make this wonderful place. We have to head back to the ferry and the Garage for Monday. I went on my own because before I leave Vancouver Island I am going to a quilt show, this for me was a wonderful, I also met up with John and Cathy for lunch - 2 treats in one day.
On returning to the garage it was decided that I really needed a complete set of new rear brakes which had to come from England!! this would take a week and cost £600 postage. Les needs some body mounts so they will all come together. We have all the other work done that is needed then head back to Mary’s we spend another weekend with her, take the dog for a walks, Les is having problems with his laptop he has bugs, Trojans or such like it is serious some one has stolen his address book, awesome!!
Monday 12th May we head back to the garage Les has a couple more jobs done on the way. Oh! It’s raining, it rains all day today, all day tomorrow and all day Wednesday, this is worse than at home.
Les and Margaret have an unwanted passenger a mouse!
The parts arrive on Wednesday, I am in the garage by Thursday 6am, the truck is sorted all new brakes every thing done and the sun is shining its a beautiful evening I sit out!
Friday 16th May Les is in the garage, got fixed and we are back at Mary’s for the night, we hope to leave tomorrow.
Unable to leave Les’s computer still infected, I went to the beach with Mary and her friend Ann whose daughter is on a visit from Manchester, it was lovely, I so love the beach.
We finally leave on Sunday 18th May 2008 heading north
Monday 19th May 2008
You will not believe what to day is in Canada - a holiday for Queen Victoria’s Birthday!! Can you believe that, we do not even have a holiday for Queen Elizabeth 11. There are more Union Jacks' flying here than there ever is at home, Canada is more English then England! People who have lived here years still seem to keep their accent.
We drive through Cariboo Country along highway 97 as it follows the Goldrush Trail passing a series of small towns with such names as 100 mile house; there are historical road houses, with names depicting a different distance like 70 mile house and so on. In Canada the metric measurement is used so the sign post will say 60K to 150 mile house!!
Tuesday 20th May 2008
We continue along highway 97 or Cariboo Road which is the name given to the rolling uplands of the interior plateau - on the west the coast mountains and the east the cariboo mountain range, with the Frazer river winding its way on the plateau floor, this is gold rush country rich with forestry and ranching, there are many traces of the thousand of prospectors that arrived here in the 1860’s along the road side, we are heading for Barkerville this is now the finest example of a gold rush town in Canada, there were more then 10,000 inhabitants, in 1868 it was burnt to the ground but was substantially rebuilt but by the 1930’s had almost faded away
On the ride here we past many frozen rivers and ponds/small lakes, the rivers not frozen were in flood and very fast flowing carrying logs and other debris down stream we also saw 2 beaver dams. AND a very rare trumpet Swan all alone, they are so rare that they are now being reintroduced into the area, very impressed with this.
We have parked up for the night in the car park of Barkerville, which is now a historical site, there is a very lot of snow around and it is raining!
Wednesday 21st May 2008
The town is open at 8.30, we will be the first visitors, it has rained all night, it is very cold and is now snowing as well, we are going to be walking round an outdoor museum!! But you know what they say, “you have no fun if you only go out on sunny days”
And what a fun day we had.
The town has its own theatre group with its own Victorian Theatre Royal where such delights as The Gold Rush Revue, Diller’s Luck and An Evening of British Music Hall are played.
The wonderful professional (these is no Am Dram’s) actors and actresses also perform around the town all day playing Barkerville residents of the late 1800’s early 1900’s
Telling and acting out stories of big gold finds, disappointments, love stories and murder tales, the joys and hardships of living on the frontier.
On the tour of the town we had an actress as our guide who was in the present time. Walking around the town we meet up with people in costume going about their daily tasks, they would then stop and interact with the guide, telling stories and what life was like, i.e. the outside toilets are frozen up, I did not wish to know any more then that!! but this all made everything much more interesting and a lot of fun. We went to the court house where Judge Begbe and his clerk reminisced about justice in the early days of BC again with stories and how the judicial actually worked. The best for me was the Cornish Water Wheel where 2 guys acted out as a mine owner trying to con investment out of us, a group of “green” investors and his works engineer/manager. With much laughter we had a very good geology lesson and an excellent demonstration of the Cornish Wheel.
We also had an interesting tour of China town, this is the oldest China town in Canada, most of the Chinese who came here were male and from the River Pearl delta, (we did learn that in San Francisco) we were also told a lot about the Chee Kung Tong (secret organisation) who helped the Chinese to get here from their village and helped them once here. We ended a great day with a superb Chinese meal.
It rained on and off most of the day; the ground was very muddy as there was no tarmac in 1860!!!! Puddles everywhere also small rivers running down Main Street!!! But it was a very good and fun day.
We drove back towards highway 97 on the way we saw a “Grizzly Bear” not as large as I thought they would be, however it was on all fours and I was inside my big truck, I did not get out.
Tomorrow we head for Prince Rupert which is some 800K………………………………..
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