Making the Most of

Wednesday October 10th

We'd hoped to spend a few days on Vancouver Island to round off our time in Canada, but sadly there were both high wind and rain warnings out for the areas we wanted to go to so rather than hang around in the city, nice though it was, we decide to head east to a place called Harrison Hot Springs. You'll never guess what the main draw here is. That's right, a beautiful lake, oh and some hot springs.

Before we head out of Vancouver though we're determined to find the real part of Granville Island that we'd been looking for yesterday and succeed. It's tucked underneath the bridge that you drive over and contains a great public market that has amazing amount of fresh fruit, veg, fish and meat. There's also some great places to eat and other studios and workshops that you can look around so we spend a happy couple of hours taking it all in before heading to a place just north of the city called Capilano Dam. Again this is on the salmon spawning route so what they've done here is construct a salmon ladder and you can watch all the salmon trying to jump their way up. We also see a couple of bald eagles as well flying around which is pretty impressive.

Harrison is another pretty unassuming place on the outside that gets better as you look around. We pitch our tent in an RV park on the edge of town. The lady at the park does look a little surprised when we ask for a tent site, she's even more amazed when we see her the next morning and ask for another night. It's not raining though and we've got a good pitch so why not.

24/7: Three more days of open country Canada

Thursday October 11th

We investigate the lake a little more this morning by having a stroll around and discover the source of the hot springs. The water reaches the surface at 70 degrees here so unsurprisingly its cordoned off but you still get the stench of sulphur and can also feel some of the warmer runoff in a pool next to it. After warming our hands in there we go and hunt for conkers and find loads, well quite a few and then Rach finds a big stick which helps her out a little more to persuade some from the trees. Luckily I wasn't the end of that kind of persuasion!

There's a main hotel complex in the town that you can enjoy hot pools and the like in, but for the greater unwashed you can go to the public pool that is also heated by the hot springs. Spend a very pleasant couple of hours dipping in and out of the warm water before we spend the night with the locals in the pub playing some pool and enjoying some really good food, again!

24/7: Perfect symmetry: sleep, eat, relax, eat, sleep

Friday October 12th

We begin to head back towards Vancouver after a lazy start to the day. We're pretty close to the American border at this point and a quick look at the map shows that there is actually a road, 0 Avenue, that runs right along it. Curious to see if there are rednecks patrolling the border with pitchforks and banjoes we head down. It turns out to be a very non-descript road that has a ditch separating the two countries. There's no way of driving across but if you were so inclined you could just stroll across, or if you had a 4x4 drive, into the USA. Decide to avoid the offroad option and drive along the bottom of Canada to a place called White Rock. Turn up at an RV site and get ourselves a campsite for the night. It's only when we ask why the gate to the field is shut that the lady realises that they're actually closed for tents but she's still happy to take our money and let us stay, so gracious! Anyone would have thought camping out in freezing temperatures was strange.

We head to the coast and have a good stroll along Crescent Beach to a wdillife sanctuary at Blackie Spit. With the migration for birds in full swing there were a lot of different species enjoying a rest and a drink before continuing their journey to warmer climes, much as we will do in a couple of days time.

24/7: Bright sun, blue sky, red sunset, curry!