Today was my birthday. I had to remind Mike this morning. He’d forgotten.

First stop this morning was a sand castle competition. But these weren’t your average sand castles. They were elaborate structures with so much detail.

Then we drove across the island to Tofino, at about 5pm I started feeling tired, so we headed down a rutted unmarked road to a freedom camping spot. It was a hidden oasis with crystal clear swimming holes, and a cascading water fall. We hung out here for a bit. Then I remembered it was my birthday, and I decided I wanted to eat out.

So we left our free camp and headed for the next town, about 30 mins away. We found a restaurant overlooking the ocean. I had fish tacos which were delicious and Mike had a poke bowl.

There is no free camping in Tofino so we found a surf shop which offers fcfs camping for $20

It was sad this morning saying goodbye to Wayne and Sue, they are like our best friends now! It was great being able to talk to Wayne about the YouTube stuff, and seeing other people’s work flow. Plus it was weird having watched their videos for years, then suddenly being in their life. It was like being on the set of a TV show!

We caught the ferry from twassason to Nanaimo, a two hour crossing. Wayne had given us a list of things to do on the island so we’re ticking them off.

First was to eat a nanaimo bar, a sweet chocolatey custardy treat. It was like a caramel slice but it custard instead of caramel. It was too sweet for me and we won’t have another one.

Then we took a walk along the waterfront down to the park. It’s a beautiful place and reminded me of Poole quay with all the boats and seagulls and stuff.

Then we went to pipers lagoon and ended up doing an hours walk as it was so nice.

We walked down a thousand steps to a beach to watch the sun set.

We camped the night in Costco carpark.

Monday was a quiet day spent working on a video as both Wayne and Sue were working.

Mike booked the ferry for Vancouver island for 10am tomorrow.

That evening we had a bbq and one of their friends, Richard came over. We clicked with him straight away as he’s done cycle touring in Europe as well. He also mentioned how he went to a Spanish immersion school in Costa Rica, so I now have this on my to do list. Mike’s not so sure.

Tomorrow we go to Vancouver island.

It was a lazy Sunday. Sue cooked us a fry up of local cuisine of bacon, eggs, potatoes and fried bread with molasses. It was delicious!

Then I helped (hindered) Wayne work on his vlog. He does his vlogs all on his phone and gets the done in half a day! It takes me a week! But then I only spend an hour or so on most days.

I can’t remember what else we did this day, but that evening Wayne brought out his guitars and we had a jam. Well, it was more him playing and me watching, but it’s given me a renewed enthusiasm to take up guitar again.

Today Wayne and Sue took us on an adventure. We drove up to Cypress hill which had a stunning view over Vancouver and the bay.

At the top of the hill was the local ski fields and also the site of some of the Winter Olympics from 2010. Mike and Wayne learned how to throw axes and had a little competition throwing axes into a giant dart board. Wayne won.

Then we ventured into Vancouver city and got stuck in traffic. There had been an accident which closed off a major road. Wayne finally got us into the city and we parked in a downtown carpark.

Vancouver is a really cool city on the harbour. There was a massive Alaska cruise ship in. We stopped and had lunch at a waterfront restaurant and all opted for pizza.

It was cool walking around the city and it reminded me of Melbourne. The others went up to the revolving restaurant to see the views but not to eat.

They had other things planned for us but we ran out of time. Thankfully there was no traffic heading home.

Wayne and Sue have a local pub and invited us out again to hangout with their friends. It’s just been really good fun. and I’ve discovered zero corona is really delicious!

My itchy bites are still driving me crazy and it’s still very hot.

We looked at the option of getting our air conditioning fixed, but they can’t look at it until Friday, and there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to fix it. So we might have to look at driving early to avoid the heat.

Today Wayne took us out to see the local area. We went to a strawberry and blueberry farm and they are the best strawberries I have ever eaten. Huge and oh so tasty. We are in the south of Vancouver and it’s a huge berry growing area.

We also went hunting for eagles nests but didn’t see any.

That night we went to the pub again and it was such a fun night.

Tomorrow they are taking us on an adventure!

I’ve had itchy bites on my ankles for over a week now and they are driving me crazy. They are so itchy and the only thing that relieves that intense itch is ice. So I am waking up every hour and having to ice my ankles. so today I am feeling very groggy and headachey.

We’ve been hearing a clacking sound when driving in our van so I got Mike to check the shock absorber the muffler guys fixed. That was fine, but the other side had broken.

The bolt that held the shock absorber had lost its nut. Wayne finished work at 10.30am and was keen to help. So he took us around a few stores looking for a nut. But turns out the thread on the rod was ruined so we found a new rod.

Wayne and Mike spent the afternoon fixing it, and Wayne is so funny, it made the afternoon fun. He reminds me of brother Paul.

In the evening we went out for dinner at a yummy Italian. It was fun.

Tomorrow, Wayne is flying in the morning, but will take us into the big city of Vancouver and show us around.

Today was a short driving day of around 2.5 hours. We too the back roads to Vancouver and it was very scenic, but a bit of wildfire haze ruined the view a bit. Wayne had sent me a photo of an airnz plane at Vancouver airport and it made me a little homesick.

We were excited and a little nervous about meeting Wayne and Sue, the YouTubers we follow.

Wayne is a pilot and I’m not sure what Sue does, but they both work from home when Wayne isn’t flying.

So we arrived at 3.30pm and we were greeted with hugs. As we watch each other others channels, it felt like we already knew each other.

They took us out for dinner at their local pub, which we’d also seen on YouTube. It was all quite surreal! They’ve said we can camp out as long as we like, so we’ll probably move on , on Saturday or Sunday.

Such a ridiculously hot day of 40 degrees or more.

We continued driving towards Vancouver through the stunning Fraser canyon with huge mountains and a river way down below. But it was hot. Too hot to stop anywhere. Do we kept driving.

A new fire had sprouted up on the side of the road, plumes of smoke rising up. Thankfully the fire brigade were there already and further along the helicopter was on the side of the road getting ready to put it out.

It’s scary, all the fires. You never know when they might close the roads off.

We drove over 500 kms today before finally arriving at a nice campground on the river at around 9pm. It was still hot. We opted for a powered site so re could run out air conditioning.

I fired it up and it blew a blast of Dempster dust in my face. But it was nice to finally be cool.

Tomorrow are going to. Vancouver to visit some YouTubers we follow. They said we can park outside their house!

We were up at 5.30am to make sure we made it to the muffler shop by 8am.

It was a straight forward fix and replacing the muffler cost $300. They also noticed a suspension strut was loose and flapping about, so they fixed that too.

The owner was really nice and he recommended driving 8 hours to prince rupert and catchin a 17 hour ferry to Vancouver island. It sounded like a great trip through some of the inside passage, what people pay thousands to see. But it would have meant backtracking 5 hours through an area we’d already done earlier. And we would have been back almost to Alaska!

We went to a laundromat to do our laundry and they had super fast wifi so I was able to upload a video. We had decided to backtrack and catch the ferry. Mike has filled in all the booking details for Thursday and was about to pay when I changed my mind. I don’t know what it was but I decided I didn’t want to backtrack.

So we took the boring option and headed south towards Vancouver. We’re going to meet up with a YouTuber we follow there, so that should be interesting. He said we can camp outside his house, which is conveniently near the ferry to Vancouver island (the two hour ferry, not the 17 hour one.)

We stopped at around 5pm at a provincial park on the shade. We ate, played cards, and went to bed.