Denman Island - 18 May - 17 June 2010

[click the photos for a bigger version]

So, we had to bid a tearful farewell to Quadra Island. But not before our lovely little WWOOFer family had put together a surprise leaving picnic (such a surprise that we were late for it and only had very little time before dashing for the ferry to take us back to Vancouver island). I remember being particularly disgruntled at just having time to take one gulp of the rather delicious wine that Simon had bought (thank you – I know you need all the pennies you have for the rest of your travels).
So, back to Courtenay to say our final goodbyes and to make preparations to hit the USA. It was great to be back there too; meeting up with Bonnie, Helen and the many dogs. After spending a day sorting out the van etc we hit the library to plan our entry to the states in a couple of days time.

We’d recently found out about a website (helpx.net) created for people like us who are travelling with time on their side. The idea (similar to wwoofing) is to register your profile as a helpx volunteer so that potential hosts can see what you are looking to do and where you are headed. Conversely, the hosts also post profiles of themselves to describe what they do and what they are looking for. After creating a brief profile, we moved on to travel planning.

Not long in, we realized the slight miscalculation in our plan… the US Visa Waiver Program would only allow us 90 days in the states with no option to extend; effectively we would be entering a month too early and thus would have required a complete rewrite of our (meager) travel plans… bugger. After exploring many options, we decided the best thing to do was to go back and have a beer and barbeque and think about it again tomorrow.

Rather serendipitously then, our email the following morning included a helpx message from someone on a place called Denman Island (which we’d only vaguely heard of - there are many islands around here). They’d looked at our post the previous day and the timing was perfect. We took a look at their profile (7368): lovely house, horses and a man sitting in a chair with more dogs on his lap than you could reliably count. A positive response was returned immediately; thereafter a number ‘arrangement’ emails were made during which we found out that they were only 30 minutes drive from our current location (not bad considering it could have been anywhere in British Columbia!) and would take us as soon as we could get there. The final email was one telling us to look out for a grey haired lady, and asking if we had space in the van for a dog…

So, goodbye – again – to Courtenay. Travelled south along the coastal highway and once out of the sprawl of suburban Courtenay we were once again surrounded by water, trees and the occasional eagle. Arrived at Buckley petrol station and found a grey haired lady with a dog; however the grey-haired lady was not old and frail and the ‘dog’ could do a fair impression of a black bear. The lady was Jackie – our new helpx host and the bear-cub was Crash, a lovely Newfoundland. My first words upon seeing them were “Kate, you going to have to move your seat forward”. Introductions were made all around then we proceeded to wedge Jackie and Crash into the van. Then down to the queue / line-up for the short ferry crossing to Denman Island.

At the ferry landing, Jackie & Crash transferred to her car. At this point there was a hitchhiker thumbing hopefully but fruitlessly at the cars leaving the ferry. Jackie beckoned her over and offered her a lift (apparently two new faces were not enough?!). We followed. Most properties appeared to have long woodland driveways adding to the feeling that the place is virtually deserted. Very quiet. No pub. What have we done?! The ferry crossing takes around 15 minutes and the journey from there to Jackies place a further 15, ending up on a road that had been graded but not paved. Oh well, if it all goes wrong, we are only 30 minutes from civilization!
We pulled into the driveway and started to smile. First the large vegetable garden, then the stables with three lovely looking horses, then a lovely looking and - for us at least – huge house. This might just work! We were greeted by most of their six dogs: Angel the lab, Yeti the gorgeous Newfoundland/Retreiver cross and one of the least deaf spaniels Repo (they have three).



Jackie, us and the hiker went inside for a cup of tea. The hiker was Paula – a 20-something woman from Canada - who was also here to WWOOF on a sheep farm on Hornby Island which is accessed via Denman. So after her cup of tea Jackie took her to the Hornby Ferry. In the meantime we met the man of the house: Doug. There must be something in the water around here; Jackie was tall but Doug was taller. We sat and chatted whilst Jackie dropped off Paula; Doug is in his mid-70s and has a very placid manner and made us feel very much at home. He explained that Denman was mainly populated by hippies back in the 70s; they are still here in reducing numbers as the price of real estate increases. He also pointed out that as there was no real economy to speak of on the island, you kind of had to have made all your money before you arrived!

We were shown our room (our very own room was such a welcome change after so much moving around from place to place) so we spent a while moving ourselves in. On Jackie’s return she gave us a tour of the house and their land (which was not insignificant). During this, she explained why they needed someone like us and what our role was to be: essentially they want to develop some of their land into a riding ring for the horses and construct a woodshed. Much of their land still had a lot of trees which unfortunately had to be cleared (hence the need for the woodshed). To do this they need someone to take care of some of the day to day activities to free up their time to do what they want.

So unlike Quadra which had millions of small(-ish!) jobs, here there were fewer but more regular and time consuming jobs. For a start, with six dogs and working outside every day, floor sweeping in the house was a necessity and the amount of floor space meant that even this simple task took some time – particularly as Crash and Yeti would always want to be on the stairs with you… and they are BIG dogs! Whilst I was doing this, Katy was becoming quite adept at being a pooh-picker-upper (both equine and canine). Simple things such as cutting the grass also took all day (particularly when I broke the sit-on mower – oops!).

It didn’t take too long to realize that Jackie is passionate about the equestrian life. Their horses are lovely and well looked after. I won’t go into the politics of Denman Island here (this blog has already taken far too long to complete), suffice to say that she is a one-woman equine-promotion machine! Both Doug and Jackie never ceased to amaze us with their energy and enthusiasm (though I think their particularly good coffee might have had something to do with that).

Katy was lucky enough to get out horse riding on a couple of occasions (well, its not all work you know!). I was offered but declined; Doug was already aware of my poor DIY abilities, I didn't want to make Jackie aware of my levels of equestrian abilities too! Instead I got stuck in on a different kind of horsepower and - more by luck than skill - managed to fix an overflowing carburettor on the quad bike.

Doug was a very interesting guy. In his previous life he was a helicopter pilot and owned a business ferrying people and equipment around by helicopter (for example to mining operations in various parts of the world). We were moving things around one day when he mentioned that his back was sore; mine was too but he had the excuse that he’d injured his when his helicopter crashed landed and the impact squeezed all the soft bits out of part of his spine which subsequently sort of fused together… I kept quiet about my aches and pains after that!

Prior to Denman, Doug & Jackie owned a farm on Vancouver Island and consequently he is a man of many gadgets: JCB type thing (a ‘back-hoe’ over here), quad bike, Ford F350 Super Duty truck (with just a ‘small’ 5 litre engine!) with huge trailer and a huge shed of tools (if only he could find the particular thing he was looking for on any given occasion)! Personally, I became very familiar with log splitting, but this was achieved with use of a motorized hydraulic wedge. At first I thought this was cheating but as the trees kept coming, hulking them around seemed to get harder and harder, so I started to appreciate the helping hand provided by 25 tonnes of log-splitting pressure (or something like that)!

Pretty much every day, we would finish up with a well earned drink on the balcony. With no pub, there is a lot of home brewing on the island and I became quite partial to the homemade cider (Val, how’s yours coming along?). Here there was also hummingbird feeder… very popular in this part of the world but obviously new to us Brits. As with everything, you become accustomed to them but it was always amazing the watch them flying and drinking from the feeder and also defending it and attacking other birds and surprisingly being attacked by wasps.

Life on Denman can be very social, we we’re invited out to dinner at the home of another Brit, Simon. He had a – frankly – gorgeous house right on the water. A delicious meal and a very warm welcome (and a lovely spaniel called Julie). Unfortunately we did not get to meet his wife, Gladys as she was working in San Francisco (Gladys Perint Palmer, apparently a highly regarded fashion illustrator). Also we got to meet Jackie’s horsey friends at a pulled-pork eating evening – good people and good food, all very lovely indeed.

Denman also has the delight that is the “free-store” something we’d already encountered on Quadra and Cortes Islands. It’s like a kind of jumble sale where you don’t have to pay! We got ourselves decked in a fine array of clothing for our new working-outside life ready for building, chopping, sweeping and cleaning and of course pooh patrol.

It was so nice to be part of a “family” for a while, the dogs are a big part of the Ward family as are the horses, so much so that Katy got herself adopted by one of the deaf spaniels-Keeper, she’s very lovely and would hang around in the evening to get up on to our bed with us, unfortunately I had to put a stop to this as Katy & Keeper were sleeping really well but I was being squished out of bed….I’m doing manual labour and I need my sleep! My personal favourite was Crash, just such a lovely mannered gentle but huge dog.

One of our first jobs was to shift some wooden planks around to create space in which to develop the riding ring and woodshed… I’ve seen less lumbar in a timber yard! At least it all contributed to my fitness plan!

Talking of which; this travelling lark is supposed to be a relaxing kind of an adventure so imagine my surprise when one evening my heart went a tad strange - missing beats, then coming in with a thump! I was lying in bed counting as it slowly got less and less, I then woke Katy up so she could feel what was going on….by the following morning I was a wreck, you see although this Island life is great it doesn’t have a hospital, and the ferries don’t run all night, so on bank holiday Monday we lined up with a hell of a lot of other holidaying people waiting for the ferry to take us back onto the main land and get me to see a doctor ASAP.

We found the hospital and before we even got a seat we were charged $750 just to be there (this wasn’t helping the heart!) but you pay your money and you get whizzed away to a cubicle much quicker than the locals! I was given a fetching blue gown and told to put it on; consider that this was my first time in hospital (excluding birth), I giggled to myself as my first two attempts failed. Third time lucky just as the nurse popped her head round the curtain, told me to lay down and plugged into an ECG machine, where I’d be analyzed by another very nice nurse who would come and check me out as it were every now and again and look and say “ there’s one, oh and another…” what was reassuring was that this was not life threatening.

I was plugged in for a couple of hours a doctor came chatted to me about what may have been the cause, apparently coffee, fast food, fizzy drinks can all trigger it off. Out of that lot coffee was my only vice (Katy’s keeping an eye on me) but the coffee tastes so good, anyway I vowed to keep off the stuff and see how that goes. So after I had an armful of blood taken away to the lab, and the results came back squeaky clean I was released, unbeknown to us we would be getting another receipt for a further bill of $130 for the ECG & bloods, but hey I’m worth it! (claim is with insurance as we type…) so that was a fun day the worst thing was that Jackie had organized an evening for us to meet the neighbours, we arrived just in time to sit down for dinner, although I was wiped-out and headed to bed early. Katy held the fought for us Brits. Of course, the real pain came when it was time to take off the incredibly sticky plasters... OUCH!

So back to our working day, Katy had created with Jackie some great stepping stones for the garden, which had been imprinted with Rhubarb leaves, very nice indeed and she also created a gate for Jackie’s vast vegetable garden. She also got to ride one of Jackie’s horse, there are 3- Stetson a BIG black one, Shiloh who’s brown & white and Starbuck, who Katy says has the same colourings as Pepsi (so that’s grey to you and me) Apparently Jackie was informed that she’s actually Champagne!! So anyway Katy got to ride Weston stylie and was in her element, Doug and I stayed behind building and cutting stuff - man’s work.

One of my jobs was to mow the lawn and to have the pleasure of a sit on mower was a true delight until I broke it. And spent the rest of the day pushing around the petrol-mower… this place has a lot of grass (both sorts!). Katy has once more been on dandelion picking duty, but with a gadget, of course. I have also taken to baking bread which always goes down well, although we do have monitor Doug’s bread intake as if he happily chomp through a whole loaf if we didn’t stop him.

Whilst we were on Denman our friend from Courtenay – Maurice - was about to leave and embark on his bike ride round Europe, so we gave ourselves a day off and popped over to see him off (not bad for someone else in his mid-70s). Always nice to see Bonnie and the dogs again. We also had to sort out Jeremy’s insurance for taking him into the USofA. I also managed to get a new drive belt for the the sit-on mower so a good day all round (apart from the terrible weather that we seem to take with us wherever we go), torrential rain in shorts and flip-flops as Denman was so very sunny… apparently when we left Courtenay the sun came out. Sods law!

Back “home” to Denman and we were greeted by 6 very happy dogs and a happy Jackie, we had to promise to come back, but you never know :)

>Our mission was to build the wood shed and we spent a very hot sunny day pouring concrete into wooden forms that I had made (of dubious quality, but I blame the materials… loved the nail-gun though!), the girls were tapping and filling, I was on concrete production and Doug was manning the mixer a very long, industrious day. Time for a beer and a sit down with dogs on the balcony and look at our work. There is something really nice about doing this Helpx stuff the fact that at the end of the day you have created something that wasn’t there this morning, nice!

This whole travelling / helpx thing for us is all about learning new things and experiences. Whilst I had instigated the Tim Marsh Bread Baking Academy in Quadra, Katy had to find something to do with a bowl full of crab meat bought over by a friend of Doug & Jackie’s… the solution was Crab Chowder! And it tasted delicious! Doug kept on talking about it afterward, so much so that Katy made another batch as a leaving gift!

And leave was what we had to do. Leaving Quadra was emotional; I didn’t expect leaving Denman to so emotional too, but it was. You don’t realize how integrated you become with other people. There are far too many details about our stay with Jackie & Doug and their many animals to include in this – already lengthy – blog (instance I won’t even begin with the debacle over the HDTV!); we know we had an amazing time there and we hope (and think) that Doug & Jackie enjoyed us being there. As it came time to leave, I realized that we had to do it quite quickly otherwise I’d be too tempted to just turn back around and stay for another month. But this time the United States of America really did beckon. This time we were not a month too early. This time we would finally get to the land of cheap petrol and beer!
Thank you Jackie, Doug, dogs and horses. We are already looking forward to seeing you again.

Vancouver Island Part IV - Quadra Island 15th April -13th May

So like buses you wait for ages and then 2 come along almost at once, the only excuse we have is we’ve been busy but we wanted to get you all up to speed with the life of the travelling marshs, so here we go welcome to Quadra Island and what a lovely place to be.....

So, WWOOFing here we come! After leaving the eagles and the fish and chips we headed to the Campbell River ferry to take us onto the little island of Quadra heading to our new life of a WWOOFing couple just 10 minutes away, we found where we needed to be with ease, thankfully Quadra isn’t too big: come off the ferry, turn right, then left, keep going to the end of the island, take sharp right then sharp left up road we’re the house with red roof… sorted! So as we parked up Jeremy outside a house with a red roof, it’s right on the sea front we could hear a seal in the sea below snorting,yet again the view was breathtaking, absolutely lovely. We knew, no one would know who we were, as Linda wasn’t due back for a couple of days so we knocked on the door, which was opened by a young German girl (Beke) we introduced ourselves saying Linda had sent us to help, which was greeted with “VUFFERS!!!!” “…Yes, yes we are.”



The first night we met Doug (who we later found out was the owner of the house and descendant of the Lloyds Banking family), Darrell, (helping with the building), Bea (pronounced Beer) and Beke (Baker) who are both German WWOOFers, We were taken on a tour of the many and varied properties Linda has ranging from a float house (which used to be on water but is now on land), a boat-house (right on the water’s edge with an outdoor shower and toilet!), a beautiful cottage and various other rooms in larger houses, and then back to the house for dinner.
Actually Tim & I ended up cooking as quite frankly everyone else was plastered and we didn’t want burnt pasta and pesto, so we rustled up a curry from what we could find and it was good. Then we headed to the local waterhole, the Heriot Bay Inn where myself and a drunk Darrel played pool against some even more drunk locals Katy & Darrel 2: drunk locals 0 (and they were NOT HAPPY about it!) ……Dad you would have been so proud, I still have the gift.

Our first day was greeted with torrential rain which I embraced and ran in to ‘Rebecca Spit’ (an outcrop of land, not an unfortunate girl’s name!), this will my 10k route I will run for quite some time to come, but it’s a good one, with the sea either side of you as run to the end of the spit through the trees, it’s lovely but also very wet. Back at the house, showered and ready to start work which for Tim was painting a room and for me was cleaning the doctor’s tri-maran (not a euphemism) for $50 (woohoo money in!) so Darrel and I headed to a mouldy boat and cleaned everything in sight, $50 thank you very much! With the morning’s work done, it was time to collect oysters off the beach for lunch. Neither of us had tried oysters before and don’t get me wrong they were ok, but just kind of sea watery and fishy. Tim - bless him - tried one gagged and vowed never again, but he tried it, I’m so proud. Maybe I’ll give them another go sometime.
Later that day Linda arrived back with Simon (another German WWOOFer who we’d met previously when she brought him over to Courtenay) and with that our first real job: to move a large metal shed to another part of the property; honestly it took all of us, several long wooden posts and sit on mower to move it (possibly slightly hampered by the language barrier!). We eventually took to rolling the thing along plastic pipes; collecting them as they spit out the back and slotting them back in at the front… I suspect it was very similar to the construction of stone henge (with the exception of the mower). By this stage, Doug decided the chaps should relax by firing golf balls into the sea from the garden (fuelled by a days drinking), the girls did needle point! (Yea right!) I think we cooked. ………

There was no internet connection where we are staying (I know – crazy!) so we had to wander down the road to Linda’s house where she has a lovely Mac which I can play on and am redesigning her website(s) for her. We managed a Skype chat with the White Juniors where I saw white junior junior growing bigger, and Caroline looking fabulous, especially the boobs!, I’m still smiling about being an aunt again :)
We sent out postcards today which cost us $35 in stamps! God knows how much the board bags going to be to send home, may have to sell a kidney!?!??
We previously mentioned Sarah - the Aussie who told us about WWOOFing - well we bumped into her in the pub, she was VERY shocked to see us, but very excited (granted she was quite drunk, but still…). I think she thinks we’re stalking her….. she’s a great bubbly character and we liked her :) we also met her lovely friend Megan also an Aussie who she’s WWOOFing with… small world, even smaller Island!
Tim has been doing skype technical support with his mum trying to sort out his computer he gave Val (sister) so if any of you need technical PC support just give him enough time and he can be there with you for a small charge….i believe it is all now fixed and we had a lovely family Marsh gathering the other morning - it was like seeing a rock band with Alex on drums at the back - so lovely to see and chat them, thank you Skype, unfortunately the reception is awful and the audio would drop out at our end but still so nice to see the people we miss so much.

As the weather got better, Tim has made it his mission to sort out the gardens at Cedar House so we’ve been digging and cutting things off everywhere, I’ve also been on dandelion weeding duty, which entails digging out dandelions at the root with a knife… thousands of them! But it’s not so bad when you have the sound of the sea below you, although I did have some great blisters, I never got that designing for M&S!

Linda is a lovely, lovely lady. By the time we had to leave, we wanted to take her with us, she has 2 dogs Tuna an old jack Russell who makes us laugh, and Pearl who is a very bright barky collie. On occasion, she also has Elmo* who is Tuna’s dad, and also very funny, like a deaf old man; he belongs to Hughie, Linda’s ex husband who is also working on the house. She also has 3 cats and one of them Coal looks just like Tim’s old cat Hancock, Tim wanted to take Coal with him, there is also Space-Cat and Snowy. It’s so nice to be around happy animals. We all go for a walk down to Rebecca Spit and whilst there, start collecting drift-wood… for anyone who hasn’t seen the coastline around here you would be frankly amazed at the amount of driftwood on the beaches… full, milled logs everywhere. People build whole houses from the drift… amazing (it’s all about the drift)! We weren’t trying to build a house (yet!) but were trying to find bits to do interesting things to the house to make a banister or a beam or something for the garden it’s so much fun and soon Linda’s big truck is full and the sun coming down, what a nice way to spend the evening.


For a bit of a break one afternoon, we all headed to the beach to look for clam shells with holes in the top (caused by sea-snails gnawing through to get to the clam… scary!). On the way back we met Paul, a local who is interested in collecting native artifacts (to be honest, they looked liked stones to me but he was adamant that they were spear-heads and cutting tools!). Anyway, he kindly invited us all back to his place for a ‘nice cup of tea’ :o) and what a place he had… a big sloping piece of land leading down to the water’s edge which contained several different buildings. The newest one (still under construction) was for his daughter and looked lovely, further down the pathway (past the fence with dolls heads!) was another place (still under construction) that he should be living in… further on down were another few places (I started to lose count) in one he would sleep, in another he would cook, in another he would just ‘be’! Very interesting guy, very interesting place, very interesting garden ornaments!
Beke read somewhere that there were 10 top things that you had to do before you left Quadra (which she does soon) and one of them is watch the sunrise on Rebecca spit “lovely” I say until I realize I’m going too, so at 4.30am I’m up, we have a flask of tea and our cameras, it is pitch black…..when I ask what time does the sun rise I am greeted with a blank face, now I know any normal person would have checked the lunar or solar site online but no, not us, so we sat there for quite sometime in the dark… until 5.50am actually, when the sun starts to come up and it is beautiful if a little windy, Jeremy is being buffeted quite a bit.
Anyway, job done, back to the house changed into running kit get outside by 6.15am and now the sunrise is awesome….arse! it would seem we had missed the best bit so we went again the following day at 5.55am on borrowed push-bikes to a beautiful still morning and we were greeted by a beautiful display of sunlight :)

Linda decided we all need to get off the island and head over on the ferry to… another island! Cortes Island, is a beautiful Island with beaches and a farmers market and a free store (like a jumble sale but you just take without paying!) so we made a picnic and loaded us all into the 2 vehicles, Linda and Simon in one and Tim, me, Beke and Bea in Jeremy. Cortes is a small island and Linda showed us everything sometimes twice, (she got lost) and somehow we managed to rack up 100km on this small island. Unfortunately it was a wet old day so the beach viewing ‘weren’t all that’, but the free store was fun - I got me a TimBits t-shirt as I’m Tim’s-Bit after all.

We then headed to a very posh retreat called Hollyhocks where we were going to have our picnic
(and the giant lemon meringue we had bought at the farmers market), but it was so very wet, somehow Linda managed to blag a room inside for free by saying that she a bunch of Europeans that were interested in having a look further to a possible stay… it worked! now the only thing was it was a silent retreat… we were ushered into the library area surrounded by all sorts of “interesting” reading you know, if ever you’ve ’lost yourself’ I know a book that could find you, kind of reading.
But we did have a lovely pot of tea and our picnic was delicious and we we’re allowed to whisper. Thank you Hollyhocks, we’ll be in touch – not! On leaving I was greeted by a smiling Tim who had been reading the agenda for the silent retreat, I read it and started giggling it went like this 7am-wake up 7.30am-breakfast 8am-sit-9am-stand, but there were asterisks to let you know it was time to change your position and a bell would be rung, and as Tim was reading this he heard the bell clanging behind him, only to find Simon with a big smile on his face, bell in hand. We left pretty sharpish with the thought of lots of silent retreat people not knowing what to do or where to go and not being able to ask, oh the mayhem!……I know I shouldn’t laugh but I was in tears;)

We had been invited along with Linda, to an evening gathering with the local fishermen who mainly farm oysters and mussels, it was a really interesting evening meeting lots of new people and hear them talking about their work. We tried some of their fishy foods and this time the “shooter” oysters were divine, I get it now :) and there were prawns, crab, mussels, clams, oysters and sea urchin that Tim and I both tried it was really nice an even Tim agreed it was OK. The food and the company were both really special we had a great evening and by the end had landed us a day working on one of the boats. A couple of days later Linda wakes us to see if we can get to the harbor for 7.45amm it’s 7.15am!!! hell why not, so we run around getting a packed lunch and then find Linda with a cup of coffee in her dressing gown and the engine running ready to drop us off for our first day at fish school (you’ve got to love her) there we met up with Troy and his crew onboard a big grey boat with a winch!! We set off into the sunshine towards the islands that we’ve been looking at for the past few weeks from our new home that is the boat house, (we got moved when the paying guests needed to move into the hostel), so hi ho, hi ho it’s off to pick mussels we go!, we drop the crew off at the oyster farm which involves people being put on rafts on boats and oysters being winched from one side to another by the boat, Tim and I feel a tad like spare parts so just try not to get in the way of the winch and keep Charlie the dog from chewing everything in sight including me! Then off the 3 of us go to the mussel farm, now I don’t know about you but I didn’t have clue how mussels grow but let me tell you its quite clever. To cut a long story short you get a rope and leave it in the water! Attached to a beam, every sea thing clings to it (hopefully including mussels!), and you leave it there to do its growing stuff,(hope this isn’t getting too technical for you?) then you come along dressed in something very waterproof from head to toe, with large waterproof gloves, use the winch and pick up said ropes 1 by 1 and starting at the top you pull down everything onto a sorting table, now then whist doing this you will get absolutely covered in what we like to call ‘sea-shit’!
And it smells like the bottom of the sea too, then you sort the mussels from the star fish (an oyster / mussel farmer’s worst nightmare) sponges, squirty things that look like giant blisters, seaweed, and stuff I can’t even describe, but I’m sure it would be great for the garden! Then you sort the mussels into grade sizes and stack the ones that need more time, and put them in crates back in the sea and bag the ones that are good to go, take home and consume. It was a great day, thanks Troy and the best bit was when Troy let Tim catch a fish within seconds of putting the rod in the water, then the fish came aboard, got trod on thrown overboard and then a giant bald eagle swooped down grabbed it mere feet away from us and flew back off to its baby in its nest on the little island opposite. Such an amazing thing to of witnessed, Tim fishing………:) not a bad day at the office as Troy said and he wasn’t wrong.

The weather has finally turned to sunny days, hoorah! So working outside is so much nicer, especially when you’re doing gardening bits and creative building. We loved having so much to do, and trying to finish a job was a challenge…..so much to do in so little time.

We like to think we have left a legacy in Quadra… Tim’s freshly baked bread. he started to do it as we had flour by the sack load and yeast and we we’re getting through a lot of bread every day so he made a fabulous couple of loaves and they would go pretty quick, he then passed his gift onto Cecile (a lovely little Swiss WWOOFer) who in turn would pass it onto the next WWOOFer (Ben from Oxford) and so on, so there will always be Tim’s bread in Quadra, honestly he could of sold it, if only we’d of had more time we could of made a killing at the Saturday market! We left the recipe in the book for anyone who is passing by so they can bake bread, I also left my carrot cake recipe, which I made for Vinny’s leaving dinner (we’ll get onto Vinny in a minute), which have to be accompanied by Mojitos. We also put in my butternut squash, bacon and feta recipe, but you have to make sure you have proper feta… for some reason Canadian Feta doesn’t melt! Maybe we should publish our recipes when we get back, just a thought?


We met so many nice people on the Island including the lovely Irish Mr Vinny Kelly, who had WWOOFed for Linda 5 months previously and had worked at the Olympics and between times had been exploring Canada. Vinny made it his want to get the hot tub working and bless him 3 days later and we’re all in the tub, well 5 of us anyway, so very funny. Vinny will leave to head to Vegas and win big, and hopefully see a bear on his final travels in Canada before he heads back to the Emerald Isle.


So what did we actually do on Quadra?
Well I made my first mosaic of an Orca Whale to go into the new kitchen unit and I tiled the back of the kitchen unit. I also cooked, I did fishcakes (nearly as good as the ones in Rocket), 2 lemon meringue pies, a rhubarb and apple crumble, many interesting evening meals, so many I can’t remember, I made custard from scratch as the Canadian’s & German's didn’t know what it was, cleaned bedrooms, bathrooms and windows. And designed Linda’s websites, and all you had to was house and feed me... Bargain!


Tim made pizzas, baked bread, cooked curry, did the gardens, and also created a fantastic path and steps (with Simon) to take you safely to the Boat House, which was lined with oyster shells and rocks (I did that bit) and he built many a fire and chopped down many a tree. He and Darrell put up the hammock, that we hope is being well used and he also painted rooms and fitted trim… I think we make a good pair of WWOOFers!




And that was a condensed version of our time on Quadra (too many bits to include here); we could happily have stayed for the rest of the year, but you have to move on sometime… I can highly recommend a stay at http://www.heronguesthouse.com but be warned… you might not ever want to leave!


* We recently heard that Elmo was hit by a car and is no longer with us… RIP Elmo :”o(

Vancouver Island part III - Courtenay 9-15 April

It’s been awhile and it’s time to try and catch up with our blogs, sorry we’ve been a bit behind, we’ve been busy!

Leaving a sunny Tofino behind, we had our first brush with a bear, I say brush he was just “being” bear-like on the side of the road having come out of the woods for a snack as we whizzed past in Jeremy - it was so exciting :) Unfortunately by the time we had parked up, grabbed the camera and gone back he’d had enough and gone back in the woods. So, ‘stoked’ with our first ever bear sighting (sorry Vinny) we got back on the road heading for Courtenay.




We drove into Courtenay, to the Comox Lake Hostel, where we we’re greeted by Bonnie and her 5 dogs, before we knew it there was a fire going and Tim had a beer in hand, we we’re in for a good stay :) as it got darker the sky was filled with so many stars, it was beautiful to see, I don’t think we’ve ever seen so many stars in the sky and Tim saw a few shooting stars… another first! Later we met Maurice who is 74 years young, he’s planning a trip to (push-)bike around the Netherlands (he has already built a small trailer to attach to his bike). He has so much knowledge and seems to have been everywhere (and can still remember every road). He is an amazing guy; always having another travel story up his sleeve and despite what he might’ve thought we never tired of hearing them... We're proud to say he’s our facebook friend! We also met lovely Helen, she’s from England to, and is staying at the hostel doing yoga and finishing off her log-cabin in the mountains ready for sale (if anyone’s interested, let us know!). Our first night was great but we were kept awake at first by the amazing frog chorus (both in number and volume) from the neighbour’s pond.


I went for a lovely run through the woods in the morning along the Puntledge River with my new running buddies, Lucky, Lady, Blue & Tiga (old man Buster stayed at home) it was lovely especially as these are all bear-attacking-dogs, good dogs to have with you I reckon. Unfortunately the running party would slowly dwindled throughout our stay as the dogs got wise to my morning run rather than their morning walk!!!

We headed off to Mount Washington, they have had 700cm of fresh white snow, finally good snow, unfortunately I think it will be our last boarding for the season, it was lovely, such a nice friendly mountain. Today was their “Dummy Run” which involves different groups making dummies, strapping them onto a skis or snowboard and firing them down to the ski jump to see how far they go - quite a sight…..hope you can see the video! It worth watching till the end, honestly.......




We’ve been having some bank issues so having to get up early to spend over an hour on the phone we tried to resolve credit card and endowment policy problems we had telephonic-exhaustion! We were 50% successful (glass half full). As we we’re up so early, we thought we would head out on a long walk round the lake and river past Nymph Falls, Bonnie wisely only let one dog “Blue” the youngest come with us, which was so nice to have a dog to walk with, we followed the river and had lunch by the falls when I looked up and saw behind Tim’s head a sign saying that there had been a cougar sighting, nothing new really until I saw the date was – it was yesterday!!!
So we carried on our walk (with a bit more caution!) and tried to follow the map, but ended up alongside the 6-lane highway with no bridge and a dog without a lead……back into the woods to try and get back on path, thankfully we came across a very sweet house in the woods (sounds very Disney doesn’t it?) but this house was run by a lovely elderly Dutch couple, Betsy & John and they pointed us in the right direction which happened to be way off the map we had, now by this time Tim’s feet were killing him and Blue looked knackered, but only an hour or so more to get home (after the five and a half we’d already done)….at least it was sunny! When we got back we we’re welcomed by Donna & John (from the previous episode, it was so nice to see them again) a beer and a big bowl of water (thanks Bonnie) for Tim’s feet, that we’re blistered up a treat, poor thing :(


That night we had a great fire, Maurice had been building it for quite some and that evening we lit it and watched it burn baby burn!, we all love fire especially Donna, Tim brought the marshmallows, Bonnie brought her homemade wine and chutney, which is very good, Donna & John brought the hotdogs and chips. Helen & I moved broom. It was a great evening we all moved even more “broom” to burn, it was quite a fire and was still going the following evening when we needed to light up the BBQ. Maurice was telling us all about his travels and we mentioned we’re heading to San Francisco soon… the following morning he presented us with a detailed hand drawn map of San Francisco, right down to where to hire the bikes from and where to stay, it was so very lovely, (thank you again Maurice… its safe in our travel book!).

Having Donna & John at the hostel is so lovely, we want to take them with us, they too have travelled a lot in the states and imparted loads of travel tips and knowledge… and they make us laugh. Donna reminds us of Aunty Angela (which is a big compliment for both of you ;).
Now then, we had mentioned the WWOOFIng thing and while Donna, John & Bonnie were on Quadra Island to see Bonnie’s friend it was mentioned that we may be able to help out, so we could be WWOOFER’s before you know it. Well actually by the time they got back to the hostel we were hired so we’re heading off to Quadra Island to begin WWOOFing for Linda.
On our last morning before we headed off I went out on a Kayaking trip with Donna and Craig on Comox lake it was so still it was like glass. So lovely to be out on the water with the mountains in front of you, and huge trees either side, Donna was as supper canoeist, especially as it was her first time and we even managed to paddle home without hitting anything or going to the wrong beach, much to Craig’s relief! We also got really close to a juvenile bald eagle as we floated past its perch in the tree on the lake. Yet another amazing encounter with nature.






We got back to hostel had a cup of tea, Tim returned from town with new “super feet” insoles and a jaunty cowboy hat, it really suits him, this is what he’s been looking for and at only $6 a bargain. After saying a sorry goodbye to people and dogs, we set off following Donna & John who told us of the best fish and chip place with great wildlife viewing, and they weren’t wrong…..you drive in and your by the river but instead of where you’d find seagulls in the UK there were loads of bald eagles both young and old. It was awesome and so was the Halibut ;) We’ll really miss the Ottawans and the Comoxians (eh?).

So off we go to our new life on Quadra Island to be WWOOFers for Linda for a while………how very exciting :)

Van Island pt II: Tofino

Tofino: 5 - 9 April 2010

So, we’ve fallen behind the blogging again… what are you going to do?! This blog marks a bit of a ‘golden era’ in our Canadian travels. So far things have been good but from hereon things just got better.

From Nanaimo on the east coast of Vancouver Island we headed straight across to the west coast. We took what was not only the main route but the only route. I didn’t believe google maps when I first checked, but once we were underway I understood… more mountains! Can’t tell you too much about the scenery as all my concentration was taken up by not driving off the edge of it.

We arrived on fumes alone… the fuel gauge was buried deep into the red – way further than it had gone before. I was just preparing to explain to Katy about the best way to push the van when we rounded a corner to find our saviour (Esso in this case) ready to dispense unleaded for the princely sum of 1.08 Canadian dollars per litre. We filled Jeremy to the brim as we were so relieved to have fuel again and on the other side of the island it was $1.12 / litre. We were happy. We headed off on our way again and less than 50m around the corner was another station… a cheaper station. I couldn’t believe it: $1.05/litre!! Ah well, I guess it’s probably around 4GBP / litre back home by now so I can’t complain.

Not many minutes later, we arrived in Tofino itself. A couple of streets in (and right by the beach) and we reached the Tofino Trek Inn. We were greeted by gorgeous sunshine and our latest host, Joe. I was expecting a burly Canadian (as they all are) but as we later discovered, Joe was originally from Ethiopia and ended up in Tofino via a rather convoluted route. He came to stay at the hostel for a few days and never left! It’s a great story and you really should visit him if you want the full background. Tofino really is worth the trip.

After a brief unpacking (and unpacking of briefs), Joe directed us to a small beach in Tonquin Park. After a few wrong turns we enter through woodland path; uphill, along paths, down newly constructed and sturdy wooden steps and walkways (quite literally a board-walk). Some of the planks had inscriptions carved or branded into them of people’s names (like on some UK benches), others for the local bars and restaurants; it became clear that the walkway had been sponsored a bit like the hoardings around a football pitch (though it has to be said, more tastefully). We emerged at the bottom of the steps and the edge of the woodland to two sheltered coves containing all the key ingredients required for a beach: sand, rocks and waves. One of the coves was already occupied by hippies playing drums… we chose the other one. We sat on a log and watched the setting sun. The sun refused to set and simply hung in the sky in exactly the same way that bricks don’t (thank you Douglas Adams); so we meandered back to our new home and had a lazy evening.

Day two started gloomy but gradually solar energy did its thing, evaporating the clouds leaving a blustery but sunny day. Things got even better: free breakfast! Only fruit and (very nice) bread but it’s the sort of stuff Katy loves and the sort of stuff I should be consuming! Bread comes fresh everyday from the local bakery and is gooood!

This was a day of walking: big provincial parkland with rainforest and many beaches including long beach (20km long apparently!). Joe informed us that this was the best surfing beach in Canada. Being me I pointed out that that is like saying “this is the best table in the kitchen”… it may be, but there are many other better tables in many other kitchens! I obviously haven’t managed to completely exorcise sarcasm from my personality, but he accepted my point in a good natured way (he’s that sort of guy, living here does that to you – it’s a wonderful place).

Anyway, beach walk #1 was found via a rainforest walk for 30mins that brought you out onto Long Beach (it’s over 20km long!) it also brought with it the first squall of bad weather for the day (the only variable in bad weather is ‘when’ not ‘if’ around here). And as Billy Connolly once said, there is no bad weather, just bad choice of clothes. We had a wander around in the “weather” looking in rock pools and watching the waves crash in (it was indeed a good surf beach with nice rolling waves). There is so much wood on the beaches here from all the logging, honestly if we had a bigger van and budget Katy would be sending a lot of the stuff back home for “creative” purposes! As we couldn’t tell if the tide was coming or going we decided not to walk, what with all the logs floating about and the thought of being crushed and stranded we went back through the rainforest and time for lunch. What else but fish and chips? After lunch, more rain forests; they are quite amazing: huge trees that have been doing their thing for 1000’s of years. To help protect these delicate areas, all the rain forests have board-walks.

Upon our return, we made plans to take a trip to the hot-springs; this was to be an all day event due to the 3 hour return boat trip, then another 40 minutes of board-walk. We’d been advised against just going whale watching as that was virtually as expensive with no guarantee of seeing whales and the hot-springs boat takes you on virtually the same route.

The following day broke big and angry and remained so. So you can imagine our relief when we arrived at the boat booking office to find that the boat was not ready after its service. It turned into a lazy day of coffee drinking and book reading (which unbelievably we haven’t really had much time to do since we’ve been away). The day after rained even more. Finished the book and ran out of coffee. Bought beer.

Met a lovely new person back at our new home, by the name of Jenna. An effervescent character (though not so much when we first met as she’d just driven over from Ontario which must be virtually empty by now). The following morning she was much more lively and we had a lovely chat… she too has quite a story which is too long for me to reproduce here but luckily she has her own blog which frankly uses much more complicated wordery than I can achieve. Jenna: if you read this, it was a real pleasure meeting you; hope all your plans work out and love that tattoo (oh, and really sorry about the snoring)!!

We finally got to have our hot-springs boat trip. Weather had improved but waves were still more choppy than I’d normally like. On the way we went through pretty much every type of weather (sun, cloud, fog, rain, hail and yes, even snow!). We saw some nesting bald-eagles (but they are like, so yesterday!) and a little later on we (very briefly) saw our first ever whale! Just the tail (or as katy called it, the ‘arse-end’… hope fully that’s not too technical for you), but it was very exciting nonetheless. And we felt quite smug as the whale watching boats didn’t see any more than we did. On to the hot springs. We were dropped at the island and took the long boardwalk. As we neared the springs, the stench of sulphur got stronger and stronger; thankfully it dissipated (or we just got used to it) by the time we reached the hot springs. They are essentially natural pools carved in to rock on the sea-shore; geo-thermally heated water flows down to the springs ending in a waterfall-shower. The only concession to civilization (apart from some modest landscaping) was a wooden hut to change in. Speedos donned, we headed for the hot pools. I was the first person there so had the pleasure of walking on dry (and therefore much less slippery) stones and boulders. Piled my clothes on a rock and climbed in. Katy followed not long after and was the first casualty of the day; slipping on a stone, another one flew up and hit her in the mouth… a mere flesh-wound! A few minutes after we were joined by the other ~6 people from our boat. This was about all the springs can comfortably accommodate and we had the place to ourselves for around an hour before another boat-load arrived. We stood (or floated) our ground for another half an hour during which we endured bizarre flurries of hailstones. When a further boat-load arrived we figured it was time to exit (all extremities having turned into prunes). Luckily I’d had the sense to cover my clothes with my jacket; less luckily my jacket was absolutely soaked and the hood was full of hailstones… brrrr. During our soaking we started chatting with a lovely aussie called Sarah who introduced us to the concept of WWOOFing (which definitely has nothing to dowith deserted car parks and steamed-up windows). A brisk rub-down and a snifter from the hip-flask brought back the rosy cheeks and we headed for home. By this time the wind had picked up again and I’m sure some of those waves were bigger than our boat. As we were planning to head off the following day, we offered Sarah a lift to her next stop, Uclulet.

Back in the hostel, we meet a newly arrived couple who were even older than us (a rare thing so far on this trip); you will hear more about John and Donna in due course! We had a lovely little chat over wine, beer and chips (by which of course I mean crisps). They had a wealth of information and travel tips for us and were just absolutely lovely. We mentioned we were moving on the following day and seconds later, John had whipped out his iPhone and was calling their friend who they had just left on the other side of the island. A couple of minutes later and we had our next stop all arranged… result!

The following morning we packed (again) and picked up Sarah and travelled the 20+km to Uclulet where the three of us went for a walk along the coastal paths and exchanged the histories of our travels to date. Sarah had been working at the Olympic venues and afterward had been WWOOFing which in brief means doing a few hours work (which can vary greatly depending upon where you are staying) in return for food and lodging (which greatly reduces the strain on the wallet)… we’re thinking of giving it a go (especially as her last WWOOFing job was to look after a puppy)!

So that was Tofino… a virtual cul de sac on Vancouver Island but we’re so glad we visited and is one of the places we will have to return to in future years.