Click on a photo to enlarge it.
On Monday (British Columbia day), we went to a parade in Comox with the whole family including Heide's youngest
daughter, Ilka, who had come over from Vancouver for the day. The parade lasted for 1 hour and included police
cars and fire engines, vintage cars, go karts, bikes, Scottish pipe bands etc. Helen had to go to the dentist last
week to get a new filling as half a tooth had broken off. Lo and behold, who did she see in one of the vintage cars,
waving regally to the crowds as they passed by??? None other than her dentist, who turned out to be the Mayor of
Comox!!! Everyone laughed as she pointed and shouted - "That's my dentist!!" (It also happened to be the first and
only pain free dental experience in her life - for that, he deserves a medal!!)
After the parade we went to watch the "Build, bail and sail" boat race. Teams are given one hour to build some kind
of floating vessel with the least amount of money. (The cheapest was $4-49) Then they have to race a short distance
from the boat launch to a rocky point, the two occupants then have to swap seats (there's nowhere to get out so that
has to be done in the water) and return.
One team had built a treadmill contraption just like the mice play on in their cages. It was based on a sound
principal and would have worked if one of the other boats hadn't sunk in 2 seconds right in front of them!! They
couldn't steer around it and toppled over. The "No-liki-kon-tiki" sunk!! The "alien invaders" had built a raft which
couldn't float enough for the weight of its two occupants. So they paddles whilst they were submerged up to their
waists in water! They were allowed to continue because they hadn't actually sunk! They got into the final and
eventually 2nd overall! Third place went to a boat with a BBQ on the back. In the final they had to stop almost
immediately after they set off because the boat had rocked so much that the kebab skewers they were cooking had
fallen off into the boat along with some of the red hot coals!!
The eventual winner had a name that the local papers probably wouldn't be able to print - "Anal". Hardly a good name
for a family event! But it was all good fun with quite a few of the teams trying to get the prize for the "fastest
sinking boat"!!
In the evening, we went to see a marching band and parade of the sea cadets and then saw a great firework display. It
was a very long day but well worth it.
On Tuesday, we went back to Heide and Dieters for the night for a BBQ and dominoes and on Wednesday we set off to
explore some of Vancouver Island for the next 2 weeks or so. The first thing we had to do was to get our front tyre
sorted out. We had a slow puncture. We went to Canadian Tyre and when they had a look at it, we found out that we had
2 punctures and one of them still had the nail in it. Unfortunately the two punctures were too close together to get
the tyre patched up and it would have cost us $350 for two new tyres at the front - you have to have matching tyres
which meant replacing both front tyres.
We have to get a new set anyway in about 3,000 miles but we wanted to do that in Arizona before going into Mexico
where it's a lot cheaper. So we asked them to put our spare on which is a matching tyre and put the damaged tyre into
the spare tyre holder. It would mean not having a suitable spare tyre for the next few months but we can't afford
Canadian prices. The manager at Canadian Tyre was a really nice woman who was very interested in our travelling tales
and ended up not charging us a penny for the work they did!! We like Canadian Tyre!
By now, it was after 4pm so we just did the short 30 mile (50km) drive north to Campbell River and found a spot on
the side of the road to park up for the night. On Thursday, after a very loud night due to traffic noise, we got up
at 6am to make a phone call. Later, we drove up to Elk Falls Provincial Park where we did a very nice 3 hour walk up
to some waterfalls. Then it was back to Campbell River for another noisy night!
On Friday we went back to Elk Falls where Kirsten went swimming, but only after a frantic search for one of her
sandals which is missing! It could be anywhere, even still in Alaska after our very quick packing a month ago!
On Saturday we headed further west along highway 28, to Strathcona Provincial Park where we did two short walks. Then
we drove to Gold River where we used the dump station at the info centre and found out about Muchalat Lake campground
which is free. It took us 40 minutes to drive the 13km along the gravel road and we managed to get the last campsite.
On Sunday, we found a better campsite that was a bit larger and enjoyed the peace and quiet of this super campground.
