ADAPTING OUR TRAVEL PLANS

Note: Although this entry is being written on May 8, it chronologically picks up from where the last entry ended with Eric cruising around Victoria.

From Victoria we took the Greyhound bus to Duncan (not a fun way to travel on that stretch of curvy, mountainous highway) and then the city transit straight to Gordon Bay Provincial Park. The sun broke through the clouds while we were setting up camp and so we walked down to the beach to explore. With the setting sun casting a soft light on the mountains and peaceful Cowichan Lake, we discussed the possibility of renting a canoe the next day and paddling around the lake.

That idea disintegrated quickly when we woke up to the pattering of raindrops on our tent. It proceeded to rain solid for the next 30 hours (or maybe more, but we left at that point). Luckily, the parks facility operator kindly let us move all our stuff to the group camping dining shelter and even brought us two bundles of wood for the price of one. We managed to get our stuff dry enough to pack up the next day (Thursday, April 26).

We got a room at a hostel in downtown Nanaimo, conveniently located near venues with live music, several ferries and coffee shops with delicious muffins and chocolate desserts.

On Friday we took a 20-minute ferry to Gabriola Island so Eric could check out the Silva Bay Shipyard School (it costs about $10,000 for six months of training - a little bit out of our budget right now). Unfortunately, and oddly, we had some difficulty getting rides and so all the shops in the village were closed before we had the opportunity to check them out.

On Saturday, we still had no idea where we would go next and had to make some difficult decisions about the rest of our trip. Although we are trying to travel as cheaply as possible (with a few exceptions), travelling still costs money and we're going through our savings a little bit faster than anticipated.

And after a lot of phoning around, we came to the conclusion that a trip to the Pacific Rim was inaccessible to poor hobos like us.

We could get the Greyhound to Tofino (about $120 round trip for the two of us), but we heard that getting to the campground in the national park from Tofino wouldn't be easy - and rain was forecast for the next week.

Then we looked at renting a car, but the only rental place that would accept a cash deposit (instead of a credit card imprint) was waaay too expensive. We are quickly finding out firsthand how society discriminates against poor people . . .

So, our trip to the Queen Charlotte Islands (or Haida Gwaii) has been moved up by two weeks to ensure we'll still have enough money to see everything there, because it is a place we may never visit again.

Read the next entry to find out what happened to us after we left Nanaimo.