Day 8 - Campbell River and Points North

This morning before we left Port Alberni, I decided to fill F up with fuel; he was down to a quarter of a tank, and we had about 4 hours of driving to do. Now for some people, filling up a new car with fuel in a different country is no big deal, but for me it's a major situation. The pumps work differently, the method of payment is different, even the petrol caps aren't the same (F doesn't have one, just the flap and a spring-loaded cover).

I drove over to the (very quiet) petrol station across the road from the hotel, and studied the instructions. "Insert credit card here". Right. "Remove credit card". Okay. Pause. "Credit card not valid, pay inside". Damn.

The girls inside told me that sometimes non-Canadian credit cards don't work on those systems. "And you're American, right?" "Er... no, English."

So I filled up and paid as I would at an English petrol station, and we were off. One thing, though; whenever I pull the fuel nozzle out of the tank after refuelling in England, there's always a little dance as I try to avoid the last drips of fuel out of the end of the nozzle (like when you go for a pee, eh, blokes?). Over here, no, that never happens. It's the little things like that which I enjoy.

I knew we had a fairly long journey, and I also knew that our destination, Port McNeill in the north part of Vancouver Island, didn't have a lot of things for us to do. So my plan was to stop off about half-way at Campbell River. And that's what we did.

We drove for a couple of hours, the traffic dropping off to the level I was expecting yesterday, i.e. not very much. The road reminded me of the drive up to Peace River we did in 2008; black worm-trails of tarmac snaking their way over the surface of the roadbed, signs of construction repairs after this and previous winters; the trees, the ubiquitous trees, marching alongside us all the way... over a bridge, I looked down expecting to see a gushing river or stream, instead just more trees. Occasionally the wooden trees are shaved away and replaced with metal ones, great squat pylons carrying electricity across this island.

As we entered Campbell River I noticed a Ford dealership, so I pulled in to see if they had any... wheel trims? "You mean hub caps?" Ah, they call them that over here too. They didn't have any, but they directed me to Canadian Tire [sic]. They had some, but not Ford originals. Not wanting to disappoint me, one of the guys behind the counter tried to direct me to a scrap yard where I might find some genuine Ford parts. "You guys... are you from town?" "No, we're from England." "Oh, well, do you have GPS?" In the end I decided to forego the scrap yard option; I'll just have to put up with a spanking from National Car Rental tomorrow when I turn F in.

We drove around to the harbour area of Campbell River and parked up. The weather was gorgeous, and we walked out onto the Discovery Pier, looking out over where the Strait of Georgia becomes Discovery Passage (pretending not to look for whales in case we were disappointed. We were disappointed). There were people strolling along the pier, people sitting on it, people fishing from it.

Overheard conversation:

Young lad: "One time I came fishing with french fries, and threw them in as bait."
Old timer: "... did that getcha anything?"
Young lad: "No. I wish I had some french fries now though, I'd throw them in."

Can't argue with that sort of logic.

We bought salmon and salad wraps as thick as your arm (Campbell River is known as the Salmon Capital of the World) and ate them in the glorious sunshine with a view as beautiful as you could wish for, looking out over the Discovery Passage to Quadra Island and the snow-capped mountains of the mainland beyond. After lunch we promenaded around the town for a while, then got back into F and carried on our journey up Highway 19 to Port McNeill.

My Moon BC travel book says this about Highway 19 north: "Passing through relatively untouched wilderness, with only logged hillsides to remind you of the ugliness humanity can produce with such ease, it's almost as though you've entered another world, or at least another island". I found it just so. It's one of the most staggering journeys by car that I've ever undertaken. Vancouver Island takes scenery, landscape, countryside and wilderness and smashes you over the head with it, then rubs it, pine-scented, into your face. The forests are never-ending, fighting with the snow to cover the mountain-tops. The road plunges up and down in great, long waves, such that sometimes you feel like you're falling into a sea of tree tops, only to burst out of the other side, climbing, climbing... on and on it goes, battering you in the gut with amazing view after amazing view, far too much to squeeze into a camera lens, almost too much to fit into your eyes.

The traffic was almost non-existent. For the greater part of the journey there was nothing on my side of the road, and only occasionally vehicles coming the other way. It's a strange and lonely feeling.

We made it to Port McNeill about 5pm. We were checked in by a friendly Asian girl, who wanted to know if we were German.

"No, we're English."
"The Germans speak such good English. Where did you guys learn to speak English?"
"Errr... England? Because we're English? It's our language!"

As I'd suspected, Port McNeill (population 2,600) doesn't have a lot going for it. There's a nice harbour area, and the world's largest burl, but really all we're using it for is a stop-off point prior to our whale-watching trip tomorrow.

I'd like to say Sandra is excited at the prospect, but she's been fast asleep for the last hour.