Waking up to the sound of an alarm this morning was somewhat foreign. It's been a few weeks of just rolling out of bed whenever I please, but today was different! At 6am I launched myself out of bed, ate my newly discovered super granola (YUMMM!) and squeezed everything I had into my two backpacks. It's been over two weeks since I've had to lug both of them around, and gee wiz.. they felt heavy. Mind you, I have done little shopping and most of the "excess weight" in my bag was food that I did not want to throw away.
I ended up leaving Coquitlam at 8:45am (Don't ask me why it took so long to get ready - I had to shave). Getting to the bus depot proved to be quite a challenge with my shrinking physique and overloaded bags, but with the help of a trusty trolly, I made it!
In the end I caught the 12:30pm ferry from Horseshoe Bay (West Vancouver) over to Nanaimo. The voyage over was quite splendid. I didn't see any whales or interesting marine life, but I did befriend a 32 year old father who has 6 children. He was interesting enough and through listening intently to his life story, I made it across!
Since arriving at approximately 2:30pm, I have probably seen a total of 17 people, this town is dead! The Painted Turtle, which is the hostel I am staying at for TWO nights, is funky and chilled out, but it lacks the presence of PEOPLE! It's absolutely dead here. I don't feel like going to the pub and having a lonely beer, so I'll stay here and pretty much have a conversation with myself.
Rocks are a fun way to enjoy what Nanaimo has to offer.
I'm just kidding! Nanaimo is a friendly little town, very quaint, but with the harbour it and distant mountains, it is quite scenic. Tomorrow I plan to wake up and pound the pavement along the waterfront and then hop on a little ferry to explore one of the islands, I believe it is called Newcastle Island and it is supposed to be a lovely provincial park.
Until then, I am going to go and delve into my favourite book series on the planet right now.... The Millenium series!
