Saturday August 1st
We started the new month back in a hot and humid Vancouver currently suffering from several forest fires in surrounding areas. We took a taxi out to the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal in North Vancouver, seemingly along with half the city who were heading out for the holiday weekend. Fortunately as foot passengers we managed to get tickets for immediate departure and by 11 we were heading out from the Vancouver coast on a gorgeous sunny day though with a strong sea breeze. We sat out on deck as the ferry passed the nearby islands and really enjoyed the 90 minute crossing to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.
At Budget car rentals they cheerily informed me that we’d had a free upgrade. Great I thought. Then we went out into the carpark and I saw it. Oh dear I thought on seeing a vast shiny hearse of a car – for the informed among you, “the tank” is a brand-new Lincoln Towncar. To the uninformed, think Batmobile. This car retails at 60,000$ (around 45,000€ or 4 times the value of our Ford Focus) and includes such features as heated seats, rear-parking aid and a driver’s seat which electrically shunts you into position when you put the key in the ignition and reverses you to a comfortable car exiting position when you take it out. The bonnet is about 2 metres long and is the first car I’ve ever driven in my life to have a metal ornament sticking up at the front of it. If the car in the Rockies made me quake, this one nearly caused me to soil the leather upholstery as we navigated the tank through downtown Nanaimo. 40km on I was still white-knuckling the walnut steering wheel and the family –who’d initially greeted the Starsky-and-Hutch-mobile with cries of “Awsie” and “Cool”- were all cowering in their seats wishing we’d got a Nissan.
We stopped off at Cathedral Grove to admire the amazing forest, but I was too freaked at the thought of having to reverse out of the car park and the girls were too afraid of their mother’s fear to be able to enjoy the experience.
Reversing accomplished we drove on to Port Alberni, where food once again worked wonders and by the time we’d finished the 120km coast to coast drive, we were actually able to put the radio on without me screaming at anyone.
We arrived in a misty, somewhat chilly Ucluelet and our last accommodation of the trip: Hana House, a comfortable split-level apartment with its own kitchen and a large living room.
Ucluelet (or Ukee to the locals) is to Tofino what Jasper is to Banff- a slightly quieter, more laid back version. It sits on a peninsula and is consequently surrounded by bays and coves with thick temperate rainforest all around.
