Up Island we go ...

So the locals or as they refer to themselves the islanders here on Vancouver Island calls the north of the island North Island and the south of the island South Island. So for those at home would understand why I find this funny. So as you might have read in my previous post we got a new friend that goes by the name of Fredrick or Freddie for short and with his help I though while we are on the island we might as well go explore it. So we planned a trip up island to the North Island or more precisely Port Hardy. This would also be a great test on seeing how Freddie does as a camper van and what needs to be corrected. Well long story short we only made it to Courtney. Which give or take is pretty much half way up the island on the east coast before we turned around and headed back to Victoria again.

So we left on Wednesday morning with high hopes that this would be an awesome trip. One thing you have to realise about Vancouver Island however is that it pretty much rains here all year round. On top of all that we didn't have a working heater in the van so while driving the inside was pretty much colder then the outside. Kim not dealing well with cold felt it the worse and for most of the trip this is what I sat next too -------->

But we soldiered on anyways. 

Freddie being a left hand drive and a manual brought its own problems. As here I was changing gears with my right hand, I got the hang of it after awhile. However this and the constant rain meant I drove slower and we reached Nanaimo as the sun was starting to set (which is about 5pm). The camping ground in Nanaimo was pretty awesome, it was pretty much in the middle of a forest setting and your camping spot was amongst the trees. Its a pretty awesome spot and I could imagine that it would would be a primo spot to camp during the summer, so it has now been add to my places to return too.

After a somewhat chilly night in Nanaimo we headed further north with a few stops on the way one being Fanny Bay. Now NZ's meaning of Fanny is slightly different to the North American version of it, which means bum. So when me and Kim saw this sign on the side of the road we had to do a U-turn and take a photo, it pretty much made our day.

We continued on to Courtney and our campsite was next to a actual forest this time. The campsite wasn't as cool as the last one but the forest made up for it. We went for a walk in it for close to an hour before it started to get to dark. That night however when I was standing in the shower in a freezing cold room with only three pathetic streams of warm water hitting my body I decided fuck this lets head back to Victoria. Kim agreed and the next morning we where off, we arrived back in Victoria around 6pm. I left Kim to find the room while I unloaded the van. Kim built herself a fort in her bed with all the blankets and that is where she pretty much spend the next 3 days. While she was building forts Freddie was send away to address his heating issues ...