Vancouver Island

RV collection day arrived! We were all very excited to collect our 5 week home with wheels. 'Annie the Adventurer' was cooler than we had hoped. Small and simple by Canadian standards (23 foot), she is pretty fancy and spacious enough for us. Set up with everything we could need including an outdoor shower, lots of storage, an axe, a wonderful space for Frida to sleep (her squirrel nest) and even a microwave!

 We had a run down on all her tricks, loaded our gear and set off for some right sided highway driving to ease us into it!
We caught the ferry from Tsawwassen to Swartz bay and spent our first night at a nice beach just outside Victoria (Vancouver Island's largest city).  Everyone had a fantastic sleep in the RV. Juliet's pop up tent is working a dream.

The next day, after grabbing a quick Tim Horton's coffee, we set out for our first Canadian mountain biking at Hartlands. Once again the friendly Canadians pulled through, and Kate and I both had good riding company. The tracks are in fantastic condition and perfectly dry (spring is usually quite wet on the west coast so we were expecting some mud!) and the riding was sweet!  Frida has had a burst of Canadian confidence and took on the pump track with gusto, doing some cool drops and jumps.

We spent the next few days at small place called Sooke exploring the beautiful river, riding an old rail trail called the Galloping Goose, enjoying camp fires, starry nights, some chilly swimming and more mountain biking. The Canadians sure do camping well! No bears seen yet but plenty of eagles, squirrels and deer.

We then made our way north up the west coast of Vancouver Island not making it far before getting drawn to a delightful beach stop at French bay. The girls played in the sand and waves for hours so we decided to pitch up in the adjacent forest park...beautiful spot. The weather has been awesome with no rain so far and temps mostly 17-23 deg.

Our next stop was Port Renfrew where we went hiking to check out an ancient grove of cedar and fir trees, including Canada's Tane Mahuta equivalent.... Amazing giants of the forest!

In the nearby Juan de Fuca national park we walked to Botanical beach and spent some time exploring the crystal clear tidal rock pools. Although we haven't had any sightings of the purple skunk so far, we did find a bright purple crab!

Lake Cowichan was a great spot and we camped right next to the bike pump track and playground. Morning swims, yoga and coffee by the lake

F & J are both loving the trip so far and we are all enjoying being outdoors the majority of the time. Juliet can be a bit hard to entertain when it is inside time as she is not really into 'activities' in the same way as her older sister is, but once busy she is great.  Her attention span for books has tripled since being on the trip and she is saying so many more words, a little parrot!  The only downside to the campfires is having to be "helicopter parents" and hover around Juliet as she is quite unpredictable and shows no comprehension of danger!

Vancouver Island is great and has so much to do in such a small area....we've only done 300km so far. From here we are heading to Cumberland which is the Mecca of mountain biking on the Island.....