Oddball...

  Port Hardy, British Columbia, Canada
Tuesday, July 8, 2008

I had a couple of nights in Nanaimo in the middle of Vancouver Island, mainly to break the journey up en route to Port Hardy. The town itself was pretty nondescript, but the hostel was great in a 'K's House' kind of way, i.e. Ikea-esque.

03

I bumped into Johannes, a German lad I'd met in Victoria, so I spent a fair amount of time with him, and was grateful for him sharing a cheat that allowed extended use of the hostel internet for no extra cost! We went and watched some of the Drum Festival celebrations down at the waterfront, and witnessed some bizarre tribal dancing from the crowd, with Johannes having me in stitches with his impersonations. It was all too much though, so we retired to a bar for a few beers and watched a good little acoustic band play covers, including the obligatory "Wonderwall" (although my version is better - more on that later).

I also had a nice afternoon on Newcastle Island, a short ferry ride away, walking the trails and spotting deer between the trees, but two nights were more than enough in Nanaimo and I was eager to get up to Port Hardy...

04

Undoubtedly the highlight of this trip north was my first fleeting glimpse of a bear. Luckily I was sat on the left hand side of the bus, when the driver suddenly announced that there was a bear ahead. I looked out of the window and saw a huge black bear nibbling at the grass, with its two cubs just behind - a wonderful sight, particularly as I would have hated to go through my whole trip without seeing any.

06

Port Hardy turned out to be a quiet place, but I had three days there as I was waiting for my ferry which would take me along the Inside Passage. Luckily I filled one of my days at the beach with a waitress from the sports bar in town - the old English accent was coming in useful! I also had a morning with a Swiss guy, who drove me to a bay for nice views, and we befriended a couple of dogs who demanded that we throw sticks into the water for them to fetch!

As an aside, whilst in the local grocery store I overheard a lady informing the staff of a rather unfortunate spelling mistake - instead of writing "In Brugges" on the video rental notice board, the presumably dyslexic member of staff had somehow managed to come up with "In Burgers!" I don't know why, but I found this hilarious and burst out laughing on many occasions in the following few hours...tiny things please tiny minds!

08

The hostel was an amusing place to be, not least because the guy who ran the place was a bit of an oddball. I'd been told that he liked to have the place to himself during the day, and this became clear when he blatantly woke me up at 10am one morning to ask me when I was checking out (he knew full well it was the following day). Furthermore, I was sat having my breakfast with my back to the patio doors, when water suddenly started spraying in from the sides - the guy had decided to hose them at the exact same time that I was eating my rice crispies! I didn't budge though, and a fellow backpacker hailed my British spirit when I relayed the tale to him that evening!

All good fun though...