Today started early with the first ferry across to Vancouver. The crossing was uneventful apart from a few sightings of Harbour Porpoise and a Pigeon Guillemot. We then drove to collect our RV for our trip in to the Rockies, only to find out that it wouldn’t be available until 3pm. This scuppered our plans somewhat as I’d wanted to get to Manning. Nothing could be done about it and after shopping for food, eating lunch, dropping the car at the airport and getting a taxi back, it got to around that time anyway. However, there were further delays and after going through all the instructions and loading our luggage and food, it was 4:45pm so we had a bit of a dash in order to get to Manning, several hours away. My first experience of driving an RV was therefore getting through the Friday night Vancouver rush-hour traffic and then driving along mountainous roads in the dark.
After a very quick stop in Hope for some more food shopping (the “Walmart” in Vancouver wasn’t too great) and a visit to the Liquor store (I knew we would need a drink!) we arrived around 9:30pm rather stressed and were told to be aware of a mother Black Bear that frequented the campsite with her cub. We cracked open the drinks (Royal Canadian Rye Whisky for me), had a bite to eat, and spent our first night in the RV whilst a Western Screech-owl called distantly.
