This week I decided to head up island to Ucluelet and Tofino, after hearing people rave about it. The drive there took me through Cathedral Grove, which was amazing and I posted about just before this one. I picked up a couple of hitch-hiking backpackers from the Czech Republic. Very nice fellows who had been in Canada since last August, and were in Vancouver for the Olympics this year. They were heading to Tofino to try their hand at sea kayaking. There was no shortage of places to check out for that particular activity. There were also many opportunities to go whale watching and surfing. I checked out the town of Tofino, and met a guy with a VW, a surf instructor who introduced me to a couple of his surfer friends, one of whom jumped in with me and I gave him a ride to the campground where I was headed. This guy was from Ireland, seemed like a nice guy, though the ride was short.
Tofino was super overpriced, and geared to the Yuppie, which was unfortunate. I camped one night at the Bella Pacifica Resort where my site was right on the beach. The beach was okay, but very long and shallow...about a km and you're still only ankle deep. Still, I enjoyed sleeping next to the ocean's roar again. There was an Asian-Canadian couple camped right next to me, their first attempt at camping - it was cute to watch. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, and managed to put up the tent proper and not burn the campground down as they attempted for about half an hour to get their firepit going.
I left the following day, disenchanted with the town, and headed to Long Beach to check out some surfers in action. It was a rain spitty day, so I didn't stay long, but the waves were not too big, but enough to wipeout on...
After Long Beach I headed to Ucluelet. My parents visited there when they first moved out west in 1963. My father had a nice slide camera and set the timer to take the photo while he jumped in. They're sitting atop a huge fallen tree on the beach. Ucluelet was quite pretty, and I found camping for the night. They had an out building that had tin shitters...yup - the sides of the stalls were made of tin, pictured below. It began to rain shortly after I arrived, on and off, but I put up with it and took a walk about town, did some souvenir shopping, great finds.
The following morning I just got up and packed the van, and left in the rain. I headed for Combs where I wanted to check out some shops(one of which was the VW shop shown above), and another stop at Cathedral Forest. The day went very well until I got to Duncan, about 50km or so from Victoria. I stopped at an intersection for a red light and stalled out the engine, which rarely happens, but I couldn't hear my engine as there was a transport next to me roaring, and I had my window wide open in the 29C heat of the TCH. It is a particularly maddening stretch of TCH as it has about 50 traffic lights on it in a 100 km stretch. Pain in the ass...anyhow, I couldn't get the van started again and didn't know what the issue was. Traffic was ROARING by me and I was getting a little nervous about someone not watching where they were going and slamming into me, as when the light was green, they were going about 100kms/hr. I called CAA and they took about an hour to show up.
In the meantime, some guy showed up on foot and offered to push me off to the shoulder. It wasn't close or easy, as I was going uphill slightly, and in the middle lane of 4 x 2 lane highway, one car back from the intersection. I figured I would probably run over him, but no sooner did he get to the back of my van when two cars roared up, a bunch of guys who appeared to know the first guys topped to help push me off the highway. I didn't have the keys in the ignition so we were right in the middle of the whole intersection when I realized I had no ability to steer...so quickly put the keys in but not before the oncoming lane of the crossroad they were pushing me towards parted like the Red Sea and they fled in around me as the hippy bus came charging towards them under manpower. We managed to get it safely to the generous shoulder where I was eternally grateful. CAA finally showed up, we tried to boost, but it didn't seem to be the issue. I suspect it might be a dirty gas filter, or something clogging the gas. The van started right up this morning, but as soon as I put it into gear to drive, it stalled out and wouldn't start again. It doesn't seem to be getting any gas. So that will have to be checked out. I got the tow truck driver to haul me to in front of my friend's house in Victoria, where Karma is parked under a tree.
