A day of travelling today. We set off about 9.30am to head to North Vancouver and drop the car off. This should have been an easy run – under two hours, but these things rarely go to plan! We managed about 15-20km from Hope on the Trans-Canada Highway and then came to a grinding halt … Eventually after moving very very slowly for about an hour, we were diverted off the road and given diversion signs back to Hope again. Then they just left us ….. No signs, no indication of where we were meant to go or anything. Luckily we spotted a bridge across the Fraser River and so headed across there and found an alternative road. This was clogged, but eventually we got to North Vancouver about 1pm.
Our ferry was 3.30pm so we decided to get a taxi from the car rental office to Horseshoe Bay, which although it meant we were a little early, at least we were there.
Following the theme for the day the ferry was late as well, but only 10-15 minutes. The ferry route is spectacular, taking us past Bowen Island and then heading across to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. The main hazard seemed to be large logs floating in the water all over the place. Though I am sure these didn’t bother the ferry much, I would have been keeping a very careful lookout if sailing. Hitting a tree at 6 knots could do some damage!
Once on the island Tony and Gwen picked us up from the ferry terminal and drove us down to their house at Ladysmith.