Three easy days through very pretty countryside, good roads and good weather.

3^nd August Kamloops

On the way to Kamloops we happened across a little motorcycle museum, just in the middle of nowhere and what a great little museum with a very interesting proprietor.

We stayed in Kamloops with Tammy and Ted. Tammy is the coursing of Joern best friend from school. What a great couple and boy can Tammy cook, we rolled out of there.

4^th August Hope

On the way to hope in one of the small towns we passed we saw one of those massive haul trucks and excavator, made into monuments. I’ve seen them on TV but never in real life so it was really interesting to see them in real life. OMGAWD they are HUGE, and this is the old generation I believe they now get bigger. We happened to also meet the son in law of the last driver of the haul vehicle. He told us that his dad in law, now passed away, was very proud that his old truck was now a newly painted monument. He also told us that his dad in laws, perhaps not so proud moment was the day he reversed the thing over a pickup truck that had stupidly parked behind it on the excavation site…squish like a bug

Hope is an interesting town for different reasons to what we thought, or to any other town we have seen in BC. It is the town where the movie Rambo was shot but is now a bit run down. It also has more homeless people / beggars than we have seen in any BC town other than Vancouver. In fact we have only seen homeless people in Vancouver and Hope. It is always interesting to me to see the other side of pretty when you visit a country, it makes it real and less of a fantasy.

What I did like about Hope were the number of wood carvings, you see them all over Canada and these ones are particularly nice. One of the reasons we came to hope, other than it being the perfect mid-point to stop between Kamloops and Tsawwassen (where we catch the ferry to Vancouver Island) was to see the gorge from the Rambo movie, but unfortunately it is closed to all traffic and hikers due to some massive pipeline being built through it. In the movie it is the Chapmans gorge, but it’ actually the Othello tunnels of Canada.

Saw this poster in one of the cafes we stopped in and it reminded me of the best quote ever, from Olav the Lutheran paster we met, he said ‘’There are really only 2 not 10 commandments. Love god and don’t be an asshole’’  Classic.

The 2nd picture one relates to the tragedy of the first Nations children forced to go to boarding schools and the atrocities and deaths that took place. This not only happened in Canada but in the USA as well and if just shocking.

5th August Victoria

The drive from Hope to Vancouver was really uneventful and a bit boring on the motorway especially compared to everything we’ve seen over the past couple of weeks. The ferry to Victoria though was lovely, the islands are beautiful and reminded me very much of Norway.

Once we arrived in Victoria on our way to the Airbnb we had booked we decided to ride into Victoria centre to see what it was like. As we got closer the sky scrapers loomed and the traffic got thicker. Stopping at the, what felt like, hundredth red light Joern turned to me and asked ‘’are we really doing this’’ to which I replied a firm ‘’No’’.. bit cities uuuugghhhh you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. Needless to say we turned tail and headed straight to the Airbnb. We then went for a walk along the coast, spotted a rabbit and porpoise and some lovely coastline and huge mansions.