Day 2: RV takeover & Vancouver Island

14th July 2024

Day 2:

My night ends at 4 am. Damn jet lag 😵‍💫 My husband and son are also awake at 6 am. By 6:30, we are seated for breakfast. Typical Canadian with pancakes & maple syrup. Scrambled eggs and hash browns are a must. Fortunately, they serve on real plates here.

At 8 am, we have booked the pickup from Fraserway. We wait with another German family in front of the hotel. At 8:30, the shuttle arrives with a very funny driver who takes us to Fraserway. A family who has just returned their camper leaves us with a bag full of food. We also find other useful things like kitchen rolls, toilet paper, Off Spray, etc. in the motorhome.

Very practical and THANK YOU to the donors (we will definitely have leftovers to donate at the end).

The briefing takes place shortly after. There are a lot of RVs on the yard, most of them look quite new. We get an RV with quite a few dents and scratches. But what bothers us the most are the 3 stone chips in the windshield. One is repaired and 2 are fresh. When we ask if the windshield can crack, they say 'No no, it's not cold anymore.'

Hmm... that's not entirely satisfactory. But well, we can't change it. The wheels also look bad. They are white on the other RVs, but ours are thickly rusted. We also seem to have the only vehicle that is NOT registered in British Columbia, but in Alberta. It reminds us of the time when we were completely astonished by locals in Jasper NP in 2014, asking how long it took us to get here from Florida 😄

We had Florida on our license plate 😜

For the first time, we don't drive off immediately, but instead use the time to load our belongings into the camper. It's still pleasantly warm, not hot. The other vacationers who return report horror heat in the Rockies. Phew, luckily we're heading to Vancouver Island.

We roll off the yard at 10:45 and drive to Tsawwassen, where we do a big shopping at the Walmart Supercenter near the ferry terminal, then go to the Tsawwassen Mills Mall where I get some t-shirts at GAP. Unfortunately, our search for a small gas grill is unsuccessful. Due to the Fire Ban, we are not allowed to barbecue, not even light a candle (good thing I bought 8 citronella candles at Dollarama).

We reach the Tsawwassen ferry terminal at 4 pm and ask if we can catch the earlier ferry at 5 pm. Unfortunately, the ferry is fully booked, so we stick with the 6 pm ferry. What do we do for the hour? A look at GoogleMaps shows a small Lighthouse Lookout with a beach just around the corner. We drive there and a few kilometers later, we find ourselves at the US border!? Oh shit. Do we have to go through customs?? It didn't even cross my mind that a 'proper' border crossing would be necessary for the mini section on the small peninsula. Ok, I was wrong. We are already at the border house when we tell the border officer that we mistakenly ended up here, actually only wanted to quickly visit the lighthouse, and now want to turn back immediately. Well, unfortunately, we have to drive onto American soil to turn the motorhome around - we have to enter the US! My husband complains and rages, but it doesn't help. We park the motorhome and everyone gets out for fingerprinting, passport control, and then I have to pay $7 (luckily we have Esta). But the border officer is very nice and wants to know what we were planning to do, then explains to us that our purchases are not a problem (apples are not fruit!....!?) and that we can drive down to the lighthouse and beach for the next half hour.

Well, let's do that then. Since we're already here.

After a 5-minute drive, we reach Point Roberts and the Lighthouse Marine Park. We stretch our legs briefly and then head back. The border crossing took time, the ferry is waiting.

We return to Canada without any problems, no checks, etc.

At 5:15 pm, we reach the ferry terminal in Tsawwassen and are assigned a waiting lane. We park next to other campers and wait. The ferry is already there, and after all the vehicles have left the ferry, we are allowed on board. We park in the lower deck in the front. It's a bit spooky, but okay. The 1.5-hour ferry ride is great. Beautiful weather, calm sea, and we enjoy the scenery and islands off Vancouver Island on deck. At exactly 6 pm, we set sail and the queue at the ferry terminal is full. Not all vehicles made it onto the ferry. It's good that we booked in advance.

In theory, you can see orcas and other whales, but unfortunately, we don't see any whales during the crossing to Swartz Bay.

After exactly 1.5 hours, we reach Swartz Bay and drive to the first campground of our trip, the Island View Regional Park Campground. The campground could only be reserved 4 weeks before departure (accessible exclusively with online reservations), so it was exciting until the last moment whether I would get a site or not, but I got lucky. We reach the campground at 8 pm. The campground is 'full', only our site 8 is still available. We settle into the site (back-in) and explore the surroundings before dinner and tiredly fall into bed.

Unfortunately, I completely forgot how hard and uncomfortable the bed in the last Fraserway camper was....

For statistics:

Campground: Island View Regional Park CG

Site 8

€17

Driven: 75 km

Walked: 10 km

Weather: sunny, 22 degrees