Buga: 29.07.2023
The alarm clock rings at 3:00. It's really an ungodly hour after just 4 hours of sleep. But whoever books the ferry too late is punished by the alarm clock.
It's a shame that we couldn't enjoy our great accommodation anymore. By the way, this is how I imagine a typical American house. Thick fluffy carpets everywhere and a suuupppper comfortable king-size bed. It was another bed that you would have liked to take with you. Too bad the suitcases are always so small. 3:30, a quick breakfast
and at 4:00 we're riding off the farm. At this time, only a few vehicles get lost, so we reach the ferry terminal on time.
Less than 2 hours later and a beautiful sunrise,
we stranded in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.
Today, however, we have to finally get the SIM cards and some groceries. The first stop, of course, Walmart. Florian, our next landlord, has written to us that we can already check into the room at 3:00. Everything fits perfectly. We leave Nanaimo towards Ucluelet at around 11:45, with 2 activated but not yet paid SIM cards (we do that online) and a few breakfast cereals. Google says it's 136 km and 2:20 with a time delay of 5 minutes. Fits.
Those 5 minutes turned into almost 5 hours. A construction site with single lane traffic. After 50 minutes of cars, pickups (sometimes with a trailer, sometimes with a boat, sometimes without anything), trucks, and campers coming from the opposite direction, one after the other and no end in sight,
we thought yeah, finally we can continue - but no such luck. Another 15 minutes in and Schatz went to ask. The road will remain closed until 5:00, it was 1:45 p.m. at that time.
At least the roadblock is located at a lake, Cameron Lake. There's no choice, put on your swimsuit and jump into the cool water.
It's a good thing we can check into the room at 3:00. Maybe we'll make it by 7:00.
Actually, we can move our vehicle from the campground at 5:15 p.m. The actual culprit is a construction site where rocks come down after a forest fire. Large cranes are used to set up steel nets there. The construction site is relatively small compared to the almost 6 km of waiting cars on the opposite side.
We finally reached our next accommodation at 7:15.
Now let's grab something to eat.