End of week 1
Not the Start Expected
Sunday June 8th
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| Begbie Mtn, Revelstoke, from the dyke walk |
Seven days in and over 1200 km into our 20,000 km expedition. I was going to start with the first two challenges of the trip.
That would be a distraction and disingenuous given the stunning scenery and landscapes we have enjoyed to Revelstoke, and the journey since our 4 night stay in Manning Park.
Manning Park.was a beautiful setting. Loads of walks, mountains, lakes and creeks and the new Skyview RV park had modern well maintained washroom facilities and was only at 10% capacity. The alpine trails were still closed due to snow, but lower levels were open.
We hiked around Lightning Lake (9km) and a number of other trails and would certainly go back.
Revelstoke, our second stop, is now running a close second as a place to live after the Sunshine Coast. We would have stayed longer. The campground was spotless with new, well designed and finished loos/showers, launderette and kitchen facilities (these things are important when RV'ing), even if the individual RV spaces were well packed in.
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| Revelstoke from Mt Mackenzie |
Interesting neighbour behind us with two bikes and two rear car-seats on the grass, living out of his battered estate wagon, a 12v cool box .......
The "where do you live question" got an inconclusive response. We also found the lock to our RV (bedroom) door had been tampered with........... just saying.
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| Mt Mackenzie which has Revelstoke Ski resort |
Our daughter-in-law said as we departed on our trip, that it will be interesting to see how many other places will we find on route that we'd like to live? So far we have found one!
Saturday morning the Revelstoke classic car show featured an amazing range of North American and a few European vehicles. I'm not into classic cars, but it was impressive. Engines cleaner than my 9 month old Tundra! There were even a couple of old VW Beetles (6v variety) the same as my first car! 328 YKX, I remember all my registrations!
We very much like Revelstoke.
The drive down to East Kootenay through the Rogers Pass was stunning. Pics below. We could have stopped dozens of times, but it was a long 480 km drive.
In fact if we didn't get out of BC there would be so much to do and explore. But onwards and Eastwards!
Tomorrow, Monday, we will be exploring the Kikomun Creek Provincial Park before heading back up the way we came with a couple of stops on route to 'shorten the journey' to Kootenay Redstreak RV Campground and the Whispering Spruce RV Park near the town of Golden before driving across to Alberta.
Now for the two challenges.
Challenge No 1 - Headlines - Detail in last blog
After the roof glass shattered we were told no glass in North America based on the Toyota dealer's system and it could be several months before it was available; 3, 6, 9 - 12 months based on current supply chain issues was quoted. So we were referred on to a crash specialist, Craftsman Collision in case they had other sources. They had no clue and we have not heard from them since.
Within two days our son had sourced the part in a Toyota dealer in Ontario, but neither Toyota North Shore nor Craftsman Collision had a relationship with them they could use.
He learnt that both the East and West coast warehouses had the parts, that had not been unpacked from shipment or entered into inventory. If we had this information and potential timescales from Toyota or the crash specialist it would have been so much easier to make decisions about whether we continued the journey or not, where we might get a fix etc. It begs the question how we could find this out and not the professionals.
A friend suggested we talk to a glass specialist in Alberta.
Alberta, unlike BC does not insure glass we are told. They are therefore hungry for work rather than milk the ICBC (BC State insurance monopoly).
They have since sourced the part from Toyota in Calgary and we plan to have the glass replaced when we pass through the week after next. ICBC - the BC state insurance monopoly - have been really helpful.
That said after a day of driving in 30c the duct tape started to unravel. Tomorrow morning will be spent resecuring the roof.
Challenge No 2
A crap day, literally. Arriving in Revelstoke, we pulled into the fairly sardine'd RV park and near neighbours. State of the art, well designed and modern washroom facilities, but cheek by jowel with other campers.
Some friends said you learn as you go along, and you only make the big mistakes once.
Connecting our soil outlet to the ground connection I discovered some muppet (me) had forgotten to close the 'black tank' valve and got drenched with the sludgy/smelly remnants of the tank that had worked down to the outlet as we drove. Yuk, YUK, YYUUUKKK. After I cleaned up the mess we made on the grass I had a long hot shower! Thank goodness for rubber gloves! It won't happen again! EVER.
Meanwhile in East Kootenay, we are now chilling with a glass of wine and the air-con is on full inside whilst it's 30c outside in East Kootenay. So far we have been unaffected by wildfires, but did see the remnants of past fires. It was striking that given the area of land that had been burnt in Canada, how vast swathes of forest remain unaffected. Canada is big, though we should not underestimate the environmental impact of wildfires when they do occur.
Some more pics of Revelstoke. More pics to follow when we get the bandwidth!
Jack also promises to include his blog mainly focusing on lakes and trails he has been enjoying :-)
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| Revelstoke - old bridge |
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| Mt Begbie from a crowded downtown 'Revvy' |
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| One of probably 100 classics |
What an adventure, even if you do land in the sh1T!! Great piccies. Your memory is clearly not what it was. The Beetle (red?) you borrowed and never gave back to Mum!
ReplyDeleteI prefer my version of the story! 😂
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