Expedition Canada

Not the Start Expected  Sunday June 8th 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.  Man ning Park. was a beautiful setting.  Loads of walks, mountains, lakes and creeks and the new Skyview RV park had moder n 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 fi...

But for Day 1 Disaster Tuesday June 3 I had not anticipated doing an update quite so soon, but the first two days have been rather newsworthy. No more than ten minutes off the ferry, approaching Capilano on Vancouver's North Shore, a loud bang, huge wind noise and we quickly realised our glass roof on the Tundra had shattered.  We were passing a large dump truck and trailer at the time and assume a stone had bounced off the lorry onto us.   We were a few minutes from Toyota, Jim Pattinson North Shore to be precise, who were no help, anymore than the collision repair centre they directed us to.  "No glass available in North America" was the refrain.  Nick has si nce found some in Ontario.  The question at the forefront of our minds was, will we get further than Abbotsford where we are due to pick up the trailer? The collision specialist, vacuumed out the broken glass (but left half the broken roof in place), stuck on a layer of sticky plastic and duct taped ...

Cronks Go Camping Earl's Cove RV Campground Greetings from a sunny Earl’s Cove at the northern end of BC’s Sunshine Coast. Almost the most northerly part unless you get the ferry across to Powell River.   We’re on a "shake-down" trip with the new 25' RV (caravan to the Brits), checking out how it all works, which buttons to press to turn on lights, heating (still haven’t worked out the hot air system yet) etc etc.  So far we’re still talking to one another crammed into a 200 sq ft shoe box, but it’s early days :-)   Earl’s Cove has the ferry terminal for Saltery Bay/Powell River and, close to Egmont, a small hamlet at the top of the trail that takes you past Brown Lake to the Skookumchuck rapids.  Egmont is worth a visit as the views across the top of the Sechelt Inlet are lovely.  We first came to Back Eddy’s pub and restaurant during our initial 6 weeks living at this end of the Coast in 2021.  It’s the kind of place where you want to leap into ...

Trailer & Tariffs Beaver on Nita Lake We first came out to Canada in 2000 for a 2 week holiday.  The plan was to spend a week in Muskoka, North of Toronto, then drive over to Vancouver and spend a week on the West Coast. Realising it would take the best part of a our second week to get there, we abandoned the plan. Lake Vernon on the edge of Huntsville was our base for those two weeks, playing in boats on the interconnected lakes the first week, then exploring Lake Huron and the Algonquin National Park, north of Huntsville the second week.  In the two weeks in Ontario and every visit to Canada since, we've never seen a beaver in the wild; nor since we moved to Canada in 2021.  That was four years ago, Thursday April 3rd. The last week of Feb we were in Whistler for a week and on one of my early morning walks with Jack we discovered a young beaver was walking along the ice on Nita Lake.  It's one of the last places I'd expect to see a beaver as it doesn't fee...

Happy New Year Ok, OK, I know I do a lot of sunsets (and sunrises) - but they are so beautiful Sunset over Vancouver Island (iPhone) Well, as feared in the last blog, it turns out that coming from a new joint email address our festive messages ended up in a lot of folks junk folders. W e sent e-Christmas cards as Canada Post were on strike for several months before Christmas.   So if you were thinking "we didn't get a card from the Cronks this year", check your junk email.  If it isn't there, then our email list was clearly in error (or you have changed your email address)!   It seems e-Xmas messages are starting to replace snail-mail (not surprising if you go on strike before Christmas) and probably arrive nanoseconds after they were sent. We had several.  Our first batch of the more tactile traditional cards arrived from the UK Fri Jan 10th, apart from a couple that must have been posted last summer, or maybe even Christmas 2023! Winter seems to have bypa...