One best thing about traveling with folks from overseas is showing off Beautiful BC, this province I chose to be my home in 1968. Another best thing is when the visitors are family members coming from Down Under to visit their Canadian relatives. One big worry this time, given the October date, was the weather.
“It’s your fault for having a birthday so late in the year,” teased my sister Vera as we set off from Clearwater under grey skies and uncertain conditions.
READ MORE: Kay Knox publishes book on her 80th birthday (Oct. 23, 2017)
With her husband Merv and our sister Valerie from Quesnel, I pointed our well-laden SUV south to Kelowna where niece/daughter and her family live. The girls scrunched into different beds so we could all fit into their comfy home. Their dad, Jeremy, toured us through his workplace.
“We host a myriad of websites,” he told us. “Security is paramount,” he explained, punching in yet another code as we entered the inner sanctum.
With our next destination to see nephew/son in Nanaimo, I had hoped to traverse the Hope-Princeton, but time constraints sent us up over the Okanagan Connector. Sprinkles of icy cold, wet white stuff were Vera and Merv’s first experience of fresh snow.
“Look at the picturesque way it outlines the crevices in that rock face,” they said. But no one wanted to try to scrape up a handful.
“It’s freezing out there!” stated one of these Queenslanders firmly. Of course we had to wait at the ferry, but without a snowflake in sight, nor any blue sky, the visitors happily went off to explore tiny Horseshoe Bay Village. When they returned full of fresh air and milkshakes, I couldn’t resist taking a short walk.
On the ferry I told them about an experience on a different crossing.
“A naturalist announced she was going to talk about cetaceans, so I sat in glorious sunshine to listen. As soon as she mentioned ‘whales’ a pod showed up a short distance from the ferry’s starboard side, spouting and playing!”
We’d all been to Nanaimo in the past where a warm welcome again awaited us. A recent job change had taken my nephew, an electrician, to a Cowichan Bay sawmill.
Unlike the downpour of the previous night, sun was interspersed with showers as we picnicked at pretty Transfer Beach Park en route to this work place. Safety helmet and more were required of that Sunday tour although most machines were quiet.
Then, who can resist a stop at Chemainus with its innumerable murals depicting realistic scenes of the past? Not us!
With the weekend now over, all members of that family headed back to work and school, so we travelers drove up-island. Despite dark skies we took the oceanside route to Courtenay. After enjoying delicious homemade soup with friends there, we drove to our next ferry.
“Sunshine Coast – here we come. Please live up to your name!” But the skies remained dull and overcast as the new ferry with its unusual design took us from Comox on Vancouver Island to Powell River back on the mainland.
“This doesn’t look the least bit like our Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane,” chuckled Vera as the town of Powell River with its pulp mill and back drop of forested mountains showed up under dull, grey skies. “Just a few days before we boarded a plane to cross the Pacific Ocean, Merv and I were walking on its sandy beaches in spring warmth.”
Now however, with our motel room looking out onto Georgia Strait/Salish Sea, we didn’t complain about either the weather or the setting.
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