This afternoon we went whale-watching again, this time on a glass-bottomed boat which brought all the memories of passing out in Sri Lanka back. It was good fun though and we got to see 1 grey whale. We had leftovers for dinner because the cooker doesn't work so we couldn't cook our pies. Claire then went for a walk down on the front and I met her later. By the time I met her she was speaking to 3 people. They turned out to be Beth, Ken and Andrew from Ontario. They had driven the whole way along the highway to Tofino. We chatted for ages, then went for a beer in the Sandbar and then onto Chefstermans with a fire. At last! They were really nice and again felt like I'd known them a long time. Had to come home fairly early and restrained as we start work at 8:30am tomorrow and go on our hike at 12pm. I know it will be hard work and am sure I'll hate it at the time. But I'll regret it if I don't go and it will be good for me if I do.
Saturday 16th August
Today was awesome. First of all at work they didn't realise that we were finishing early even though we had organised it. We had 17 rooms to do and somehow we managed 16 in 3h 20, we were very slap dash. So we finished at 11:45am and met Brendan at 12 noon. We got a water taxi to Meares Island and started to climb up the mountain. I don't know how far we walked but the mountain is 2500 feet and we walked for 2.5 hours, stopping about 6 times. It was really hard work especially for my small legs, it was hands and knees stuff at the top. Brendan was really nice and pointed out the local flora and fauna. He showed us huckleberries which were delicious. The view from the top was amazing and well worth the suffering of the walk. We would have spent longer at the top but we seemed to have disturbed a mosquito nest and were just sat in cloud of bugs. The journey down was tougher than I thought. It was very slippery and quite hard on your knees and thighs. We went to Brendan's house and waited while he had a shower and then got the water taxi back. We really wanted to go to the Salmon Bake but it started at 5pm and we didn't get back until 8. We were totally knackered that it was all we could do to eat a Kraft dinner. I called Aaron and agreed to meet him at the Salmon thing at 9pm but by the time we got there it had finished so we went for a beer and decided to steal the trivial pursuit from the hostel. We ended up having a really good evening although hardly a huge party.
Sunday 17th August
It was really hard getting up this morning both physically and mentally. Claire was absolutely covered in bites. She had 15 on one shoulder alone! We went to work and were the only ones in again. Claire had a meeting at 2pm with the people from the Coffee Pod and she starts there on Tuesday. I don't know how I feel about it really. I don't think I'm worried about being left on my own which is strange for me but more about Claire meeting all these people and me stuck on my own in some hotel room. It should be quite easy to get a job there too especially at the beginning of September when all the college students go back to school.
Tonight we are Bangers and Mash which was really nice and we're settling down with a video and salsa and nachos. We have a new daydream from today: James, who lives in Campbell River, needs people to run a cafe-bar. It could be $500 a week, food, rent and beer for free. Sounds good! Note your average travelling student lifestyle. We may go there for the weekend and see what's happening.
<these are extracts from my diaries written whilst travelling and working in Canada and the US in '97-'98>
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