Downtown Vancouver from Stanley Park

Vancouver and Area
Link to Vancouver Album
Link to Stanley Park Album

For my trip back across to the mainland I took the ferry from Departure Bay in Nanaimo to Horseshoe Bay in North Vancouver . Same price, same comments. If you can, make reservations, that way you know you'll get on. The website for reservations, prices, and schedules is www.bcferries.bc.ca. From Horseshoe Bay I traveled on TC-1 until I picked up Hwy 7 for the trip to my next stop, Lake Errock and Sunny Trails Nudist Club.

Road Report: TC-1 on the Nanaimo side is a very good 2 lane highway. On the Vancouver side it's a 4 lane, divided freeway. BC-7A and 7 are good 2 lane roads that go through all sorts of small towns. Traffic was medium to light all the way. The route signage leaves a little to be desired. There is normally a route sign with an arrow a few blocks from the actual turn and then another one a block from the turn. However there isn't one at the actual intersection and, if you miss the turn there normally isn't another route sign for about a half kilometer or more to let you know you're on the wrong (or right) road. Twice on this leg I thought I had goofed and was looking for a place to turn around when I spotted my route sign. I was on the right road afterall!.

Effectively, Sunny Trails doesn't exist. There is no “Sunny Trails” sign on the road, just a big sign saying “THE! Campground”. The RV Park went textile to keep from going broke. They say that the camping section is generating the money they need to make improvements.

RV Park Report: The RV section is now Textile with full hook-ups with 30 amp service and lots of tenting sites. However, the water service isn't controlled, it comes from a local creek, so if you are susceptible to “Montezuma's Revenge”, don't drink it. They have a couple of taps that are UV treated for drinking water, so bring bottled water; although I've been drinking the local water without any ill effects. There are lots of trees and grass, some fire pits and picnic tables at the RV sites (and the main railroad line close by, if you like trains, this is the place). There is no clubhouse, sauna, hot tub, pool, or much of anything else in the textile area except for a children's play area. The trees branches need to be trimmed. I'm hitting them in my RV everywhere! The manager says that to trim them she has to get permission from the board, and that will probably take months! I noticed that I'm the only Class A in the park. There is a few 5'ers and they are having the same problem. Most of the people are tenting or in small travel trailers.

For the nudist area, see the AANR page.

I was charged $98 for the RV and $77 grounds fee's for a week, for a total of $175 ($25/day). But I didn't have much choice as the upcoming weekend is the May Long Weekend and finding a vacancy somewhere else would be problematic, at best.

Note; I just drove up to the Kilby Provincial Park to see what BC parks were like. Kilby is a small Day use and RV park on Harrison Lake and has a really nice sand beach and a boat ramp. The RV sites have BBQ pits and that's about it. There is no water, electricity, or sewer hook-ups at the sites. There is a couple of community water taps that I assume are potable water, at least there isn't any sign stating differently. I didn't see a dump station but it might have been at the other end of the RV area. There are pit toilets but no showers or other services. The RV sites are all first come basis and cost $20 night, maximum 7 nights. So now the $25 I'm paying at "THE! Campground" doesn't seem so out of line.

The only credit card the park accepts is MasterCard (which I don't carry), my bank card won't work as a debt card in most pay stations, such as supermarkets, stores, gas stations, etc. up here (it goes through as a Visa card but comes directly out of my checking card), and they don't accept out of area checks. So I had to make a speed run back to the town of Mission to get cash out of the SCOTIA bank ATM. Their machines recognize my card as a debt card and let me get cash.

Since there is a lot to see in the Vancouver area, I'm staying here for 2 weeks.

STANLEY PARK
I spent a day at Stanley Park , visited the Aquarium, and rode a horse-cart around the eastern end of the park. Took some pictures. The panoramic at the top of the page was taken from the park. The aquarium is nice but small. It can't compete with the Monerey Aquarium.

DOWNTOWN VANCOUVER
Spent a day riding the Vancouver Trolley around greater Vancouver area, scoping out places to visit later.
Today I wasted $6 on an all day bus pass. I walked everywhere I wanted to go. Saw Canada Place, the BC Museum of Fine Arts , all of Vancouver from the top of Pacific Center , and walked all over and under downtown (they have underground shopping malls, up to 3 subterranean levels at some points).
I spent another day walking the downtown area, visited Gastown, Chinatown , etc. Weather turned bad so I gave up and went back to the RV park. I've still got a lot of things I want to see here so I'll have to come back another time.

Weather Report: Out of the 14 days I was here, it rained 12 of them! It was warm (15-18° C) but windy and wet.

I can't find an Internet Café that has WiFi or will allow me to plug my laptop into their network here in Mission . So I drove back across the border for lunch one day and did my internet business with my Aircard while having a great lunch in Lynden , WA . It was a country-western bar/restaurant, one of those where you eat peanuts and throw the shell on the floor. They had a fantastic Halibut steak sandwich.

Later, I did find that the local Library has WiFi. When I couldn't access their net, I didn't think their Access Point was working. I contacted the computer techs' at the local library and found out that the problem is mine, or actually it's the D-Link PC card. Public WiFi's in Canada (or at least the BC library's) do not transmit a “Here I am” signal and do not use DHCL. So you have to force the card to find them. Unfortunately the D-Link card won't allow you to do that. The tech recommended the Sandisk or LinkSys cards. I purchased a LinkSys and it worked fine.

I've got a stow-away! I spotted a mouse running across the floor of my RV. She seems to be trying to nest in my heating ducts. She has been shredding my toilet paper and paper towels for nesting material and it comes blowing out all over the place when the heater comes on. A mousetrap from the local hardware store and some peanut butter took care of that.

Next stop; Manning Provincial Park or somewhere east of there, depending on how long it takes me to get up the mountains.