George's collection

Wednesday 18 July we left the hotel around 9.00am and caught the seabus, train and bus to Aldergrove to collect “George”.  After stopping in Langley en route to get a bite to eat we reached Aldergrove around 1.00pm.  It is interesting to sit back and let someone else do the driving and take in what is around you.  From now on these opportunities will be few and far between.

George has been quite comfortable the last couple of weeks parked outside the guest cottage where we were invited to stay while we sorted out our gear.  He is in the company of many (and I am understating here) old vehicles, ex-military vehicles and military paraphenalia.  Jim is amazed at the collection of vehicles and would love to be the owner of some of them, but (fortunately) they are not for sale.

 We have been asked to participate in a street parade and static display on Friday and Saturday so we will get the camera out and post some pictures on the blog.

 

 

Thursday was our first drive in Canada.  We headed to a shopping centre not far from where we are staying and stocked up on some necessary food items and filled up the van with fuel.  Prices are comparable to Australia with regards to food but there appears to be a greater variety to choose from.  Fuel was129.9c per lt where we filled up at the Chevron garage and down the road at the Shell garage it was 123.9c, which was in another tax area . Prices are lower at the beginning of the week then rise towards the end.

 Jim had no problem driving on the right side of the road.  There are overhead traffic lights but also a set on one corner at ground level which makes it much safer for us. During our trip to Europe when we stopped at the red traffic lights the overhead lights were out of our vision because of the cab design so we had to wait until someone tooted behind us to let us know that the light had turned green. Encourages a bit of road rage!!

Once again curiosity and interest gets the better of some of the guys when they see the van.  While filling up at the garage a couple of guys came and asked questions about the vehicle and when Jim was off getting money out of the ATM and we were parked in a back carpark, another couple of guys pulled up.  They recognised that the vehicle was a radio van but didn’t realise it had been shipped in from Australia or that I was an Aussie.  It seemed quite incredible that I could be mistaken for a Canadian after all the trouble I had being understood when I was calling the US and Canada to make caravan park bookings.  Perhaps because they had Indian/Pakistani accents they didn’t recognise the Aussie accent.  The guys turned out to be the proud owners of a Willy’s.

The rest of the day was spent reorganising the van, washing, chatting (Jim) and resting up as we didn’t sleep very well on our new air mattresses.  If we had brought our foam mattresses into Canada we would have had to have them fumigated beforehand at a cost of about $130.  We are yet to see if it has been a wise move to get air mattresses!

Beautiful weather almost on the hot side because of the humidity.