Hallelujah it's raining Pokemen

In Vancouver we spent a day with Haley's friend Emily and her adorable baby Maeve. We wandered around the harbour and through Stanley Park before grabbing some tacos and beer and sitting on the grassy banks of the harbour to eat.

The next morning we caught the ferry to Vancouver Island, for some reason I thought Vancouver Island was a small island, like maybe Rottnest or Phillip Island, but it's massive, apparently the same size as England.

I messaged Ericka who lives in Victoria, the main town on Vancouver Island, asking if she'd be free to catch up for a drink or dinner. Ericka, who I met on a tour in South America in 2011, then invited us to stay with her, when we arrived she opened her fridge to show us the selection of local beers she had bought for us to try then suggested a fantastic seafood restaurant because we said we wanted seafood even though she's allergic and could only eat one thing on the menu!

We spent a couple of nights at Ericka's, having drinks and playing Cards Against Humanity with her friends and boyfriend and drove around the island checking out some trail walks and beaches, almost getting the car stuck in some of the most gigantic potholes I've ever seen.

One evening we got back to Ericka's but she was out so to kill some time we downloaded Pokemon Go and set off in the rain, chasing Pokemons through the quiet Victorian streets. Robina and Haley who were the right age for Pokemon the first time round became a little obsessed, I just liked wandering about the glittering, rain soaked streets at night.

Thanks again Ericka for having us and being such an awesome and generous person!

On our return to Vancouver we stopped to pick up Mullet, a friend of Haley's who was in town and decided he'd come to Whistler with us.

We drove the Sea to Sky road to Whistler and there at the welcome sign was a bear! A real live bear just hanging out on the side of the road, his name was Tom and he snuffled about in the grass, paying no attention to the 20 cars stopped to take his picture.

After taking plenty of photos of Tom we continued into Whistler, a cute european-styled ski town, and stopped at the info centre to ask about accommodation.  Apparently we'd got the wrong weekend and the place was packed, hotels were out of our budget and all the campsites in and around town were booked out so we had nowhere to stay.

We considered the accommodation issue, then put it in the too hard basket and went to the pub to meet up with Amy, a girl Haley and I used to play footy with. We were telling her about our potential overnighter in the car when Haley's friend Nippun appeared out of nowhere like a fairy godmother and told us she had a spare room where they were staying - pfft, who said drinking never solves anything!

So we had another round to celebrate our new found home and soon moved on to another bar which Amy and Rich called The Danger Bar. Danger wasn't it's real name, Danger was it's middle name, bestowed upon it by Amy and her friends thanks to some inexplicable and unexpectedly big nights.

The next morning we had a big, hangover-curing breakfast with Amy then got back on the road again.