Much of our time in the last few weeks has been spent arranging onward travel plans and the sale of the van. However, we have journeyed across Idaho into Washington State and up the Pacific coast to Vancouver Island. Thankfully we now have flights to Sydney in hand, and yesterday passed on the van to it's new owners near Victoria.
Our last blog a month ago saw us leaving the Grand Tetons heading towards Idaho. First stop was the Craters of the Moon National Monument, a vast bleak lava field where we could explore lava tubes and cinder cones; followed by a few days in the spectacular Sawtooth Mountains - a wilderness which is definitely on our list of places to return to.
We left Idaho in a rain storm but fortunately our next destination, Mount Rainier, did not live up to its title. A few sunny days allowed us to explore the surrounding rain forest, giving great views of the glacier clad peak.
Having booked flights from Calgary to Australia, we broke our journey towards the Pacific coast to spend a day or two cleaning the van and sorting out kit. We arrived on the Olympic Peninsular for some welcome beach time and to visit the Hoh Rain Forest in the Olympic National Park. This amazing forest full of hanging mosses and ferns was an unexpected surprise and we made the most of the dry weather with a couple of long walks, a favourite being the 9 mile loop out to the sea at Cape Alvara - which enabled us to spend hours poking around tide pools and watching sea otters.
The indigenous fauna was not on the scale of Yellowstone, but the banana slug is very aptly named...
We took a ferry from port Angeles across to Vancouver Island, where we spent a day in British Columbia's capital, Victoria, before agreeing to sell the RV to a local couple - who kindly allowed us a week or so to explore the island before handover.
We used our remaining days with the campervan to explore both the West and North of Vancouver Island, first spending a few days on the fabulous log strewn beaches of the Pacific Rim National Park, where Tony and Francesca were the only ones to brave the icy ocean.
On the way North we stopped by at the home of the Mars water bombers - the world's biggest flying boats, built in WW2 as troop carriers. Two remain flying, based at Sproat Lake, and are now used for fighting wild fires.
The Northern tip of Vancouver Island has some lovely scattered fishing and lumber communities, many accessible only by ferry. We spent a night at Telegraph Cove before taking a ferry across the Broughton Straight from Port McNeill to visit Alert Bay on Cormorant Island. We weren't lucky enough to see killer whales on the crossing but the island was worth visiting to see the Nimpkish burial ground's totem poles, and to lunch on halibut and chips.
Yesterday we bade a fond farewell to our trusty Rialta, which has truly served us well for the last 9 months. Accompanied by a mountain of luggage, we took the ferry from Nanaimo to Vancouver, where we have been exploring the city from a hotel room that is 3 times the size of our van, but somehow seems much more crowded. Tomorrow we hire a car and head for Calgary.
