After a beautiful week in Strathcona Provincial Park I want to go down to Nanaimo to go to the mainland. After a repair on my rear wheel (and later again there was somehing broken one the trailer...) I kept riding. On my way I did a stop nearby Mt Washington. Nearby the Mt Washington Resort is the Hidden Platoon, an area with some nice sub alpine trees and a few lakes. The challenge was to get there, 20 km uphill, 1100 meters of elevation. Took me 3 hours to get up, but only 30 minutes down. I was quite happy I didn't went up with my trailer, I wouldn't be able to climb these hills with all my stuff. I went around a small trail around the area, it was nice to see, but not as beautiful as I expected it to be. One of the reasons for that was probably the time of the year. It was still to early, to plants weren't growing again. But anyway, I had a nice day, a good ride and got what I wanted.
When I arrived on the campground, I felt like an intruder … said hello to a snake, pushed away a frog, disturbed the dear … luckily I had no conversation with the bear which was spotted on the campground in the last days.

In Strathcona Park I got known to a nice family which invited me for an overnight stay nearby the ferry to the mainland. That was my next stop. For the first time after 4 weeks I could sleep again in a bed, that was nice! The family was really friendly, they offered me a bed in the office building, which one could mistake for a full house. We had a nice dinner, I could try a paddle board and we could chat a lot about what is going on. I was quite impressed, the girl in the age of 10-12 had just passed her license for a zodiac (small motorized boat) and the boy had his big day with going on several long distance runnings. Quite fit the small ones And there are two more family members, a cat and a little bit older dog. The dog was ones quite a good rabbit hunter. On the property are to many rabbits, so the dog is chasing them. Nowadays it is more chasing then hunting, she became old. All in ones, it was a nice stay and I could have a quick step into a Canadian family.

Next stop is the mainland, therefore I need to take the ferry. More about that soon.