Vancouver & Lillooet

A short flight from Calgary and here we are, in Vancouver!

Our plan drift a little since we were initially planning to buy a car in Alberta (less tax) and start exploring Banff and Jasper. We instead decided to go straight to Vancouver to find the car and head to northern BC instead of starting with Banff and Jasper.

There is a couple of reason for that. First, when you buy a car in one province and move to another one. Your car needs to pass the inspection. It can quickly become more expensive than the 7% tax saving.. There is also the car insurance, which needs to be purchased in the province (for BC at least). Second, Banff and Jasper are extremely busy during July and August. It's much better to go off the peak season.

I make use of the "Sloven/Balkan" network (as Alban like to call it) and get in touch with the Furlan Family who has relatives in Vancouver. That's how I get in touch with Sanja who is able to find us a room at her son's Andrej and his wife Fariba building in Richmond (the kind of room you can rent when you have guest in town).

We meet Sanja at her office and she drives us shortly after to the place. We get the warmest welcome and she also brings us some Burek,  Kremsnita and biscuits (Balkan food)!! So goooooood!!

We have a few hours to buy some things to be able to cook and we meet her again in the evening at Andrej and Fariba's place for dinner so we can get to know each other!
Given this happened in 2-3 days (from buying the flight ticket to finding the accommodation), it was amazing from them to provide us with all this. We couldn't be more thankful to meet them.

Andrej and Fariba are available the first weekend so they kindly offer to drive us around and show us downtown, Stanley Park and a little bit of North Vancouver. They also help us looking for a car.

The rest of the week is mostly spent looking for a car, opening bank accounts and buying camping equipment for the trip. That's how we end up finding our SUV (Honda CR-V 4WD 2010). We spend one extra night in Vancouver as we are too late to start driving and we are still missing a couple of things. Once again, Fariba and Andrej are here to help us and let us sleep in the living room.

That week was extremely stressful but we are finally on the road on our way to Whistler. It's a long weekend (Canada Day on Monday) and we quickly realize it's going to be hard to find a place to sleep when the person in Whistler Visitor Center laugh at us when we ask if there is any availability... We European don't usually do that much driving for a weekend but it's quite common in Canada. We keep going, stopping on the way for a couple of hikes and lunch to finally end up in Lillooet for our first two nights camping.

Lillooet area is quite different from the Whistler section which was much more green. Lillooet is arid with the Fraser river running down the valley.

We spend our first full day going around the city and doing the Red Rock Trail.

We then leave after our second night to the north and stop in a couple of places trying to find a campsite. We find a few of them close to lakes with a high number of mosquito... So we decide to keep going and spend the night in a municipal campsite in 100 Miles. The next day is 1st of July, Canada Day!

There is a celebration in the next city where we decide to stop for a couple of hours enjoying the local food and the musicians before heading to Williams Lake for our first Workaway with Mark and Amy at their farm.