Barny's World Dash

I have just arrived in Whistler, from Tofino where the internet was very expensive, hence no blog...

When I set out I thought that Vancouver Island was smallish and flat, the sort of place you could cycle the length of in a day or maybe two, however that is the danger of looking at big maps when you're from the UK. In fact the island has a mountain range down the middle and is almost the size on England...

They do however have some gorgeous beaches, it is hard to explain the concept of a wild beach, but it is pretty accurate, there are whole trees scattered across them that have been washed up from the pacific and they stretch for miles, with no houses on them just never ending pine forrests. They also have lots of whales, apparently 24000 Gray whales go past vancouver island on their way to Alaska and then on their way back down to Mexico, but some of them get bored and stay in Vancouver. They also have a few humpback whales, which like me are on their way to Hawaii in a week or so! Even better they have killer whales... so I went on a whale watching trip for a couple of hours on a 400hp rib (pretty fast) we did see several gray whales and humpack whales, and I began to appreciate the difficutly with photographing things that are 100m away and moving and you're in a little boat that is bobbing up and down. However I did get better at it and have got a great photo but I can't upload it on this computer so you will have to wait for another day. Sadly however we did not see any killer whales which I was very sad about, but maybe another day.

I am now up some mountains (apparently) but it took 12 hours to get here from Tofino, so it's dark and I can't tell. It is also alleged that this hostel is next to an incredibly beautiful lake, but again it will be all the more suprise in the morning...

Thank you for all the emails I've just read now I've got here. Shall reply soon, will probably be here until aturday

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Arthur (Barny) Darby
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Everything is alright in the end, if it's not alright then it's not the end.