Rob-n-Hild, oot and aboot eh? Sorry - 2022

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Nanaimo

This was a rather exhausting and odd day. Hild's online training session started at half-past midnight and went until 7 in the morning! All of it was done on Ethiopia-time where they are 10 hours ahead of Nanaimo. It wasn't so bad, and all the adrenaline required to run the training session kept Hild going. Talking about economic and financial analyses kept Hild awake, although there is a chance that the topic would have put course participants to sleep!

We reorganized the furniture in the hotel room for her desk set-up including cardboard boxes to hold up the computer and screen. Rob, bless his cotton socks, managed to stay awake throughout the night. He served breakfast porridge at midnight, sandwiches and milk and tea at 3 am, and Coke Zero at 6 am. Not long after the training was over, Hild fell asleep and had a recovery nap until mid morning.

As a prize for Hild working all night - and napping to recover - we took a small passenger ferry out to Protection Island. It is a small island in the Nanaimo harbour with "about" 350 year-round residents. Yesterday when talking with Janet and Andy we learnt that both of them had lived on Protection Island when the kids were younger. In addition to taking the ferry, they used to kayak back and to from Nanaimo. It looks short on the map, but once we were sitting in the ferry, kayaking looked hard.

The ferry had a boat-waiting-room on our side, and landed on the jetty next to the Dingy Dock Pub on Protection Island. The ferry went once an hour and took 10 minutes to cross. The pub is the only registered floating pub in Canada. We were of course going to have lunch there, but first we wanted to explore this tiny island on foot.

First we came upon Pirates Park. The locals had many boats parked at the long jetty. Hild - as per usual - managed to find a long steep set of stairs for Rob to climb. More huffing and puffing for both of them.

Protection Island was used as an entry point to the coal mines deep under the sea. There is a museum and monuments telling about the history, and also a big accident in 1918 when 16 miners died as their lift fell 550 metres down the shaft. So sad and scary to think of!

Another park on the east side of the island let us go down to Smugglers Beach. We still are amazed at the amout of driftwood everywhere. At low tide it is even more visible. A beautiful view to behold.

Facing north towards Newcastle Island we found an equally nice view across Pirates Causeway - looking very soggy during low tide and certainly not safe for crossing on foot!

There were many beautifully-kept houses on Protection Island as well as some on the verge of falling down. We did not want to take photos of them for this webpage. They were also inventive with their lawn ornaments. Many wood carved animals were to be seen - and Rob made a "beary" good friend.

Of more peculiar items seen during our walk were multiple bathtubs in people's gardens. Some looked like they could be in use (!) others looked like they could be entered in the annual 58 km bathrub-race here in Nanaimo. https://www.bathtubbing.com/

It looked a bit like these spare flip flops were left there for anyone to use. And the recyling system on the Island includes a boat in which you throw your cans and containers.

There were cute pets on the Island too. A cat who was signalling to be more of a guard-cat than a cuddly-pet. Two goats standing on top of a derelict car! And a dog alone in a kayak - maybe picking up his take-away dinner at the pub?

It was quite amazing how many small public parks they were keeping on the Island. Everything from manicured lawns, to wilderness grass, to lily-ponds, to flowers of many kinds.

By asking locals, we learnt that many residents just walk, others have golf carts, and some have cars. lso they have a fire truck and ambulance. Therefore we were puzzled by the lack of a petrol station. As it turns out they bring over a barge every so often so locals can buy petrol. It is such a small island that you probably don't need to fill often, but with a barge it sounds like a coordination task together with neighbours.

We spent an hour and a half exploring the Island and it was well worth it. Time had come to celebrate Hild finishing the over-night training session - with clam chowder and crab cakes and an Arnold Palmer (ice tea + lemonade) at the Dingy Dock Pub. Rob joined in the celebration with what turned out to be an excellent dark beer: Hoyne. Yum.

What a lovely day! We went home and did laundry and started packing up for our departure to the mainland tomorrow.

May/June 2022

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