Time for New Adventures

It’s May 2023. Spring has finally arrived after several long, cool weeks. We have finished (for now) tending to the garden – weeding, fertilizing, planting. The pink rhododendron in the photo is in our northwest flower bed, and the bees are loving it! David has finally finished work on a major software project after a number of very busy weeks. So, it must be time to go camping.

Yes, we are off again on one of our favourite warm weather adventures. It was a dark and stormy, well not really. It was a cloudy, gray day when we boarded the ferry and landed in Crofton, one of our usual first stops on camping trips because we enjoy going to parks on Vancouver Island.

Oh, I haven’t told you where we are going. We’re heading to Rathtrevor Provincial Park in Parksville, one of our very favourite places to camp. We were there last year (Did you read my post from June 2022?) and we vowed we would return. The campground has tall, tall trees, and is located right beside the water. So refreshing! This year we decided to return in May, a little earlier than last year. I’ll tell you why a bit later.

There’s one more essential stop we have to make before we get to the park – lunch at Amrikko’s Indian Cuisine in Parksville. If you are ever in the area, be sure to stop at Amrikko’s. The best Indian food – fresh, delicious, hard to beat! And we always order Panir Pakora to start with. Highly recommended! There was enough left for supper too, along with the Navrattan Korma, rice and naan. (Grin!)

On to our campsite, #20. The park attendant commented that it seemed to be the most popular site in the park and we agreed. We had scoped it out last year and realized that it is very near the water and very private. So when we booked our registration in January (yes, January!), we were at the computer ready to push the Reserve button promptly at 7 am when registrations opened. Hurrah, we got it!

You can see that the sun had come out by this time and the weather was perfect for setting up the tent. This is the inner part of the tent with lots of mesh to allow airflow and prevent condensation. There are 2 doors, one on each side, so David and I don’t have to crawl over each other to get in or out. It prevents awkward, grumbling encounters in the night.

With two years of experience under our belt, it doesn’t take long to get everything set up in our new home. The fly has been installed over the tent, reducing the flow through breeze, and our dining shelter is ready in case any rain shows up. David has the axe ready to split wood for the evening fire.

It happened that our first camping day was on David’s birthday. After a delicious supper, a reprise of our lunch, we sat around the campfire, and I started writing this blog post while David enjoyed birthday greetings from friends and family via phone, Facebook and email. A perfect ending to the day. Stay tuned to see what we are up to tomorrow.

P.S. the water of the Strait of Georgia is just in the background through those trees. 🙂