So Nathan and Donna get up and leave at 0645 this morning – they have a ferry to the mainland booked. We get up briefly to say our goodbyes and then try and get more sleep. It’s not forthcoming so we eventually snap and get up and organised.

We look at some couchsurfing options for Vancouver city Sunday night. The noticeable difference between here and what we’ve seen so far being the response rates – they’re pretty low here so we might not get anywhere with the half dozen or so requests we send.

After brekkie we pack the car and leave a wee note for the guys before we wave goodbye to their lovely house and hit the road to biker Mark’s. He lives in Qualicum Beach about an hour or so from where we are on Sproat Lake. Having taken our time this morning and stopped for Coombs ice-cream as recommended by Elise, we arrive about 1400. Top marks for the tip girl 🙂

Introductions – Mark’s wife Dorothy, daughter Kirsten (she’s just back from an exchange year in Argentina), son Steven (he’s a volunteer fireman hoping to have a career there) and friend Sheldon done, we sit in their garden getting acquainted before heading out for a lovely beach stroll minutes from their house. The tide is in and with it lots of seaweed. We even see a seal in the water.

An amusing thing (to us) we notice as we walk is they call the geese “Canadian Geese” which we do too but we’re in Canada, they’re their geese, why not just call them geese???

We have a lovely BBQ surf’n’turf dinner and make a plan for tomorrow and retire to the garden to enjoy a fire pit and do some amazing stargazing.