We’ve arrived the day before yesterday, after what felt like the longest day of my life – probably was, too, with 24 consecutive hours of day. After our flight, we took the Pacific Coach bus to Victoria. First sightings of awe-inspiring nature on our ferry ride over to Vancouver Island.

The first impression of this place: a land of plenty. Large sky, large trees, lots of nature, wide streets, the portions on our plate are enormous and surprisingly tasty, with lots of fresh produce. People, surprisingly, are not that large – they seem to compensate for the food bonanza with a more outdoorsy lifestyle.

Weather, so far, is excellent: 20 degrees, sunny and breezy. Tomorrow An and I leave for the West Coast Trail. Friends who did it in july had 3 solid days of rain (the sheets of water kind), so we pray the rain god will keep his truck well away.

We bought everything we thought we needed. We are pretty inexperienced in this kind of large treks, so we might have missed something – I expect we’ll have to learn some things the hard way. I’m about to google ‘how to hang your food up a tree’.

OK, well, wish me luck … update in 7 days or so.