Earlier in the summer, three students from my old university, UCL, set off to Vancouver Island for a spot of sea kayaking. As a member of the UCL Expedition & Travel Committee, I gave them a tiny steer in the right direction and, in return, they have kindly sent us this update from the field:
“Second Tim Horton’s stop of the day…despite starting from Whistler at 3.30am, nearly missing the ferry (by three cars) and realizing that nothing is open on a Sunday morning until 10am…we still have a significant feeling of accomplishment!
Despite planning this trip for 10 months it is clear that, as warned, expeditions never go to plan. However, our truck is awesome, laden with survival gear, a canoe, bikes and three kitted out team members, ready for the challenges ahead.
Having done wilderness medicine training, and attempting to get fit, it’s incredibly exciting and slightly unbelievable that it has finally all come together. We will be camping tonight halfway at Port Alberni, before arriving at Tofino tomorrow for our stay at their research field centre.
A week today we will be setting off on our real adventure into the woods for 3 weeks, ironically with all our fingers crossed for rain! Basically because the extreme heat in British Columbia over the past month has caused extensive forest fires and threatens to close National Parks to visitors.
Despite this we remain optimistic and have been promised many sightings of bears and hope to not get too close to them or their marine equivalents, the killer whale!
Although Adrian’s soul yearns for a panini…sadly it’s mainly lentils and rice on the menu…for 4 weeks at least!
We want to say thank you to everyone who helped us plan this trip and we hope to give a mid-way and end update on this trip!
Signing off, for a couple weeks at least,
PEACE
Jennifer, Adrian, Arjun”
Second Tim Horton’s stop of the day…despite starting from Whistler at 3.30am, nearly missing the ferry (by three cars) and realizing that nothing is open on a Sunday morning until 10am…we still feel a significant feeling of accomplishment!
Despite planning this trip for 10 months it is clear that, as warned, expeditions never go to plan. However, our truck is awesome, laden with survival gear, a canoe, bikes and three kitted out team members, ready for the challenges ahead.
Having done wilderness medicine training, and attempting to get fit, it’s incredibly exciting and slightly unbelievable that it has finally all come together. We will be camping tonight halfway at Port Alberni, before arriving at Tofino tomorrow for our stay at their research field centre.
A week today we will be setting off on our real adventure into the woods for 3 weeks, ironically with all our fingers crossed for rain! Basically because the extreme heat in British Columbia over the past month has caused extensive forest fires and threatens to close National Parks to visitors. Despite this we remain optimistic and have been promised many sightings of bears and hope to not get too close to them or their marine equivalents, the killer whale!
Although Adrian’s soul yearns for a panini…sadly it’s mainly lentils and rice on the menu…for 4 weeks at least!
We want to say thank you to everyone who helped us plan this trip and we hope to give a mid-way and end update on this trip!
Signing off, for a couple weeks at least,
PEACE
Jennifer, Adrian, Arjun
