122 Farewell to Morty

Canada
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119 Pacific Rim
120 Surfers and big trees
121 Last Legislature
122 Farewell to Morty
123 Mile zero, again

Canada: British Columbia

Saturday 3 December 2005

Bye Morty. Thanks for all the memories!

Parade of trucks

Having spent most of the night drinking pints in an Irish pub heads were inevitably a little fuzzy when we woke this morning. We had our last breakfast in Morty, finished cleaning him up inside and then left our last Canadian campsite. We stopped off in town to drop our bags off at the hotel only to find that what the chap at Tourist Information had confirmed would be a room with harbour view and free wireless internet access was not actually the case. An upgrade sorted the view (ish) and internet access was kindly provided by the Marriott a couple of blocks away!

We headed out of town and up to Sidney to take Morty to True North RV, the dealers we are using to sell him. A stop at a car wash along the way took care of most of the muck and dirt he has acquired on his time on Victoria Island and then it was time to say goodbye. This time round we spoke to Kevin, the man I had originally spoken to on the phone. He is an Aussie who left home with four friends many years ago to see a bit of the world and they are now each pretty much on different continents with their children providing a global network of contacts for each other.

Kevin reminded me a lot of Michael Hubbard, his counterpart at Roulottes Gilbert from whom we originally bought Morty. Both in their fifties or early sixties, they are not shy of spinning a yarn and are both frustratingly slow with paperwork. Kevin introduced into the process additional checks that would need to be done as Morty is registered out of state, frustrating as none of these were mentioned to us earlier in the week. We really have no choice but to leave them to sort it all out.

It felt very strange to hand over the keys to what has been our home for the best part of four months. Even though it is only a collection of metal, wood and rubber, we have both become very attached to Mortimer the Motorhome and will keep great memories of our travels with him for many years to come. Kevin offered to drive us back into town, in Morty, really his chance to check out that all was as good with him as we have said it is. We only hope he did not run out of petrol on his way back because we had not left much in the tank!

In town we unpacked all of our stuff to do a final check for bits and pieces we would need to see us through the next few months and headed into town again. We stopped at a Dutch café for lunch, which could have been a greasy spoon anywhere had it not had things like kroketten and uitsmijter on the menu. We ambled through town again, this time a little further away from the centre. For such a short distance there was a remarkable change in atmosphere. This area seemed a lot more seedy and run down than the main central blocks.

At about half five we hopped onto a number 31 bus and headed down to Ogden Point. Each year in the run up to Christmas there is a parade of trucks from local businesses. The trucks are all decorated and lit up and it is a colourful spectacle to see. We were there in time to be able to walk around the trucks before they set off on parade. Some were relatively modest but others were incredibly ornate and fancy. It seems that they all look on it as just a bit of fun but there is also a vote for the best dressed truck and there was a definite competitive edge.

With last night’s excesses still fresh in our memories we opted for a night at the pictures and went to see Aeon Flux. We both enjoyed it just for the fun of the type of film although I am sure there are holes galore in the story line and plot. We stopped at the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner and had probably one of the best value meals we have had in Canada. For $40 (about £20) we had soup, a big bowl of past, ice cream, tea/coffee, a glass of wine and mineral water. Not bad going.

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