Oh, Wow! It's been well over a month since we've published anything! We have had a bit going on though, and not a lot of free Wifi to take advantage of. We've had our van break down and had to deal with all the rigmarole that goes with fixing a vehicle that you also live in. We've also taken time to visit friends in Vancouver, and we've just spent the last two weeks camping at Abraham Lake in Alberta with absolutely no phone reception (not necessarily a bad thing, but does explain why we haven't posted).
A photo of our van enjoying better days
So, here's the breakdown story...
We were exploring the Gulf Islands off British Columbia. We were on Pender Island at the time and heading out to hike Mt Norman... When the car lost power. I (Bree) was driving and I lost steering and the accelerator. I struggled to pull the car off the narrow road. I managed to get it off but we ended up on a blind corner (not ideal) and annoyingly close to a large pullout, but not quite close enough (Typical!). We phoned BCAA but because we were so isolated they couldn't get a tow truck to us until the following day. This was a problem as we live in our van and we could not sleep this close to the road on a blind corner halfway up a hill.
We decided we would have to get the car back down the hill and off the road. We put it in neutral and rolled back down the hill to a safer spot. We almost made it! We were so close to being fully off the road but unfortunately "so-close" isn't safe enough, so we had to ask a friendly local to help tow us fully off the road (not an easy feat when you weigh 4 tonne!). But we managed and we spoke to the neighbour whose front lawn we ended up on and he was okay with us staying there the night and wished us luck.
This cat jumped in through our window while we were waiting to get towed
Next morning the tow truck arrived and towed us back to Victoria on Vancouver Island. We arrived at the mechanic and he diagnosed it as a dead fuel pump. He he said could fix it, and luckily he could fix it that day. Once everything was fixed we jumped back on the ferry, but this time we travelled to Salt Spring Island to explore for a bit.
Waiting for the ferry to take us from Pender Is to Victoria
It ended up being a very expensive day trip to the Vancouver Island, but every van-lifer knows that your home will breakdown at some point and it's best to just take it all in your stride.
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STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
Every traveller in a car knows this, regardless of whether it's a van lol. Saying that, our van broke down the other day.. the intercooler hose came off. We needed a clip that cost us 4 bucks from VW but as they had to order it, we got a tow truck home still..easy fix though.
Sorry to hear that, Breaking down sucks. I'm glad it was an easy/cheap fix though.
Love the first photo.
Have you had a lot of issues with the van in the psat?
The van is 25+ years old so it has definitely had its problems. But we have now replaced most of the big expensive things since we bought it in 2017, like the transmission, and we haven't had too many issues since. It is a great van though and puts up with more than it's ages suggests it should.
Well, it has a lot of character and might be more fun to tour in because of some of the issues. Just imagine how boring travel would be if nothing challenging happened :)
EXACTLY! We will always have interesting stories to tell that's for sure!
And Thanks for the compliment on the photo :)
i first thought "our car broke down, lets take this beautiful photo of it" :) but then i seen it is not related.
would be even more fun if it was.
where did you took this wonderful phot?
well that was when we waited for a tow truck because the van died :)
Haha yes, unfortunately I didnt take many photos of the van the day we broke down (I have plenty of the cat though lol). But that first photo was taken in The Rocky Mountains in Canada last winter.
Great your back on the road again ! Crazy wild Lynx jumping though your window.
He was about as persistent as a lynx too! haha
I bet ; warm and smells of food