Buddy the van

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
May 01, 2019

It’s been a bit of a mixed weekend. On Sunday we went to see a van owned by an old Swiss couple that Jim had put us in touch with. I took it for a spin and it drove fine but there were signs of an oil leak and I’m no expert when it comes to American vans so we gratefully declined it and got back in touch with Jim to say that we were happy to wait an extra day and take one of his vans instead. Their van was all kitted out with the bed frame in and an awning and at the moment if we take Jim’s van it has nothing in other than an airbed but I figured it’s best to take reliability over some home comforts. The rest of the day was spent mooching around Vancouver, generally in search of cheaper meals. It feels like we have pretty much lived off McDonalds $1 coffee’s, Breakfast muffins and Subway as they are pretty much the cheapest meals around. That’s why it’s important that we get the van sorted sooner rather than later so that we can start cooking our own meals and start getting our spending down.

On Monday we headed off nice and early to go and meet Jim’s brother and to buy our van. A spanner was well and truly thrown in the vans works as when we got off the skytrain to catch the bus to Jim’s house we popped to an ATM to take out the last of the Canadian dollars that we needed only to find out we couldn’t take out anything on any of the cards we have. There is a daily withdrawal limit and that limit is unfortunately running on UK time not local time so it would be about 6pm here before we could withdraw any more and that would be too late to pay for the van and to then go and get it registered in our name and to arrange insurance. So, instead of wasting the day as a write off I messaged Guy, a lad I used to work with at Barclays who is currently living and working in Vancouver with his girlfriend. It was great to catch up and to get some tips from Guy. I haven’t seen him for about 8 years after he headed off to travel and work in Australia. He’s a good lad and as well as a familiar face to see it was nice to get his thoughts on what are the must see places when we are out in BC in the van.

Tuesday finally brought a result for the van. We left our backpacks at Vish’s house, finally were able to take out all the money we needed for the van purchase and we were at Jim’s house nice and early to meet his brother and son and to get the van signed over into our name as owners. The van we have bought is 1998 GMC Safari. It’s a small van but a lot of people here convert them into cheap campers by throwing a wooden bed frame in the back. It seems canny enough. In total we paid $4,500 for the van itself and $1,600 for 5 months of insurance. If I had owned a car in the UK at some point over the last 3 years we would have got a 40% discount on the insurance but due to traveling and saving back home we couldn’t justify running a car so that came back to bite us with a very high premium over here. Jim has agreed to buy the van back for at least $3,000 when we are finished with it so hopefully we don’t write it off! I like the van, it’s small but will do for us. As always we needed to give it a name. The scooter we owned in Vietnam was called Dora and we loved her to bits, we have named the van “Buddy” and hopefully the van is just that and doesn’t let us down.

So £3,500 lighter we headed off in search of camping gear and supplies. We couldn’t get anything like that without having the van to put it in so the process dictated how we had to pull everything together. It was a bit nerve wrecking driving through Vancouver city in the van for the first time. Trying to navigate to places while at the same time trying to get used to how their road system works. You can turn right on red light but need to be aware of pedestrians and making sure you are in the correct lane to catch the turn off’s you need has been challenge. It’s a steep learning curve but you just have to crack on and deal with it the best you can. Dani had found several people selling or giving away free gear on Facebook market place but by the time we were all sorted and up and running everything had gone so we were left scurrying round Walmart and various other Dollar shops trying to pull together the basics we would need to hit the road. By about 5:30pm we were finally ready to hit the road and get out of town.

We were aiming to reach a free camping spot about 150km out of the city at Jones lake and as we drove along and the sun got lower we realised it wasn’t the best idea to keep pushing on to get there. We weren’t too far from the site, maybe like 50km but as Dani read further into it as we drove we realised that the last 30km is totally off road and more suited to a 4×4 and given that it was almost dark now I didn’t fancy my chances of tackling off road driving in Canada in the dark. We turned off the freeway and headed back to the nearest town of Chilliwack that we passed 20 minutes earlier. We have read that you can park up and sleep in Walmart car parks provided you check with the manager first. As we were turned up we could see a few other vans and massive mobile homes parked up and after checking we parked up ourselves and settled in for the night in a very cold car park. The van is small but it’s comfy enough for two. We strung our solar Chinese lanterns up in the back, sorted our sleeping bags on the air bed Jim has provided us with and crashed out weary from the hectic day.

We are currently sat in Walmart pulling ourselves together with about a litre of McDonald’s coffee and yet again another two muffins between us for $5. It’s been an interesting start to the van journey. Certainly not glamorous in a Walmart car park but hey for the first time since we got here it’s been a free night accommodation and it’s nice to be finally on the road heading in whichever direction we choose. We won’t be going too far just yet as Jim is back from holiday in about a week and we will pop back to Vancouver then as Jim will sort out building us a bed frame and also a few other little mechanical things he wants to do before we fully head off properly. Jim has also been kind enough to offer to put us up in his big RV near a lake for a few days while he completes this work which is really nice and it feels great to be back traveling again meeting new people who extend their generosity and warmth to us. Let’s see where we end up getting to today and hopefully we get to sleep somewhere a bit more scenic than a shopping mall car park.