My name is Janette, and I am a Pyromaniac

Well, I decided it was time to start dipping my feet in oceans and carrying on, so headed for Tofino to see the Pacific.  Also decided it was time to stop swanning around in motels and start using some of the camping gear, which is taking up most of the limited space on my bike.  I stayed at the Bella Pacifica campground just outside of Tofino.  It was an interesting experience.  The bloke gave me the best spot in the campground, with an outlook through some trees towards the ocean.  Beautiful.  Set up the tent with a minimum of fuss.  Surprising but still good; I continued to smile.  Took off into Tofino to the Co-op and bought a magazine, some oatmeal, coffee and creamer, sugar, a steak, and some veges, so I was set for tea and brekky tomorrow.  Couldn’t be better and life is good.

Next thing was a fire to keep me warm.  The bloke had dropped off some firewood and paper, so reckoned I’d flash the fire up and grill my steak/boil the veges.  There were some woodchips left from the last occupant, so I ripped up a ton of paper and threw the chips on top, lit a match, and settled back with my cold hands extended.  Well, the bloody paper burnt up a storm, but the woodchips, somehow, weren’t in on the action.  So the damn thing went out.

Oh well, I thought, no dramas.  I’ll chop up some more chips.  This time I’ll make them smaller, about pencil size.  Chopped up a few until I got bored, used the rest of the paper, and tried again.  Blast, again the blaze was short but sweet.  Not enough chips, or the wood’s wet.  Tried again, this time with MATCHSTICK sized chips, and fought my way through the boredom to chop up a huge bundle.  But then…no more paper.  Dang.  Had to sacrifice the magazine, but wasn’t burning all of it, so flicked through and ripped out the yawnish bits:  the makeup advertisements went first.  Then the other ads in which I had no interest.  Then the crosswords and games pages.  Then it was down to the articles.  Lady Gaga, into the fire you go.  You too, Madonna.   Axl Rose, looking mean, joined them.  Some movie star who looked familiar went into the pile as well.  By the end I had a massive pile of dry chips and an equally massive size of screwed up paper.  Set a match to it, and…failure…

Three goes was enough.  I had to laugh and thought, bloody idiot Janette, just give up, use the stove you bought, and cook the confounded steak on that.  So that’s what I did.  It was bloody delicious too.

Tofino is a very small place, smaller than I thought.  Only a couple of streets and lots of surf shops.  To get there was an excellent ride through twisties and curves, over 100 kms from Nanaimo.  There were frequent signs of a deer leaping through the air, so kept a sharp eye out because I didn’t want one leaping on me, if leap is what they like to do.

I took lots of photos but am doing this in a McDonald’s in Port Alberni (alas the campground in Tofino didn’t have wi-fi, and Macca’s does).  Can’t upload the photos because the cord thingy is in the big yellow hole strapped to the back of the bike.

Not a lot more to say about Tofino.  Nice little place, but I need to keep going.  I have 7000 kms on the bike and it will need a service at 10,000 kms, in Anchorage, Alaska.  It is 3800 kms from here to Anchorage, which means the bike will be 800 kms overdue for the service, and I am not prepared to let that happen.  I will have to sacrifice going up the Sea-to-Sky Highway, something I really wanted to do, to catch a ferry up to Prince Rupert and proceed to Anchorage from there.  Doing it that way will land me in Anchorage within the acceptable mileage for the service.  Bummer, but just the way it has to be.  I’m anticipating a pretty good ferry ride though, it seems very picturesque so lots of photo ops, and someone else to do the cooking.  Least I won’t have to worry about lighting a fire for my dinner.