Garden Bay to Victoria – August 14 2022
Leaving Garden Bay we drove down the coast to Gibsons, caught the Langdale ferry to Horseshoe Bay and then the Horseshoe Bay ferry to Departure Bay in Nanaimo. We then drove a short distance from the ferry terminal to Living Forest RV Resort.
We had stayed in this resort before when we had our previous camper. Pleasant enough. It has a nice cafe with a patio where you can sip coffees or eat light meals or icecream while you take in a lovely view of the ocean.
The next day we drove to Victoria and Pedder Bay resort. We especially chose Pedder Bay as it was close to the Prestige hotel where our good friends David and Kristy were going to get married. Derek was master of ceremonies and we had been preparing a poem for him to read out at the wedding while he worked on his speech. There was a week’s worth of events around the wedding that we were looking forward to.
The next day I went to the mall to buy some new sandels for a dress I had especially bought for the wedding when we were in the States and to treat myself to a manicure and pedicure. That evening I felt like I had a severe allergy reaction to the wine I was drinking. I brushed it off thinking that the wine might have been loaded with sulphates which always seem to affect me. The following morning we went for a 4 km walk around Matheson Lake with Jax which I really struggled with. I felt really wiped and off when we returned to the RV and decided to do a rapid COVID test only to find I was positive. I was devastated! We were supposed to go to David and Kristy for a BBQ that evening, the practice dinner was the following night and the wedding the following. Instead, I had to retreat to the bedroom and rest. What followed was a week of hell. I couldn’t make any of the wedding events and as COVID spread it infected my throat which felt like I had swallowed razor blades. I just cried all the time. David and Kristy were very understanding and I was at least able to watch their wonderful wedding ceremony from my bed as it was life streamed. Derek somehow managed to stay COVID negative and was able to fulfill his master of ceremony obligations but on the way home from the wedding started to feel off too. Unfortunately he also tested positive the next day. So we spent the next week, each in our respective areas of the RV. Me in the bedroom and him in the living room. Luckily Lucy has recovered from her bout of COVID and was able to take Jax for a few days, giving us time to recover. Recovery was slow for both of us. I lost my voice for about a week and continued to cough, and we both felt absolutely wiped. We were going to have a family BBQ to celebrate Lucy’s birthday but had to postpone that.
We had planned to leave Pedder Bay after the wedding and spend a couple of week’s at Country Maples in Duncan on our way to Campbell River on the island. However, we were in no shape to go anywhere. So we decided instead, to just move the RV to Fort Victoria so we could at least be more central. Pedder Bay resort was in Sooke and really far from everything.
It worked out well in the end as we were able to eventually catch up with David and Kristy and the family again once we were COVID free. Derek had infected Kristy but she managed to bounce back quite quickly. We also made up to Lucy by renting a boat and taking her and Liam for a boat ride in the Pedder bay area for a couple of hours.
It certainly makes you realize how precious your health is and also that COVID is still very much around. We had become quite complacent and all it needed was touching something in the mall to get sick. Its back to masks and hand sanitizer for us again.
