Saturday 25th. "The Longest Day."

Saturday 25th August

Friday was another very long day, consisting mainly of running around and trying to pack and get together all our paper work and we finally retired at about 2.00am. Saturday saw an early start for some of us – namely Nix, as she was up at 6am typing up the last of the notes for the inventory – a humungous document in length and vital to ensure we entered Canada all ship shape and in Bristol fashion. I joined Nix at 7.30am to finish off the packing and load the cars for the trip to the airport. Having said farewell to David and Lynda we headed for Gatwick. I must confess I was not looking forward to the whole flying experience – two adults, two kids – eighteen bags and two bikes – was post 9/11 Gatwick ready for us – I doubted it.

The look on the woman’s face at the check-in desk was a picture ‘are you lot immigrating or something?’ … well, I have to admit all went smoothly and they only charged me £550 excess baggage – not bad for 300 kgs of baggage!!!

After what we had been through over the last week a nine hour flight was a stroll in the park … but during that time I could not stop thinking about what lay in wait for us at Vancouver airport – the dreaded and in my mind the now legendary immigration landing procedure. I had heard tales of rubber gloves, bright lights and time periods of 4-6 hours to clear customs – I was not looking forward to this one iota. So we collected all eighteen bags and two bikes – a small miracle in itself and headed for immigration …
What no queue – are we in the right place? ‘Next please’ said the nice man – here we go … ‘How much cash have you got on you?’ He asked to which I replied about 15K. … That’s ok then … come on in … welcome to Canada …

The van I had booked to collect all our paraphernalia failed to show – but nothing that two taxis and a hire car couldn’t solve – It must have looked like President Bush had come to town when our motorcade pulled out of the airport.

We found our little house in North Van! in good time and the previous two summer camping trips held us in good stead as we had those air beds and sleeping bags out in record time. Good night Johnboy, Ma, Pa, etc. What a day!