BC Road Trip on a Budget // Hasta Alaska // S04E11

Last time on Astra Alaska we continued our Pan American journey exploring the Pacific Northwestern states of Oregon and Washington. We learned how to cope with van life when the weather turns cold and dealt with quite a few road dramas. This time we're entering Canada and we're on the search for more Combi Crew members. We're curious to know who we'll pick up and what we'll discover in this enormous country. This episode is proudly supported by Earth Spirit V-Dub R&R. It's Canada! Crossing into Canada was pretty exciting. It was the 28th international border crossing since I started driving north and the last new country on this expedition. Um what have you done with the dog? Alaska! Ben how do you feel about the fact that the police is going through your house? We made the crossing to Vancouver Island with the current Combi Crew including myself, Bru and Sara who had just received some good news. Speech! Speech! It took seven years but um... Seven years finally completed your law degree whilst living in a V-Dub bus. Yep that's the normal story. Congratulations! Welcome to Canada! You're a lawyer! High five! Vancouver Island is a very special place but there aren't a lot of options for free camping. Which we found out the hard way. This is our second ticket today from the police. Just got another ticket. $200 for camping on the beach. $200 for vehicle used for camping. $400. Someone around here keeps calling them because they went and then came back five minutes later to tell us to take the tent down because we weren't quick enough to leave. So the people obviously complained twice. It's just ridiculous. I mean it wouldn't be so bad but like the options for camping around here minimum $28, $50 or $46. Who pays $50 to sleep on the ground? I mean if you're not going to make something cheaper available like don't expect us to... it's going to happen. We're going to be sleeping in the car like you can't be paying $50 a night every night for three and a half years. You work out the maths. Yeah that's way too much. Let's go exploring. We met up with a bunch of fellow travellers and locals at a couch surfing meeting where we met Jack from Japan who decided to jump into the Kombi for an adventure. This is why I love travelling with like people from different countries. Jack here from Japan suddenly got the urge to climb up this quarry and play the Japanese finger whistle from up there. High quality Japanese finger whistle. I'm going to learn how to do that. We heard that there was a barbecue happening on the island and it was being hosted by a very special man who was doing a very special thing. Well what we did is we we bought a van and my son and I we fix up vans as a hobby. So we made this contest the Clementine contest and called Be The Bus and we had people ride in until March 17th midnight and we got almost 500 letters from around the world. We whittled it down to one entry which we call our Forrest Gump entry. It was a fellow named Patrick. We got together to give the van away and he's going to keep it for a year and then next year we're going to put it to a new steward and then just keep people interested in adventuring and getting out in nature and connecting with really the essence of like living. The other reason the barbecue was special is because Leah rejoined the Kombi after nine months away. Leah and I first met in a town in Mexico. She and her friend Bell invited myself and the Kombi crew into their apartment to use their swimming pool. We in return invited them for a road trip in the Kombi. The night would be one that we would never forget and honestly enough to discourage even the hardiest of travellers. But just a couple of months later Leah rejoined the crew in the USA for more Kombi life adventures in California. So here in Canada is actually the third time that Leah has joined the Kombi crew and who knows how long she'll stay this time. With so many people coming and going in the Kombi even Alaska loses track of who is important but Leah is a true Kombi life all-star. Her contribution to keeping the show running smoothly cannot be understated and we were stoked that our paths had crossed once again. Before we left Joseph and his son Zach they gave the Kombi a thorough safety review which was incredibly kind because we'd been having quite a few issues on the road. Look at all those modern cars going past. The speed of light compared to Capito. Alaska is a long way off when you're breaking down several times a day. You wouldn't believe this but it's the same thing that went wrong in Oregon. Basically shoddy workmanship. The rivets in this are loose so that it moves like this and what's happening is the terminals here have cracked. Unbelievable man. It's like this is the third one we've had in about three weeks. Should be a pretty easy fix though but it's just frustrating. The stunning town of Tofina was as far north as we would make it on this Vancouver Island road trip. It really is a special place. The only downside of the island is that it can be very expensive but luckily for us we were experts in finding free entertainment. We wanted to do some paddleboarding and kayaking and everything in Tofino but it's just been so expensive we've pretty much been priced out of it so we're going to build our own raft using this Eno tarp. We will be floating on this lake, Lake Kennedy. Sara here has been appointed team captain, project leader of raft building because she's basically super scout lady from Finland and has the best knot tying skills. Yeah I'm a Finnish champion in scouting skills four times. Is that true? Yeah. I thought it might have been. As if combi life isn't already a big enough team building exercise we can't even close our tool box without a team effort. Another free activity is one that Tofino is famous for and one that we're kind of partial to. We're just about to go for our first surf in Canada in the famous Tofino, the surf spot in Canada. Can't wait to get in the water. It's been way too long. We didn't get to surf in Oregon nor in Washington unfortunately so it is long overdue. Let's hit the waves baby. Jack what are you doing? Dancing. Octopus dance? This surf in Canada marks a momentous milestone for me. I have basically now surfed every country that I have seen a wave on this trip. I have surfed Canada, the States, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile. That's pretty cool. We also heard about a really cool hike with an unusual surprise at the end. A World War II plane isn't exactly what you'd expect to find on a hike but it was pretty cool. Caution, replace dural screws with steel bolts when installing external bomb racks. Why do you think this is here? I think it crashed. Who was flying it? Somebody very drunk by the looks of it. A lot of beer cans. Yeah see, evidence is here look. That's why it crashed. And it's Japanese beer. In the end we never did find out the story behind the wreckage only that it was a part of history that the locals wanted to keep here in the forest so you can visit it too if you can find it. Vancouver Island is an awesome place to explore and it was a wonderful place to begin our Canadian adventure. The scenery is breathtaking, the opportunity for fun never-ending and the locals extremely welcoming. For a moment we were a little travel family and it was hard when we had to say goodbye. This is the last that we'd see of Jack and Bru. They were to stay on the island a little longer whilst we headed to the mainland where unfortunately we would also be saying goodbye to Sara. Sara will always be a special character in this story and in our hearts. When she joined for a week three months earlier in San Diego we had no idea of the memories that we would create together or what a huge help she would be in Kombi Life. From finding new crew members to helping with the videos and filming, Sara was a real asset to Kombi Life both in front and behind the camera and we were sad to see her go. Thank you man. Thank you Sara. It's been great. This means I have to start doing the washing up again. Yeah I'm crying because I can't smell your farts anymore. We had a brief stop in Whistler, a town that I used to live in during winter but it might actually be more fun in the summer. Very special, especially when you slip right through your alarm clock again. Don't keep us It was great to see old friends in Whistler. I met Sandy in New Zealand years earlier whilst we were on a road trip together. There she met Morgan so it was really great to see that they were still together and more importantly both still loving adventures. Sandy and Morgan took us to a truly stunning free camp spot and got us excited for what else Canada has in store for us. Before we left the Whistler area we added another member to the Kombi crew, Vancouver local Ariana. So how did I come to be in the Kombi? I've been following Ben and other YouTubers for quite a while and I saw Ben had posted something on Facebook about joining him on the Kombi so I thought why not? We headed east towards Banff and the drive was beautiful although at the time we were crossing Canada the west coast was experiencing one of the driest seasons on record. Woke up today to this real misty weather only this isn't mist this is smoke you can smell it in the air you can see it everywhere for miles. Trouble is when you're living off the grid we don't know where the fires are. Are we driving towards them or are we driving away from them? With fires breaking out all around us this wasn't the best time to get a fuel leak in the Kombi. On most cars the engine is up front and the gas tank's in the back that's for good reason because you don't want a big tank of gas right next to the thing that could cause a fire. In a bus the engine and the tank is right next to each other in a Brazilian bus there is no firewall often you'll see a wall in between the tank here and the engine so that gives you extra time if there's a fire. I've always been paranoid about fire in this journey and yesterday when I went to check the oil I noticed there was a big puddle of gas on the side here just started dripping. The o-rings on our injectors have basically failed they were all like kind of like leaking and crappy. Unfortunately we weren't able to find any o-rings in the in the town we were in so we had to use sandpaper to fix the o-ring as best as possible put it back in there wasn't a leak and then drive. Every time we smell gas jump out and like see if it's leaking it hasn't leaked fortunately but it's kind of really scary because I know how quickly this thing could go up and it would be literally if a fire happened it would be everybody out and say goodbye to Asta Alaska. Given the situation we decided to thoroughly refute our combi for potential fire hazards. This is the old one this is the new one you can see this one's a wee bit rusty and was charged in 2012 so it's definitely no good. I don't even know if there's anything in there anymore the good thing is there's a gauge that tells you whether it's still good or not you can just move it if it's out if it's out of the uh the green line you just move it a little bit and it's back in the green line so it's probably fine right. We certainly felt happier and a lot safer in the combi with a new extinguisher but if at the time we had known what was about to happen in the coming months maybe we wouldn't have been so happy after all. Next time on Asta Alaska we're heading east through British Columbia to discover what small town mountain life is all about. We'll be pushing on to the province of Alberta for an authentic rocky mountain experience and there we'll be preparing for our final push to Alaska.