Page 14 of The Trip of a Lifetime

‘Martha and Erin, lovely to meet you,’ I said. ‘Are there bus or train links going further north from Whistler, do you know?’

I opened the corner of the map to check where Whistler was and could see it was in the right direction at least.

‘Limited, but you won’t get a train out of Vancouver all the way to Prince Rupert either. You have to go via Jasper but that train only runs a couple of times a week. You could get a bus but you’d be looking at around three hundred dollars each and there’s lots of changes.’

‘No coaches? No trains?’ Erin asked. ‘Nothing at all?’

‘No, nothing easy or direct. Canadians are used to car-sharing. You could get lucky at a gas station,’ said the man from the passenger seat. ‘I’m Jack.’

I hesitated for a moment. Getting a lift back to the city was one thing but driving off into the unknown was something else. Car-sharing sounded so much nicer than hitch-hiking, but fundamentally that was exactly what it was, but just with payment towards fuel expected. It was quite a stretch to get all that way on the kindness of strangers, but while the others were walking out of the park and back to the city to find out there was no easy or cheap public transport, we had a solid lift, even if only for a short way. If the worst came to the worst, we could blow some of our budget on a taxi or a hire car further north.

‘Okay,’ I said, looking at Erin. ‘I think we should go for it.’

‘Jump in, ladies. Happy to help,’ said Jack.

‘My husband loves a damsel in distress. Or two,’ said Carol.

‘You are both wonderful,’ I said and pulled open the side door. ‘Our camera guy, Noah, will have to come too, if that’s okay.’

‘No problem,’ they both said together.

That was when I saw their dog. It was smiling, I’m pretty sure it was smiling, but just with its teeth.

‘Now don’t you be worrying about old King there. He’s a pussycat really,’ Jack said.

I glanced at Erin who looked straight back at me, slightly wild-eyed. Erin had an allergy to pet hair and it was the only reason I’d never got the cat I’d so dearly like. I was about to say that we couldn’t possibly get in with the dog. I did also wonder if Jack would consider giving up the passenger seat in the front for her, but she shook her head.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she whispered.

‘Sure?’

‘Yeah.’

We sidled past the huge dog who refused to move from the doorway and slid into the seats behind the couple. Noah got some footage of King and then joined us.

‘See you in Whistler,’ Cally said and closed the door on us. She was going back to her producer car to follow us.

The overwhelming smell of dog invaded my senses as we joined the main road but I tried to push it to the back of my mind and opened the map on the table.

‘So, you’re on a TV show,’ the woman said. ‘Have I heard of it?’

‘The Trip of a Lifetime,’ Erin said just as King walked over to her and laid his head in her lap. He looked like a cross between a Labrador and a Rottweiler. A sort of soppy but potentially dangerous animal. Erin’s eyes widened and locked onto mine as she tucked her hands behind her back, keen to keep her digits intact and hopefully to stop her eyes from itching and her nose from running. ‘It’s a British show. It’s actually our first day. We’ve got to get to St John’s eventually, but Tlell in Haida Gwaii to start with.’

Jack let out a long whistle from the front. ‘That’s a heck of a long way, ladies. Do you realise how far that is? It’s gotta be, what? Eight, nine thousand kilometres to Newfoundland.’

‘Yep,’ I said. ‘That’s the show.’

‘And Tlell, that’s a good couple of days driving and sailing in the wrong direction for St John’s.’

‘Is it?’ Erin asked. ‘Haida Gwaii didn’t look that far on the map.’

‘I can tell you it’s about 1,500 kilometres north,’ Jack said.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Erin. ‘I think I need to take another look at that map.’

‘You both gotta be mad,’ Carol said and chuckled while shaking her head.

We settled back and took in the scenery as we headed north out of Vancouver. We had water to the left of us with a line of fir trees bordering the road and a rocky embankment to our right. In the distance there were mountains. Some were covered in trees and others with snow-capped peaks. And without a cloud in it, the sky appeared vast.