It has been quite the ride at our House Hunting trip last week. Yes, literally. 9:30am-6pm. And that's only to Port McNeill.
People have limited attention span these days and I am pretty busy with 3 weeks to go, so let me just keep the rest of this post in point form. These are our first impressions...
Highlights of Port Hardy:
- There is no traffic light in town that I remember, and there is no traffic. No parking meters to worry about.
- Almost all roads we have been on so far are paved, except for Stories Beach Rd.
- Good Halloween spirit...you know, like families and kids all dressed up to go trick or treating, door to door. Really enjoyed seeing that.
- 15 minutes of impressive fireworks display right in front of you on Halloween night, with ample free parking, free hot chocolate and a huge bonfire.
- 2 Japanese (sushi) restaurants, both decent
- 1 Chinese restaurant (with an American menu too), not bad
- There is a pier and a nice boardwalk along the waterfront.
- There is a decent recreation centre with 2 outdoor tennis courts and 1 nice skating/hockey rink, and also an auditorium/theatre that I am sure has events throughout the year.
- Library has good spaces for spending time there and has good wifi.
- Nice cafe with bookstore and gift shop.
- A nice, completely renovated house in a good neighbourhood can be purchased in the low $300K range.
Lowlights of Port Hardy:
- The cable companies sold out of Internet bandwidth! With no ETA of expansion completion!
- The only Internet options for new subscribers are Satellite or Mobile Internet, and sacrifices will have to be made about speed, monthly cap, response time.
- There is no cell phone signal from any carrier between Campbell River and Port McNeill.
- There is only one channel you can receive on FM radio - CBC. Mostly news and talk shows.
- There is no OB/GYN in town, so women have to go down island e.g.
Nanaimo/Victoria, by a certain time in their pregnancy and to eventually
give birth.
- A 20-min drive (to a neighbouring town) feels much longer here because of the lack of landmarks.
- There is one gym selling membership in town and it is occupying the gymnasium in one of the elementary schools that is now closed down. It has a yoga/group exercise area but it is not partitioned off and I don't think I see mirrors that help with posture.
- Other than housing, everything does seem to be more expensive here, and of course, choices are limited.
The shock was there...but not a show stopper...and here is a silver lining I just found thanks to The Source calling me today about the schedule of my satellite Internet installation!
Free TV offered by Shaw Direct - Local Television Satellite Solution (LTSS)
http://www.tjfworks.ca/ltss.html
http://dudewhereismytv.wordpress.com/shaws-local-television-satellite-solution-ltss-program/
-- if I sign up before Nov 30, 2013, I will have free basic TV in Port Hardy! Perks of being in a remote town! :)
