Wednesday July 8, 2015

Another early start today as we knew we had a long ride. It was a lovely ride we followed the Bull River for a while and then the Elk River into Fernie.

It seems as if we are moving away from the big mountain passes, although we still have Crowsnest Pass to go over.

The road was narrow in places and the shoulder was very variable. Even so the transport trucks gave us lots of room. Not so however for the folks in RV’s and trailers. The best transport company was Bison Transport, all of their drivers moved over even when we had a good shoulder.

We had to go through a tunnel today and I wasn’t looking forward to it. When we got to the area, we stopped and put our lights on, there was a warning light warning motorists that a cyclist was in the tunnel.

Then we rounded the bend where the tunnel started! It wasn’t even 100 metres long.

When we arrived in Fernie, we were surrounded by mountains and the River Elk.

Fernie is a big winter skiing area. We got to our warmshowers house, which she shares with three guys. Victoria was working but her boyfriend Topo made us feel welcome. The house is an old house that needs a lot of work doing to it. It is owned by a fella that is currently living in Australia and had it for sale. Topo said he was asking $389,000 for the house and land and he commented that this was a tear down house, it did have an acre of land but the price was ridiculous. They were happy to live in it as it was cheap rent and they liked living in Fernie.

Ralf went out to get some provisions. Topo mentioned that there was some outdoor entertainment and we were welcome to join him and Victoria. We opted to have dinner at the house and an early night.

Topo told us to watch out for the Frank Slide tomorrow. We told him about the Hope Slide, but he said the Frank Slide is the worst slide in Western Canada. He recommended going to the Visitor’s Centre. We will have to see how we feel after climbing Crowsnest Pass.