Thursday July 2, 2015

A long ride up and over Bonanza Pass 1553 metres – This sign was at the bottom of the pass, preparing us for what was to come. We didn’t need to put the chains on the bicycles or experience any inclement weather.

It took us an hour to do the first 20 kms and then almost three hours to do the next 35 kms, the last 35 kms were fast and downhill.

I had looked at the elevation gain on google maps last night and decided that when we got to Paulson we should be nearly at the top. When we came to the Paulson Bridge, elevation 1,106 m, I realized we still had another 450 metres of climbing.

Will these mountain passes ever end?

Apparently we had to get to Paulson Summit not Paulson Bridge.

As we went down the other side we saw three touring cyclists. They had spotted the moose in the water across the road. The three guys were from Switzerland and were heading for Nelson.

The moose had found something tasty in the water because it kept putting its head under the water and then coming up for air and then going back down again.

We arrived at Nancy Greene Park at 12:30, we were going to camp here for the night, but both of us were feeling surprisingly good, so we decided to carry on to Castlegar. At this point however, we had just about run out of water, so I asked at a camper if they had any water they could spare and they gave us six bottles to make sure that all our water bottles were full!

We arrived in Castlegar at about 2:00. After visiting the Tourist Info office, we had lunch and then headed out to the grocery store and the camp site.

It was hot when we came down the hill into Castlegar, I was tempted to suggest a motel, but we are on budget and if we can save any money I want to use it for a nice meal in a fancy restaurant on our anniversary.

We spotted our first bear today, a little bear cub. We kept on peddling, you never know where momma bear is and we didn’t have the protection of a car to run to if she turned up while we were taking photos of her baby.

My back tire is still giving me problems, we kept having to stop to put more air into it. There is no point me changing the inner-tube, as that will go flat as well, we need a new tire. Castlegar does not have a bike shop, but Nelson does. Hopefully they have Schwalbe Marathon’s.

The campsite has a man made beach and a small lake, Ralf has gone for a swim.

We met up with the group of cyclists from last night’s campsite. They are cycling a circle route around southern BC and northern Washington. They invited us over for a beer and a chat.

Met another couple Ed and Lynne who met at Eastview School in Barrie (small world). They are following the TransCanada Trail and not enjoying it very much, it is rough going and often soft so they have to get off and push. Lynne doesn\’t like riding on the road with the traffic.

Wednesday July 1, 2015

Another early start (7:00) on the road. Just after we left the campsite we spotted two touring cyclists doing a circle route of BC. She had cycled the Pacific Coast Highway last summer and really enjoyed it – “got hooked”.

We came into the smallest City in BC – Greenwood.

During its hey day in the late 1890’s the City had 14 hotels, two newspapers, two banks and a 1,000 seat opera house. The City thrived on the copper smelter.

On this route, there are nice rest areas.  This is one of them, the next one is 57 kms down the road.

Today’s climb was a 41 km climb, but a very easy 2% grade at maximum. We only reached a high of 1,023 metres and the elevation was 633 metres – easy peasey, lemon squeesy.

What was really easy was the downhill, I didn’t peddle for 11 kms!. The downhill grade was about 5% and not too many twists and turns.

As we came down the hill towards Grand Forks, I spotted the sign for the Dukhobors Mill. The Dukhobors were Russian pacifist who left Russia and first settled in Saskatchewan, they then moved en-masse to BC.

We had a great tour by the young man who was volunteering at the site.

I chatted to a lovely couple outside of the grocery store. The gentleman started the conversation with “You must be hard core cyclists – Brook saddles”. He explained that when he was younger the “upgrade” on the road bike was a Brooks saddle, which meant you were a hardcore cyclist.

Today was a day for meeting lovely people. Our neighbours in the campsite are from Washington State. They are here in Grand Forks because their son is in a baseball tournament here. Helen and I had a lovely conversation about our ride. She asked me what I would do when we go through Barrie. I told her Ralf is concerned I might want to stop. She told me not to go through Barrie as it might be too tempting to stop.

There is also another group of cyclists here, they are being supported, they are from the US and Canada and one Kiwi.

It was a lovely campsite, adjacent to the river. After we set up the tent we went for a lovely swim in the river. The current was quite strong, so I stayed in the shallows.

Ralf hates camping too many bloodsuckers out there, he has just come into the tent complaining about being eaten alive.

Tuesday June 30, 2015

We were up at 5:00 this morning and on the road by 6:45 am earliest start for a long time. The climbing started as soon as we got on to Highway 3 and continued for 31 kms!!

It was tough going, but I made it all the way without walking. I was very proud of myself when we got to the summit sign.

If someone told me 18 months ago that I would cycling up a hill for 31 kilometres with an average grade of 5% to 6.5% and that the elevation gain was going to be over a thousand metres, I would have said they were crazy.

I really don’t like cycling up hills and when we were at home I would avoid them as much as possible. Only when we were training for a ride that I knew was going to be hilly for example when we went to the Finger Lakes in New York State, only then would I cycle the hills in the area around Barrie. Now here I am routinely cycling 20 and 30 kms up hill without a break. I must be crazy.  Although I am not keen on the hills the scenery is well worth the effort.  I even spotted two deers as we came up the hill.  Ralf stopped to take a photo and then shooed them into the bushes, they were too close to the road for comfort.

As we climbed up Anarchist Mountain there was an area that was being developed.  The roads were in and so were the entrance signs to each \”Estate Area\”  each \”sign\” was a bronze statue depicting the name of the street or area.

We only saw two houses in the whole area.

The scenery was mountains and forestry, until we reached the summit and then it changed quite dramatically to rolling hills and farm land.

There were a number of possible Peddlers Rest – some needed some work.

As we dropped down from 1,223 metres to 531 metres I could feel my ears popping.

I had to stop at one point to equalize them.

We arrived at Kettle Creek and Rock Creek village and discovered it used to be part of a gold rush in 1858. Gold was found in the creek and $200,000 worth of gold was removed from the creek. We had a look at the water but couldn’t see any big chunks of gold so carried on to the Kettle Creek Valley Golf Course where we had lunch.

We met a very nice couple (the Reimer’s) they have travelled a lot in their RV and have now settled in Kelowna (for the summer). They go to California in the winter.

We chatted to them for an hour about their travels and ours. We had another couple of kilometres to go and they had to finish their round of golf.

We got to the Kettle Valley RV and Villas campsite. It is very nice and clean. We set up our tent near the shower facilities, we are the only tent here, the rest are RVs. We arrived at about 1:00, settled in and did a load of laundry, it is hanging to dry between two trees.

I mentioned to Ralf that I hoped the RVers didn’t disturb us with their noisy doors etc. Ralf indicated that he was sure that they were shocked at the owners allowing us to stay on this lovely site, hanging our washing out like the Clampetts.

After dinner, one of the RVers came over to our area and started chatting to us. She said curiosity got the better of her and she wanted to know what we were doing and why? She invited us over to the RV to meet her hubby and chat some more, but we had to have another early night.

The temperature today was very bearable, while we were going up the hill we were primarily in shade. The top temperature was 32 degrees and there is a nice breeze blowing at the moment. It may drop down to a comfortable 12 degrees tonight.

There is a weird bird wandering around the campsite, it is very skittish, Ralf couldn\’t get a photo of the silly thing. It makes a ka kah koo sound and has a crest on its head, it runs around and doesn’t fly much. Google is amazing it is a California Quail.

As we were getting ready for bed a thunderstorm came directly over us, no rain fell on us, but we could see the rain on the hills to the west of us.

Monday June 29, 2015

A lovely rest day in Osoyoos. We had a good night’s sleep and a nice lie-in. I made cheesy omelets for breakfast, lovely. The wi-fi was not very good in our room, I spent a couple of hours sitting near the office so that I could get things up to date.

The lake is just across the road from the motel/campsite.  Along this road (Lakeshore Drive) there are a number of resorts, motels and campsites.  It is a very busy area.

At the turn off to Lakeshore Drive is this very large windmill, yesterday Ralf was busy looking at the map/garmin and I spotted the windmill.  I got to choose wine or beer – wine it was, a nice bottle of Pino Grigio from the area.

At about 11:30 we decided to ride into Town for lunch and to get groceries for dinner. My back tire was running a little low on air again so we popped into the local bike shop and got the inner-tube replaced, the mechanic picked out lots of little metal filings from my back tire. I am so pleased that the tire didn’t go flat on one of the hills that we have been coming across. There is nothing more frustrating and annoying than having to get all the panniers off and change the tire on the side of the road, even worse if you are on a hill.

Highway 3 runs through the downtown core of Osoyoos. It is a nice downtown with some nice shops and a couple of restaurants and cafes. We had a wander up and down the street and then headed back to the grocery store for dinner supplies. Menu Option # 3 – chicken stir-fry with lots of veges and rice.

Ralf took a short ride to the end of the road and found that it changed from resorts to vineyards and apple orchards.

We were in bed early because we need to get an early start with the heat-wave that is hitting the Okanagan Valley. We have a big hill to climb in the morning – 25 kms of up hill!! OMG.

Sunday June 28, 2015

Another hot day of riding in beautiful British Columbia. When we left the campsite at 7:15 am the temperature was already 25 degrees! There is a short 8% hill leaving Keremeos, where you get a great view of the Town.

We had a great tail-wind pushing us along as we left Keremeos.

We cycled through the Okanagan Highlands and Valley which has a number of vineyards and is a good farming area.

One Vineyard was called Twisted Hills, and was in the area of this hill range.

We also saw a lot of ‘protest’ signs not wanting a National Park. My first response was why would you not want to protect an area for future generations. I googled National Parks and this is what I found.

“National parks are protected under the federal Canada National Parks Act from all forms of industrial development including mining, forestry, oil and natural gas exploration and development, and hydro-electric development, as well as commercially extractive activities such as sport hunting. The emphasis is on providing activities consistent with the protection of park resources while providing exceptional visitor opportunities”.

The Okanagan Valley and Okanagan Highlands are a large tourist area, which brings thousands of people to this area for wine tours etc. If this area was to become a National Park I wonder how it would effect the development of the area. Obviously these people are concerned.

We saw three separate forest fires today, this one in the hills surrounding Eagle Valley. Last night there was a thunder storm in Keremeos and Osoyoos, that is what probably ignited the tinder dry area.

Ralf and I love to look at old farm buildings, the building materials used and the character of them depicts the hardship that early settlers had to go through. We really liked the look of this run-down old building and wondered how much it would take to renovate it.

We often think of these things as we have cycled along around the world. Could we live here? What would we do to earn a living? Could we create our own Peddlers Rest? – like the one we stayed at in New Zealand. Although we are still a long way from finishing these questions are coming up more often than I want to think about right now. One side of me wants to carry on cycling and not settle down until we have to, the other side of me is ready to stop cycling and settle into a ‘normal’ life again, but not sure that I will be able to settle down.  For Ralf, normal is mundane – he wants to carry on.  Even though he doesn\’t like camping 100% of the time.

The hills for the most part were manageable although there was one long one – 7 kms of a 6% to 7% grade. There was no shade and it was stinking hot. Ralf stopped a couple of times to take photos, I kept pedaling on. We got to the top and there was an outcropping of rock where we stopped for a break and some shade.

There was an historic sign depicting information on Spotted Lake, we are not quite sure why the sign was located where it was, as Spotted Lake was down the hill about 2 kms away from the sign.

The lake is something I have never seen before. Apparently, the lake has been used historically by the local Indian Band for healing purposes, it is considered to be one of the most highly mineralized inland lakes in the world. The minerals evaporate in the summer and crystalize forming white-ringed circles. The minerals consist of Epsom salts, calcium, sodium sulphates and trace minerals such as silver and titanium.

We had a lovely downhill coming into Osoyoos, and it was incredibly hot by the time we arrived at the Tim Hortons.

Osoyoos Lake is a big tourist destination and has a variety of motels, hotels and campsites available. We had found one on-line last night and reserved a camp-site for tonight.

We had an early lunch and headed to the grocery store and campsite. I waited outside the grocery store and chatted to a lovely older couple, who told me we were amazing and that we were right to live life now, you never know what might happen. Another woman told me we were inspirational. I was a hot sweaty mess, but felt really good about what we are doing.

While Ralf was in the store, I was watching three water bombers (airplanes), flying around picking up water and releasing it over the fire that was burning on the mountain just outside of the Town.

We carried on to the campsite, by which time the temperature had soared to 43 degrees. The campsite was a motel and campsite, we opted for a motel room, with air-conditioning, the temperature in the sun was 47 degrees.

This robin was trying to keep cool under the roof of the office building.

After we had settled into the room, I went over to pay. I noticed the owner had a beer and asked if we could buy a couple from him. Of course, he is not allowed to sell beer and had pop, water etc. for sale. He gave us two beers – bonus.

An afternoon of vegging out, watching a movie, in a relatively cool room – bliss.

Saturday June 27, 2015

Another beautiful day in British Columbia, but hell it’s hot! We knew it was going to be a hot day, and got up earlier and was leaving the campsite by 7:15, no faffing about this morning.

We followed the Similkameen River and Highway 3 for most of the day. The route was mainly downhill with a few little hills to keep us awake.

The first Town we came to was Hedley. A very small town which was a major gold mining centre in its day and now relies on tourism.

We stopped at the small museum and chatted to a guy about the gold mining and copper mining in the area.

The Mascot Mine is perched on the side of the mountain. We had seen what looked like cabins from the road, but we were told that they were the mine entrances.

There was a telescope set up and Ralf took a photograph through the telescope – it turned out quite good.

I asked him why the Sunday market wasn’t open – Answer because it is Saturday!! I was totally convinced it was Sunday today.

We also watched a helicopter – water bombing a small forest fire above the Town.

We carried along Highway 3 and for the most part we had a good shoulder. We have noticed an increase in traffic, mainly campers and RVs, it is holiday season, we will have to be careful.  Of course we have to watch out for the giant sheep that inhabit this area, look at the size of the sheep compared to the car.

Before arriving in Keremeos, a fella warned us about gypsies in Keremeos. I was a little nervous about camping and having to keep my eyes on our gear all night. It turns out they are not gypsies, just scruffy seasonal workers.

There is a lot of fruit picking in the area and a lot of young people come here to pick fruit.

We arrived in Keremeos at 11:15 am, good time for 60+ kms. We were both hungry and decided to have a second breakfast, bacon, eggs and home-fries and toast, that kept us going for a while.

I went into the Tourist Information Centre and the young man was really helpful. He gave me maps of the area and told me where the camp sites were, he also gave me the Provincial Park map so that we know where the Provincial Parks are and where there is camping allowed.

The Grist Mill has camping but does not have any showers. We had passed an RV park and campsite on the way in to Keremeos, Ralf gave them a call and reserved a spot. The private campgrounds have been very reasonably priced, to date, with good facilities and free wi-fi.

We decided to head up to the Grist Mill before going back to the campsite. The Grist Mill and store was built in 1877. With hard work and careful research the Grist Mill and store is back to its former glory. It has an operating waterwheel and flume, the store has been accurately restored, and there is an outdoor summer kitchen. The gardens were lovely, they even had varieties of mint and I discovered a chocolate mint variety.

We stopped in at the apple house – it still smelled of apples. Then I looked behind the door and there was the plug-in scent producer – cheats!

It would have been really nice to have camped in this area, but with this heat, I need a shower at the end of my ride.

We spent about an hour wandering around the site and then headed back to the campsite.

The Eagle RV Park, where we stayed was below a large mountain.  After passing the Hope Slide the other day, we looked up at this mountain and wondered if we would get through the night.  The rocks look very precarious.  If anything happened to make this thing slide, we would be toast, oblivious, but toast.

On the way in to Keremeos we spotted the historic red covered bridge. We didn’t stop and check it out on the way in, but after supper Ralf decided to cycle back to it and check it out. The Red Bridge spans the Similkameen River, it is 310 metres across and is the last known covered bridge in Western Canada.

I was in bed before Ralf, who was reading his book and didn\’t get it finished until 10:45 pm. He did take this shot of the sunsetting on the rocks behind the campsite.

When he came to bed, I was fast asleep.  Ralf often complains that for a little person I take up an awful amount of space.  He took a photo of me to prove that I had my leg on his side and my arm on his pillow, in my defense it was hot and he wasn\’t in bed.

Friday June 26, 2015

The plan was to get up early and be on the road for 7:30 am. We did get up early (5:30), then faffed around getting breakfast and chasing away the Columbian ground squirrels, or yellow bellied marmots that thought we would feed them some of our oatmeal.

These little rodents were not shy and as soon as they saw us setting up for breakfast they were all over us. Even stamping our feet at them did not deter them.

We were on the road at 8:00, and the first 20 kilometres was downhill, what a joy.

We stopped at a little gas station/post office and chatted to the owner.  On the way out we spotted this vehicle, it will never pull this trailer.

We knew we had some climbing to do today, one big pass and three smaller hills.  We climbed 668 metres, a lot less climbing than yesterday. I didn\’t have any problems today, this is the first big pass we crossed.

The scenery was very typical of BC, soaring pines with clean, clear rivers.

It was a beautiful ride. We saw a moose with two babies.  There are actually two babies here, Mum was being protective.

At one of our rest stops, we spotted these wild roses.  You miss this kind of thing in a car, we are able to really stop and smell the roses.

The last hill we crested was opposite Copper Mountain!  Between 1927 and 1996, approximately US$6-billion worth of copper had been dug from the mountains south of town, extracted by at least five corporations, now all long gone. What was left, most traditional assays concluded, wasn\’t worth the cost of pulling out of the ground.

But by 2011, change was on the horizon, driven by both new technologies and distant market forces 9,000 km to the east. Under new management, Copper Mountain again began producing raw copper for export.

I always shake my head when I see signs of \”remediation\”.

We arrived in Princeton at 12:00, as we came down the hill, we could feel the heat rising. The temperature rose by three degrees as we descended into the Town. First things first, we had lunch, then we made our way to the campsite. It is situated about 10 minutes outside of Princeton on the Simikameen River. The owner brought us two camp chairs to sit on and we have been relaxing in the shade all afternoon.

I am currently sitting here in the campsite looking at two deer standing in the river, cooling off. I managed to figure out how to use Ralf\’s camera and got this photo.

Later on in the evening the deer came back to the river and Ralf got this shot – this is why he is the photographer and I am the writer.

It is over 35 degrees in the shade. It is going to be a warm night in the tent. Tomorrow is going to be even hotter.

Thursday June 24, 2015

What a tough ride. Hope is surrounded by mountains and it doesn’t matter which way you go out of Hope you are going to go up!

We started climbing almost as soon as we left Hope, a steady 7% grade for about 15 kms. We had climbed to 721 metres from sea level, then we started to go downhill to Sunshine Valley. I didn’t want to lose all the climbing we had gained, because I knew our total elevation today was going to be 1,497 metres. But – we went downhill!! Fortunately we didn’t lose too much, it gave us a nice break from climbing and we went through the valley for about 10 kms.

The Hope Slide, this landslide occurred on January 9, 1965.  It is the largest historic slide in western Canada. NZ they are called slips, Canada calls them slides. Half of the mountain broke away. It buried Highway 3 to a depth of up to 79 m and claimed the lives of four motorists.

The temperature started to rise as we started to climb again. A combination of the hills and the heat got to me and I had to stop a few times. Ralf was really supportive, at one point I had looked ahead and seen a curve in the road, I was aiming for that. Ralf gently encouraged me to get to the curve – he was hoping it would level off there – so was I.

It didn’t but we took a break anyway. About 5 kilometres before cresting Alison’s Pass at an elevation of 1,497 metres we did a combination of walking and cycling. Ralf suggested we cycle for 2 kms and walk for 1 k. However, after we had cycled the first 2 ks we crested Alison’s Pass.

This is how I actually looked.

We hurtled down the other side of the Pass to the Provincial Park.

During our ride we were passed by a number of classic cars and kit cars – all on the way to Penticton for a week-end car show.

We stayed at the Manning Provincial Park which was established in 1941 the park was named in memory of Ernest C. Manning, Chief Forester of British Columbia from 1936 – 1941. During his time as Chief Forester he was very instrumental in developing the idea of setting land aside for future generations to enjoy. The Park has a great lodge to stay in and we were tempted, but not at $110.00 incl taxes per night. There was a campsite we could stay at 1 km back up the hill, or another campsite 5 kms down the hill. When I came out of the lodge Ralf had been chatting to one of the Park Rangers. I asked him about the vacancy rate at the campsite down the hill. He told us about the Horse Corral – we could pitch our tent for $25.00 use all the facilities at the lodge which included showers, hot tub, swimming pool and wi-fi. Much better than cycling 5 ks and only have a pitch, and no showers.

Unfortunately, they didn’t tell us the showers were cold showers, we didn’t have our swim gear for the hot-tub (which was closed), so we froze our little white tushes off in the shower. Both of us commented that we got freezer head from the coldness of the water. We were able to buy some beer from the store at a reasonable price, if you don’t mind paying extra for chiller fees! Yep you pay extra for it coming out of the fridge!

I think we will sleep well tonight. We are going to try and get up early to beat the heat.

Wednesday June 24, 2015

After yesterday’s tedious ride getting out of Greater Vancouver, today’s ride was a joy. Although it was a long day in the saddle, it was a lovely ride along the Fraser Valley. As we cycled through the downtown core of Mission, it seemed a little run-down.  We did spot a very nice Sikh Temple which rather surprised us.

We had the wind at our back, there were no major hills to speak of and I remember coming along this route with my Dad on the train. When we came through this area there was a lot of snow on the mountains -it was middle of May.

I kept looking for the Rocky Mountaineer Train but it travels on the other side of the Fraser River.

The only Town we went through was Agassiz where we stopped for lunch and texted our warmshowers host.

Is this what the ride is going to be like all the way? the wind at our back, the sun in our face and awesome scenery. Going west to east we are supposed to have tail-winds.

Do you notice anything strange about this \”tree\”.  It isn\’t a tree it is a repeater tower.

About 15 kms outside of Hope we spotted our first touring cyclist going in the opposite direction. We slowed down and crossed the road to chat to him, he had slowed down as well. We had a great chat with Martin who was from Germany. He was cycling a circle route of BC, but was hitting major headwinds on his return to Vancouver. He said he was hoping to get to Mission that night. It was about 1:30 and getting hot, we only had 15 kms to go and would be finished for the day and he had brutal headwinds and another 78 kms to go, I hope he made it. He commented on the fact that it was nice that Ralf and I were able to cycle together. His wife was very small and only liked to cycle shorter distances. Then he looked at me and said \”but you are very small as well, what height are you\”? I told him and he said \”can I take a photo of you, you are the same size as my wife\”.

I can imagine the conversation back in Germany – “See this woman is very small and she has cycled around the world, you can cycle too”.   I wonder what her response will be, if I feel sharp pains, I know that she has made an effigy of me and is stabbing it.

We arrived in Hope after crossing the Fraser River, it is quite high and very fast flowing.

We spent some time exploring the area as our warmshowers host would not be home for an hour or so. Hope has a great library and recreation centre and a curling club. The employment is primarily schools, hospitals etc although it once had a thriving lumber industry.

Our host (Hilary) indicated on her profile that she didn’t provide an evening meal as she had so many touring cyclists. Ralf and I were at the grocery store, when Hilary spotted us. She told us she was making dinner for us and hoped we liked it. We offered to buy beer or wine, but she said she had enough, we didn’t need to get anything. We were expecting to cook our own dinner and once again we have been surprised by the kindness of strangers.

Ralf got supplies for tomorrow night as we are staying at the Manning Provincial Park and we will have to cook for ourselves – Menu Option # 1 – pasta, sauce and tuna.

When we arrived at Hilary and Peter’s place we were shown a lovely basement apartment. Hilary told us to make ourselves at home. We cleaned our bikes and did a load of laundry. After making ourselves clean and presentable we went upstairs and chatted with Peter and Hilary. They have two crazy dogs. Gander a black mutt was a “prison dog”. The local women’s prison, socializes dogs so that they can be adopted into a family. The perspective owner has to have three meetings with the dog and the inmate who has trained the dog. Gander was much calmer than Cain, who liked to bring you stuff, socks, shoes etc.

We had a lovely evening with Hilary and Peter, chatting about their ride across Canada last year. Hilary had done a lot of week long tours with a group of women who have been doing it for years. The ride last year was the first long-distance self-supported ride for Peter, and he seems to have got the bug as well. We got some good tips for the route.

Tomorrow is going to be a very hilly ride.

Tuesday June 23, 2015

An interesting ride out of Vancouver. We met a guy who directed us to a different route than we were going to take, it had a few hills but a good cycle lane all the way.

We opted to take half of his suggestion and then carry on the route we wanted to take. Our route took us up East Hastings Street. A full block of homeless people. Ralf stopped to take a photo and a man from a “drop-in” centre came out to chat to us. It was very interesting to discover that this part of East Hastings has always had homeless people “moving” here. For the past 20 years this has been the place to come to if you are homeless, need to buy and/or sell anything including drugs etc. The new City initiative is for the police to move them on every day, the street sweepers come in and clean the area up and then the homeless come back. He doesn’t know why. In his opinion, he thinks the city should spend their money finding out what these people need and help them that way, rather than spending money on street-sweepers.

Yesterday I thought Vancouver appeared to be getting it right. Today I see they have the same problems as other big cities around the world. Although, they do have a light rail system which travels well out of the downtown core of Vancouver – to the airport and to other cities – like Burnaby.

Urban sprawl is prevalent, the only thing that separates one City from the next is a park.  Really, we went from Vancouver to Hastings to Burnaby and at each area there was a park, which sort of separated the different municipalities.

We headed out on the busy Hwy 7 – the Lougheed Highway. It had a good shoulder most of the way and at one area detoured cyclists away from the construction area through a parkland trail.

Because the highway was busy, I didn’t really enjoy the scenery very much. I have no idea how Ralf got this photograph of the bridge without any cars.

We were following the Fraser River for a short while, which was pretty.

When we got to Maple Ridge we stopped to check the map, Highway 7 went through the Town and had a By-pass. A fella stopped and asked if we were lost, we then chatted to him for about 20 minutes. A fellow touring cyclist who has cycled around BC and down over the Sierra Cascades into Oregon and Washington. We told him about warmshowers and the great people we met through that organization, hopefully he will sign up as a host.

We stopped in Port Coquitlam for lunch. Pam, who was originally from Mexico had overheard Ralf talking to a young boy outside of the superstore who was asking where we had come from with all our gear. Ralf had told him we had visited 7 different countries. Pam overheard and was so excited, she came over to me and asked me all the usual questions. “You are so impressive” she kept saying, “can I give you a hug”, “you look so fit and healthy”. I felt like a superstar.

Ralf had gone into the store to get lunch and Pam was still talking to me when he got back. We have actually cycled through 12 countries, if you include Scotland and both Irelands as separate countries.

We are staying at a campsite just outside of Mission BC, the Sun Valley Trout Park. They actually give biker rates – the going rate for a tent site was $37.00, we paid $25.00. The lady said we could stay in the Rec Room which has air-conditioning. We have our mats on the floor and we are nice and cool. This week-end the Cross-Canada Bike Ride stays here. This is an organized bike tour which actually cycles cross-Canada in 71 days. I think we will be taking a little longer.

Last week-end was the start of GOBA (the Great Ohio Bike Adventure). We have taken part in GOBA a couple of times and we recommended it to a fella we met in Australia (Ken). Ken decided to make the trip this year from Australia to rural Ohio, Dick sent me a picture of them having a beer together – cheers guys.