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.

Monday June 22, 2015

Today we had to get a new SIM card for the phone. We went to Best Buy and were able to see all the available packages and opted for Virgin, they are linked to Bell, hopefully we will get a good service all the way across the country.

After we got the phone sorted out we had a wander around Central Vancouver.

It is an interesting City in the sense that there are a lot of high-rise condos and therefore a lot of people living in Central and downtown Vancouver.  Whereas, in other big cities most people live on the outskirts and commute into work.

The condos are not the average square boxes, some of them have very interesting shapes.

This is a livable city in the sense of good transit, lots of cycle lanes and small neighbourhoods, but very expensive.

The average condo sells for $1,000 per square foot, 750 sq feet = $750,000.00.

We went into the Bill Reid Art Centre, but the price although not expensive was above our budget. We really have to stick to the budget on the last leg.

We walked down Granville Street all the way to Granville Island and had a lovely walk around the market area.

Then we caught the little ferry back it was so neat.

The Hostel is on Granville Street and is surrounded by bars and restaurants, with all manner of people wandering up and down the street.

Vancouver is a big bustling city, I quite liked it. I felt safe, but maybe that is my perception of Canada. Ralf was not so sure, I could sense him being very attentive of our surroundings.

Of course Ralf always spots a car or two he likes.

We missed seeing our friends in Vancouver. Laurie who was at our wedding almost 30 years ago, lives near Tsawwassen. We thought she lived in Vancouver, so we contacted her brother (Shaun) in the hopes that we might be able to connect with Laurie and Gregg. Unfortunately if we had known where she lived we would have taken the ferry from Sidney and could have popped into see her on the way up to Vancouver. Although it was nice to cycle up Vancouver Island.

The other friends we will miss seeing are a lovely couple we met in Cuba (Carol and Doug). Carol had been checking my blog and knew we were in the area. She offered us a place to stay for the night. Unfortunately, we needed to be on the road tomorrow and she wasn’t available on Tuesday night, which is when we would be in her neighbourhood.

Sunday June 21, 2015

I woke up way too early, the ferry left at 8:30 and 10:50. We had opted for the 10:50 ferry, so we had a couple of hours to kill before the short ride to the ferry. I skyped my Dad for Father’s Day.

It was a short ride to the ferry, we followed the coastal route to Departure Bay. They had some interesting artwork along the route.  A number of these Eagles were painted and then auctioned.

The ferry was full of people wearing red – The Canadian women’s team were playing in Vancouver and the ferry was full of fans.

It was a good ferry crossing, very calm.  I had found a book at the hostel and sat and read for the hour and a half it took to cross from Nanaimo to Vancouver north shore.

After leaving the ferry we took Marine Drive into Vancouver. It was a hilly, narrow road but the traffic was good and for most of the time they gave us plenty of room and waited to pass.

We stopped in a suburb on the north shore of Vancouver,just before the Lions Gate Bridge to check the route. Every time we stopped, people stopped to chat to us.

We crossed the Lion’s Gate bridge into Central Vancouver, and cycled around Stanley Park.

There were lots of cyclists, some on rented bikes. The path was separated by a curb, pedestrians on one side and cyclists on the other. We passed the Lost Lagoon, not sure why it is called the Lost Lagoon, we found it very easily.

We went to the first hostel, but it was full, so we headed to the HI and found a room. There was a good place to keep the bikes and we are right in the centre of things on Granville Street.

We missed lunch again. Once we had settled in we went straight to the grocery store and bought a cooked chicken, potato wedges and a big salad. We devoured it.

We are sharing a room with two kiwis who have just arrived they are on a two year work visa, both of them are suffering from jetlag.

When we were cycling on Marine Drive, most of the drivers gave us lots of room. When we were cycling in the Central Vancouver the car and bus drivers were really bad. If the car drivers were making a turn they would allow one cyclists to go through but then cut in front of the other cyclist, which in this case was usually me!

Saturday June 20, 2014

A lovely morning, we packed away a dry tent, and ate our oatmeal without too many bugs. The route today was a little more coastal than rural, a very nice route.

The camp site was 4 kms south of the small Town of Chemanius. In the early 90’s the Town was going through a tough period with the lumber mill cutting back on production. They decided to entice tourists to the area by painting murals on their buildings. The Town is now known as mural town and is very popular. The mill is still in production, but tourism is a close second for employment.

After Chemanius we headed towards Ladysmith. Ladysmith has a nice downtown that commemorates the Boer war, most of the street names are named after military figures. Now, to get up to the downtown area you have to climb a steep hill. I asked Ralf if he wanted to see the downtown, I wasn’t particularly bothered. Ralf’s response was “I know your Dad was in that war, but I am not bothered”. I was helplessly laughing, I had to explain to Ralf that Dad was in Borneo, not Boer. The Boer war South Africa and circa 1880 sorry Dad.

We decided to carry on towards Nanaimo and have the time to wander around the Town. This meant jumping on to the TransCanada Highway, a busy highway with a fairly good shoulder.

We arrived in Nanimao around 12:30 and checked out the hostel. The manager wasn’t here, so we said we would be back about 2:00.

We headed downtown to see if there was anything else. Howard Johnson at $90.00 plus tax, I am guessing we won’t be staying in any motels while we are cycling across Canada.

We had lunch at a Tim Horton’s and a little wander around the downtown. The downtown is clean but nothing to write home about.

After we had settled into the hostel, Ralf went to the bike shop co-op to get a new brake cable, his had snapped and he had been cycling without front brakes for the past couple of days. He had a good chat with the owner and paid $28.00 for the repair.

We decided to eat out tonight – fish and chips on the wharf, followed by Nanaimo bar ice-cream, lovely.

Friday June 19, 2015

I woke up really early this morning and could not get back to sleep. I got up and posted the remainder of the U.S. posts and by that time I was able to have a shower and get ready for the ride.

Alan had breakfast ready for us, and we were able to leave by 8:30. We were planning to get the 9:50 ferry from Brentwood Bay to Mill Bay and then follow the coastal Rotary Route. Alan cycled with us all the way to Brentwood, we headed down the hill to the ferry and Alan went to his barbers in Brentwood.

It was a lovely crossing that took about 25 minutes and crossed Saanich Inlet.

We stopped at the Mill Bay Shopping Centre, it was a very nice little downtown area with banks, restaurants, grocery store, clothing shops, coffee shops and a library.

We were on the TransCanada briefly before taking the “Rotary route”. In the instructions, it said there would be a three stage hill lasting for about a kilometer! It was not a hard hill to climb. Although today\’s total ascents were 729 metres, the descents were 740 meters – more down than ups!

It was more of a rural ride than a coastal ride, very nice and we did see some wildlife. As we came off the ferry we saw about four bald eagles soaring above the ferry terminal. We also saw two deer today. As we were coming down a hill I spotted what I thought was a wooden cut-out of a deer. It was a real deer, I coasted to a stop, just in case my brakes started squeaking and scared it away.

We cycled through a very pretty coastal town called Cowichan Bay. It had an artisan cheese shop and a bakery.

I suggested to Ralf that we buy some local cheese and some bread and have a picnic, instead of having the usual ready made sandwiches from a grocery store. I popped into the artisan cheese shop and came out empty handed. A small wheel of Brie was $17.00 and when I asked about the local goats cheese it was $7.00 per 100 grams. A bit over our budget. I didn’t dare go into the bread shop!

So we carried on and kept going. We missed our lunch stop again and we had to resort to stale bread and nutella, after I had another “I’m starving dickey fit again”.

We passed the second oldest lawn tennis club in the world – Wimbledon is the oldest! I wouldn’t want to be playing on centre court here – look where the tree is positioned.

This old church, which has been abandoned was known as the Butter church, because it was built with the proceeds from the sale of butter.

Our final Town that we passed was Crofton, where we picked up a sandwich and supplies for dinner – back to Menu # 1 – pasta, pesto and tuna.

Ralf spotted the second deer opposite one of the largest pulp and paper mills in BC.  Well spotted.

Crofton’s claim to fame is the huge pulp and paper mill – it is one of the largest mills in British Columbia.

We came down the hill to the Eagles Nest camp site. There wasn’t anyone at the office, just a phone number to call. We haven’t sourced a sim card yet, so we couldn’t phone. We asked a fella who looked as if he had been here for a while. He told us to pick a spot and he would let the manager know we were here.

We checked out the spots by the river, but most of them were in the shade and the others were rocky. We discovered later that the rocky spots are due to them being part of the riverbed. That area floods every winter. We opted to pick a spot closer to the shower facilities and the kids play area, it is a combination of grass and sand (the sand is from the river as well). We figured all the little rug-rats would be in bed early and wouldn’t disturb us.

The owner came around about 6:00 to collect $10.00 for the pitch. Good price, the shower is $1.00 for 5 minutes.

After I had written the blog, we ate dinner and had to use the bug spray.  I have been carrying it around since Florida and this is only the second time we have needed it!

Dinner was pasta and pesto followed by \”Gourmet\” liquorice allsorts.  Ed and Barb had given us a packet of Allsorts when we were in Seattle.  I never knew Bassets Allsorts were Gourmet.

Thursday June 18, 2015

We chatted to Frances and Alan over a very leisurely breakfast, it was so nice to take our time.

We rode the 5 kms back into Sidney and checked out the bookstores for maps. Sidney is known as an “International Book Town” because it has so many bookstores per capita.

We got a good map of Southern BC. Later after dinner, we sat down and tried to plan the route. B.C. is a very lumpy Province, we will have our work cut-out for us, lots of hills.

I decided I needed a haircut and was really pleased with the result, although it shows more grey now than it did before. I had to buy a colour for it and Ralf will help me colour it when we are in Nanaimo or Vancouver.

Sidney is a nice Town with a vibrant downtown, it was nice to see a lovely downtown with lots of people milling around.

While I was having my haircut, Ralf did some shopping (normal provisions). He chatted to an old fella who said it was drug day in Sidney. All the old folks come in for their drugs! Not pension day, like in England, but drug day.

This is the site of Canada\’s third largest air base in World War 2.  It is now part of the International Airport.

When we got back to Frances and Alan’s place, Alan had printed out a route for us to take tomorrow towards Nanaimo. It is called the Rotary Route, and follows the coast and back roads. He was unable to print the turn-by-turn instructions. I copied and pasted them from the pdf into a word document and emailed them to him. He printed them out for me. They are hoping to do the ride later on in the year with a group of friends that usually ride a short ride together.

We went out for dinner at a very nice Chinese restaurant.