Monday July 13, 2015

An enforced rest day. We didn’t wake up until 8:30 and although my back was much better, we decided to take an extra rest day to let it heal a little bit more. Plus the fact that neither of us is feeling 100%.

Taber is not a particularly pretty Town.  It is very industrialized with a train track running parallel to Highway 3.

I chatted to the manager of the hotel about Taber. Taber has a lot of farm related industry. It has one of the largest sugar beet processing plants in Western Canada, Frito Lays has a big factory, McCain has another factory in Town and Hostess has a processing plant. She told me that during harvest season the trucks loaded with sugar beets are often backed up to Highway 3.

There is a large Mennonite community here. In March 2015 Taber passed a By-law banning swearing in public, a curfew for anyone under the age of 16 and not allowing gatherings of more than 3 people. In checking the issue, apparently the Mennonites are not god-fearing people as you would think. In this area the young people apparently like to drink and cause a ruckus.

We had a relaxing day, in the motel room.  he manager gave us a good deal yesterday, we got a room with a kitchenette for the same price as a basic single room.

Sunday July 12, 2015

I woke up to day with an incredible pain in my lower back, I was suffering a little bit yesterday, but this morning it was quite severe. Ralf asked if I wanted to ask to stay another day, but I wanted to get moving. I figured with a few drugs it should be o.k.

The Galt Mine was a large coal mine in Lethbridge, it was closed in 1957.

I was surprised to discover that there was a lot of coal-mining in this area from Crowsnest Pass to Lethbridge.

We headed out to Wal-Mart on the south-side of Lethbridge to get our supplies of trail mix and granola bars. My back was hurting and I struggled to push off, but while I was cycling it wasn’t too bad.

We eventually got underway at 10:45 am. The ride was a flat, fast ride. The wind was at our back and we often were being pushed along at 25 kph. Tail winds all the way to Ontario!!

We are in the Alberta prairies – farm country, lots of potatoes, corn, wheat etc.

On the outskirts of Taber, we passed a large McCain factory – the smell of frying potatoes filled the air. We discovered later that this factory makes hash browns for the fast food industry.

We are staying in a motel tonight. We bought a heat pad for my back and hopefully I will get a good nights sleep and we can carry-on tomorrow.

Saturday July 11, 2015

We are finally getting the promised tail-winds. We left Fort MacLeod and took some photos of the downtown. The Empress Theatre is one of the oldest theatres, in this part of Alberta. It hosted silent movies, talkies, black & whites and live theatre. Now it is a movie theatre.

We spotted two cats getting some fresh air.  I remember when I shared an apartment in Beeston with Judy, her cat would do the same thing, sit on the outside of the window watching the world go by.

The scenery was rolling hills and farmland, with the odd oil rig thrown in for good measure.

On the outskirts of Lethbridge is the Blood Indian Reserve, the largest reserve lands in Canada encompassing 350,000 acres.

We had a lovely ride until we got to Lethbridge.

We stopped at the first exit to University Drive. Ralf checked the address of our warmshowers host on Garmin and for some reason Garmin couldn’t find the address. Although I knew it was on this side of the big gully, I didn’t know the turnoff. I assumed it was University Drive as our host’s house was close to the University.

We had decided to go to the house first and drop of our panniers, then go into the downtown and to the bike shop to get our tires replaced.

There were no road signs on Hwy 3 to indicate we couldn’t continue on Highway 3 to the downtown, until we got to the bottom of the big gully. At the bottom of the big gully there were signs posted that cyclists could not continue on Highway 3. Why wasn’t this posted at the top of the hill?

We left the highway, and then had to climb back up the 7.8%  hill to University Drive, into the head wind that we had been enjoying as a tail wind all the way into Lethbridge.

We left our panniers at the hosts house, then went back down the 90 metre gully (Whoop-Up Drive) to get into the downtown core.

We passed a park and could hear the rhythms of south America. After we dropped the bikes at the bike shop, we walked back to the park and discovered there was a latin-america/carribean festival happening. We had a great lunch of enchiladas, refried beans and rice and listened to a Marachi band. We chatted to a nice couple who invited us to stay with them tonight. As we had already left our panniers with the warmshowers host, we had to refuse their offer.

We went to Chapters and picked up another map for Alberta/Saskatchewan, the back to the bike shop to pick up the bikes. The bike shop (Alpenland) gave us a discount on the tires and the labour costs, great service again from a bike shop.  We headed back down the gully (90 metre, 7.5/8.5%) and back up again to the hosts house.

Our host is the mum of the person who is on warmshowers and she gets roped into hosting. She is out hiking today and she left the back door open, we made ourselves at home. We had to plan the next few days, distances, camp-sites etc.

We are going to the Dinosaur Provincial Park, near Brooks. Alberta is world renowned for the amount of dinosaur fossils found in this area. It’s a bit out of our way (150 kms) but we both want to see the area so we are going.

Lethbridge is a big sprawling city.  It is split by the big gully, the west side has the University and a lot of residential communities.  There are new signs indicating \”New Community\”.  However, what Lethbridge describes as a community is not what I would describe as a community.  Where we stayed, the closest grocery store or convenience store was 4-5 kms away.  This is a city for cars not for bikes or pedestrians.  There was one posted bike route – downtown, but no signs on the road or designated bike lanes.  The only bike paths were really pedestrian paths that cyclists used.  We did pick up a map of bike trails, at the bike shop, which indicated the bike paths and trails were shared sidewalks. Again there were no sign on the trail that these were mixed-use trails.  Sorry Lethbridge you have a long way to go to be a liveable city.

Friday July 10, 2015

We headed down hill towards Fort MacLeod, we had a great tail wind for the first 40 kms. Then the wind changed direction, we had a constant cross wind – not as bad as a full-on head-wind but still a battle.

It is amazing how much you notice when you cycle. Who would have noticed crayons as gate posts, or the coyote in the field.

We are now in Alberta prairie country. How quickly the scenery has changed.

The transports today were not as good as the past few days. One transport went by me so fast that it lifted the back of my jersey up!

Once again we are in Alberta, which is known for its oil, however, this is the first time we have seen wind turbines on a grand scale.

We got to the campsite, quite early, the owner gave us a deal in the over-flow site, $21.00 no water, no power but a picnic table and the use of the all the facilities (showers, swimming pool, laundry). I had an afternoon power nap! (2hours later I was awake).

Ralf is not enjoying the “rip-off” factor of camping, we still pay for a shower $1-2.00 for 5 minutes, and in his opinion a bit of dirt with a table!!

While we were eating dinner we had a really good discussion about what we want to do at the end of this leg of the Grand Adventure, it will involve cycling, but how and where we sleep is still to be decided.

Fort MacLeod has had a boom and bust history most of the boom years depended on the railroad. The NWMP police started here, there is a fort and a nicely maintained downtown historic district.

The Town fell into debt in 1934 and with the agreed bank loan was not allowed to take on any more debt for 50 years.

We have to be aware of week-end campers, a lot of Canadians will go away for the week-end filling up the campsites – we may have to book ahead.

Today I found that my great niece Sophie Rose, cooked for Gordon Ramsay. She is a student at the Derby College of Culinary Arts – well done Sophie Rose – always remember to enjoy your work.

“The Magnificent 7 led by head chef Carl. Takes me back to Banbury College, the beginning of a life full of Passion, it\’s never called work”.

Thursday July 9, 2015

After a good breakfast and an early start we headed out on Highway 3 to Bellevue.

As we turned on to Highway 3, we saw a runner looking at something in the bush. There were two deer, one was hiding and all you could see were antlers. The other was munching on a tree.  Cars zoomed by oblivious to the wonder of nature around them.

Later on we saw a traffic sign, warning us of flying deer – we didn\’t see any.

We spotted our first touring cyclists since Hope. They were from Holland and are cycling the Great Divide. That is a tough ride. She was very enthusiastic about the scenery, but was a little concerned about bears.

We stopped in Sparwood. It has the biggest truck in the world.

It used to be used working in the mine in Sparwood, now it stands next to the tourist information office.

Sparwood was originally a collection of five coal mining communities but in the 1960\’s, the communities were consolidated into one District. It was named Sparwood in homage to the history of trees harvested in the area intended for use as masts on ships. There was some opposition to the amalgamation. However, when people moved out of there homes in the former towns of Natal and Michel the bulldozers went in and demolished the houses, even though the neighbouring houses were still inhabited. Interesting way to convince people to move out and into the “new Town” of Sparwood.

The original Sparwood logo had five stars, one for each of the consolidated communities. “Today, the new logo has just one star that represents the community prepared to continue moving forward as one”. I wonder if the original residents would agree.

We continued on to Crowsnest Pass. The road is often closed in the winter months.

It was not a hard climb as we started the day at 1,041 metres and Crowsnest Pass is at 1,358 metres, it was only a 300 metre climb.

After cresting the Pass, we passed into Alberta, and crossed the Continental Divide. The Continental Divide is where the waters from the rivers flow either into the Pacific (west) or Hudson Bay and the Atlantic (east).

The scenery changed almost immediately, to lakes and wider open spaces.

We are now in Alberta.

We stopped in a small café for lunch and then headed out to the campsite, we had called the campsite to reserve a spot and told her we should be there in half an hour, a short downhill to Bellevue.

However, we had not anticipated the immensity of the Frank Slide.

In 1903 a wedge of limestone measuring almost one kilometer wide, 425 metres long and 150 metres deep had broken from the crest of Turtle Mountain (approximately 90 million tons of rock). The destruction is still evident today with boulders the size of houses littering both sides of the road. Seventy people were killed in the worst natural disaster in Alberta.

We were able to secure a campsite for tonight. This weekend is the “Sinister Seven Ultra Race”. A race across the seven sisters mountain range (Crowsnest Pass), a distance of 100 miles. Some participants attempt to do it solo and others do it as a relay team. I think that is insane. I do not enjoy cycling 100 miles, but running it – crazy, especially as part of this is at night and there are bears out there.

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.

Tuesday July 7, 20015

A lazy start to the day. We had planned to go downtown and explore Cranbrook. When we got to the bikes, I had another freaking flat tire. I was so annoyed. We headed down to the bike shop and asked if they had a new tire – no. We went to the next bike shop they didn’t have one either. Back to the first bike shop, who replaced the inner-tube again and then lined the tire with the old inner-tube.

I came back to the hostel and Ralf carried on downtown. I picked up some groceries for dinner tonight. My whole plan for the day was shot. I spent an hour checking on line for bike shops in Fernie and then finding out where I could get a new Schwalbe Marathon tire. I finally found a bike shop in Lethbridge (304 kms), who will order one for me and switch the tires when we arrive. We have to be there for Saturday, as they don’t open on Sundays. We have a few long days ahead of us and Crowsnest Pass, then downhill all the way to Lethbridge!!

I did get both bikes cleaned, but no laundry done and only half the blog updated.

Ralf had a wander around downtown and then managed to bring both bikes back to the college.

Cranbrook has a rail museum, Ralf spent a little time having a look at the exhibits outside.

As we came into Cranbrook yesterday, we wondered why there was an elephant in Town. The following sign explains the story.

Dinner was lovely – sockeye salmon, baby pots and veges. Strawberries for dessert.

The student accommodation is split into “pods” which consist of eight rooms with a single or a double bed, two bathrooms with showers, a big kitchen and a small lounge area. In the kitchen all the pots and pans and plates etc are provided. You only have to clean up after yourself. Once again my “organizational” skills came into play – the cutlery drawer wasn’t quite organized to my liking, so I reorganized it!. Later on I found Ralf had reorganized the glasses, cups and plates. Thank goodness we found each other, because we would drive anyone else crazy.

Monday July 8, 2015

Jack made us oatmeal and Melissa made the raspberry smoothie for breakfast. We were on the road by 7:30. I didn’t have the legs today, although the route was not hard, we had a very changeable wind. One minute it was a headwind, the next a tailwind and then a sidewind, I wished it would make up its mind. Ralf took the lead after my first 20 minutes at the front and stayed there for the rest of the ride.

We stopped at Yahk (41.kms) there was a campsite and I was tempted to call it quits, but it was only 10:45 and I knew Ralf wanted to keep going.

The scenery today was not very inspiring, the most exciting part of the day was when we got the train driver to toot his whistle as he passed us! It was a steady climb, but nothing much over 4% and although I thought there wasn’t going to be any down-hills, we did have enough to give us a rest from the up hills.

We lost an hour we had a time change to mountain time.

We carried on to Moyie where there was supposed to be a motel. There wasn’t any sign of a motel, just a pub and a grocery store. The pub may have been the motel at one time, it was a little rundown and needed some tlc.

We stopped for lunch at the pub, the food was good and a big portion. It seemed to revive me and we carried on to the Jim Smith Lake Provincial Park. At the turnoff to the campground, I, for some unknown reason suggested to Ralf that we carry on to Cranbrook, another 20 kms away. He was doubtful and suggested we stop. My argument was it was 4 kms to the campsite and then it would only be 20 kms to Cranbrook the next day. If we carried on we could have a good nights sleep and a full rest day in Cranbrook.

We carried on. We got to the outskirts of Cranbrook and went into the Visitors Centre. The lady there told me there was an HI at the College. Basically they rent out the student accommodation in the summer. Perfect we arrived at the college and registered at the hostel – two nights for $61.00, great price.

Ralf went to get some beer and I made supper. We were both tired, but a good tired.

Sunday July 5, 2015

Another lovely ride along Lake Kootenay. The hills were a little more than rolling, but nothing too big or too long.

We had stopped at a rest stop, and found out all about the Mountain Pine beetle which is a devastating epidemic of beetles that destroys the lodgepole pine tree. In the past 80% of the larvae did not survive the cold winters, but due to the milder winters they are surviving and reeking havoc on the forestry. The forestry commission have a program in place where they try to harvest the trees early to cut down on the spread of the beetle and to salvage as much of the lumber as possible.

We passed the Glass House, a local road side attraction. It wasn\’t open when we passed at 8:45.   The glass house was built by David Brown in 1952 by over half a million discarded embalming fluid bottles. (Strange but true)

I had been thinking of what to have for lunch as we cycled along and really fancied a baguette with brie and ham. Ralf suggested Subway, but when I told him what I had been thinking of he readily accepted the idea.

We arrived in Creston at around noon which was perfect timing for my Brie and ham baguette. I went into the grocery store and bought the fixings, Brie made from goat’s cheese – lovely. I came out of the grocery store with a lovely baguette, my dearly beloved husband folded it in half so that it would fit in the back-pack!

We quickly found our warmshowers host’s house. They were out hiking for the day and had left the back door open for us. Jack told us later on that it was only dangerous to leave the back door open in the summer months, as your neighbours may deliver fruits and vegetables in to your kitchen. There are an abundance of fruit trees in this area.

We had the place to ourselves for a few hours and spent the time updating the blog. I rinsed out our cycle gear which dried in no time as it was getting quite hot in the afternoon.

Jack and Melissa arrived home about 6:00 pm. They were a really nice young couple who have travelled extensively working with the organization WOOFs (workers on organic farms).

They invited us to share dinner with them, they had a party last night and had some leftovers – a very large mixed salad, sausage and bean dip and for dessert cheesecake. Melissa is allergic to gluten so we had to eat all of the cheesecake. Anything to help out.

Saturday July 4, 2015

We said our farewells to Sandra and her lovely dog Richter – he seemed very sad to see us go. Sandra made us a lovely breakfast, to see us on our way. What a great person, I really enjoyed meeting her.

A lovely ride this morning, rolling hills and rolling rivers, along Lake Kootenay.

This boat was for sale, could make a great B&B. We noticed a lot of property for sale on this side of the lake.

Ralf discovered that they are thinking of widening the road, he surmised that is why there are so many properties for sale.

No major climbs to the ferry at Balfour.

Stopped at the Bakery for a bun and a coffee – Sandra told us about the bakery as that was her ride yesterday – they call it the Bun Ride. Out to the bakery for a huge cinnamon bun and coffee and then back to Nelson about 70 kms. I could do that.

We met up with Lynne and Ed again on the ferry.

Usually when we take a ferry we are directed to get on first, that way we are out of the way of the cars. We waited for directions from the young girl directing traffic but she sent the cars on not knowing that we should have gone first. We ended up getting on in the middle of the traffic and then had to try not to block the entrance to the life-jackets. The ferry master was annoyed at us, but then as we were waiting to get off, he apologized and said he would speak to the traffic girls.

A short steep hill out of the wharf to Crawford Bay and then rolling hills to Grey Creek.

We had decided on a relatively short ride today and stopped at the Cedar Grove campsite.

It was a nice enough campsite, although we do have to pay for showers.

The owner drove Ralf to the closest beer store (2.5 kms away) and he bought Red Racer IPA. (Ralf thought it might me a good idea if I were to dress like this while cycling.) We realized we don’t like IPA – way too hoppy for our taste, but we drank it anyway.