Blow by Blow Days 1 to 20 Right, so, it’s been around a month since we left and here is the first blog post. It has a bit of day by day stuff, then some general stuff. Things have deviated greatly from the original plan, definitely for the better. Day 1 - 17th June Longest day ever. Sunday started by waking up at 4:30am Melbourne time and finished by going to sleep at 12am East Coast time around 40 hours later. We travelled by taxi, plane, bicycle, bus and ferry. We had to fix a bent rotor, buy anti-bear equipment and put our bikes on the front of the bus otherwise we would miss the ferry. We were originally going to cycle south from the Vancouver airport to get a ferry to Vancouver Island from Tsawwassen, but realised that there wouldn’t be time, so we went through the city and north, to Horseshoe Bay so we could get to Nanaimo where we stayed with Kiersten from Warm Showers. [Warm Showers is like Couchsurfing but for people who are cycle touring and may just need a place to pitch a tent and a warm shower.] Day 2 Super tired after post midnight bedtime, woken at 7:30am, could have slept until 2pm. Slow brekkie with Kiersten then changed plans a lot before settling on Cathedral Grove. Super hot day for Canada, 30 degrees. It was slow going, only made it 50km to the Little Qualicum Falls campsite. In hindsight, should have planned on having a few rest days to deal with jet lag and bike maintenance post flight, but whatever. Anyway, highlights were fresh strawberries from Kiersten’s garden, raspberries, swimming, snapple. Lowlights were starting late, the heat. I think we’re doing a good job considering the general fatigue. I hope we sleep for the next 12 hours. Tomorrow we’ll go to Cathedral Grove then pack up and head back to Nanaimo. No bear sightings yet. We have a horn, spray and a canister for food. Day 3 Cathedral Grove was aight, but we didn’t have much time there before needing to be back at camp to pack up. We slept in again. We stopped at Parksville on the way back to Nanaimo for coffee, bowls and a lesson on tipping in Canada (15-20%). We cooked Kiersten tofu stir fry after going to sugarloaf to see a great view of Departure Bay. Day 4 Left at a record early time of 9:45am, got a flat which we change surprisingly quickly. Arrived at Lake Cowichan at around 4:30pm. On the way we nearly ran out of water, found a dog/cat man to fill us up. The plan now is to relax by the lake for a while before starting along the bike path for tomorrow to find a spot to camp. We want to have enough time tomorrow to see Butchart Gardens before meeting our Victoria hosts Steve and Melissa at 7pm. Day 5 The bike path sucked so we camped there then came back to the road, almost all the way to Duncan, then went down the coast. Hannah had her first Aeropress coffee and it was gross (terrible beans). We stopped at Shawnigan Lake briefly for a frolick in the water, then left with just enough time to get to the ferry. We got a flat on the way then the tube which got put in already had a hole. We had to pump it to get there on time, but the ferry was late anyway. On the other side in Brentwood Bay, we went straight to the Butchart Gardens. There, things happened and decisions were made (more on that later). We stayed with Steve, Melissa and Merlin the Border Collie in Victoria. Day 6 Catching up with Anna, Jack and Lucille, checking out the vegan cafe action. Day 7 Coffee with Anna and Lucille then went to Witty’s Lagoon with Sarah, Chris, Abby and Jake whom I met in Trujillo a few years ago on a workaway. Then had beers on their deck. I wish we’d had more time there, maybe we could have done a Jake and I vs. Abby and Hannah cookoff or something. I loved their house. It’s on a cul-de-sac, has established fruit trees, a veggie patch, chooks and a balcony bathed in dappled sunlight with a view. I’ve kind of generally thought that I would end up near a town, in the bush. The cul-de-sac life is pretty sick though, so that might be a contender. We cooked tofu stir fry at Steve and Melissa’s for dinner then slept early in anticipation of a long day. Day 8 We left only a bit late and had only a short wait for the ferry from Schwartz Bay. Getting there on the bike path (Lochside Trail) was great. We washroom stopped at a sports complex and saw some kids playing softball chanting mean things at each other. We cycled from Tsawwassen to the bike shuttle through nice farmland on quiet roads. Arrived at 2:30pm, no shuttle until 3:30pm, nowhere to eat. At this point got worried about not making it to the talk (Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson) on time. Anyway we got to Tom and Susan’s (Vancouver WS hosts) in North Vancouver and Tom drove us, so we got to see the start. JBP was on the street talking to people beforehand. He’s great when he talks to people, he’s really talking to that person. I imagine he was there late afterwards talking to people too. He really helps a lot of people. The talk was great. I like that they were not recording so they could really explore ideas without fear of being misrepresented. It was much better than previous conversations I’ve heard of theirs. Day 9 We bought Marathon Plus tyres, any other tyres suck for touring/anything. We chilled out and ate raspberries and peas, and read. Day 10 After a wrong turn at the start we smashed out of Vancouver earlyish and got to Squamish (~halfway to Whistler) by lunch. It was hot and I bought about 2x the food I should have. Fine in normal circumstances, but not if you want to fit it all in a bear canister. That derailed us a bit, but in the end, energy levels were more of a factor than time. We got to Tom’s recommended spot near Lake Lucille and camped on a great beach. Day 11 Getting to Whistler was fairly easy once we found a guy with water. We had coffee, vegan burger and I’m currently sitting in an Irish pub catching up on writing. Day 11 was the 27th of June and I’ve written nothing in my diary since then. Typing that out made me feel like it would be boring to read and maybe seems like it assumes the reader knows our general plan. Days 12 to 18 Stayed with Butch and Elliot for the first 5 nights then with Helen and Dave for the last two. Went mountain bike riding one day, reading on the lake one day, rafting and ziplining one day, played Catan a few times. I hadn’t played before and I loved it except Hannah won one of the games even though I was trying to thwart her which was really disappointing. Went on a hike, tried to go on a hike but ended up trekking through snow, went up the mountain on the gondy. Days 19 to 20 Caught a bus back to Vancouver, cycled to the airport and flew to Hannover, Germany. What Are We Doing In Germany, I Thought This Was A North American Trip?! While we were in the Butchart Gardens, I had a thought that I mentioned to Hannah and she said that she’d been kind of thinking that for a while (like, months). The thought was “what are we doing in North America, not Europe?” One thing we were thinking of when choosing to go on a long holiday is that I’ll be teaching for at least the next two years, and in that time won’t have time off during the Northern Hemisphere summer for more than a couple of weeks in a row (which we both think is too short to go all the way to Europe or North America for). This is why we ruled out cycling in south-east Asia. I was kind of going for a one month holiday and Hannah for a longer one, and when I mentioned that I would like to go to the Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris talk in Vancouver, she seized her chance and we bought tickets for it before flights. Then we kind of planned the trip around that as a start date and location, which is pretty arbitrary. There are a number of things that are as good or better in Europe than in Australia, and those things are also worse in North America than Australia. Food. Towns. Cycling views. Cycling practicalities. Number of tourists. Culture. These are all massive things when considering a cycling trip. Anyway, within around 8 hours of first having the discussion “why aren’t we in Europe” we’d booked flights from Vancouver to Hannover the following week. As you’ll hear in the next installment, the decision turned out to be a great one. It’s not that we were having a bad time in Canada, we weren’t at all, it’s just that this will be the last time north of the equator for a while, and we both love Europe. Vegan to Vegetarian Another change for me is that since coming to Europe I’m not eating vegan, just vegetarian. There are practical cycling reasons and deliciousness reasons for this. As with all decisions, I try to work out the ethical cost of the production of something and compare it to the the benefit it brings me. At the moment (compared with a normal time at home):
I’m still having vegan things where it doesn’t make much difference like if it’s on the menu at a cafe, but I’m also sometimes having cheese in cases where I really could choose something else.
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Chris JonesJust a guy going for a bit of a documented ride. Archives
May 2018
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