Arrival in Tripoli

Arrival in Tripoli was on time.  Wonderful airplane ride, I've never eaten so much.  We got on the plane at 8:30 pm in Toronto and ate dinner on the plane at 11 pm.  By the time we got into London it was breakfast time in London (2 am Toronto time).  When we departed London for Tripoli, another breakfast.  So we spent the whole night eating, didn't get any sleep.  Lesson learned:  to maximize meals travel West to East.

As we flew into the Tripoli airport you notice the foreignness of the landscape - sand everywhere with few trees.  Once we got out of the airport this all became apparent.  Sand everywhere and a very damp, humid heat.  And this is October!  Yet is still feels like a sauna.  As we drove to the house, little details of this foreign country revealed themselves.  The Mediterranean architecture  - large, open concrete houses.  And the crazy drivers, the roads are free range, people do whatever they feel, block traffic, cut you off, and run red lights casually.  We arrived at the house at last.  There is an orange tree, mandarin tree, lemon tree, fig tree, and date palms everywhere.  Best of all the neighbouring house has a large field with cows and sheep grazing among palm treees a wonderful combination.

That night we went to the city centre, which is almost an hour drive away.  The main commercial road is lined with small stores selling everything.  The shopkeepers stand outside their store watching and waiting for customers.  We wandered around downtown for a bit then sat down to eat some shawarma and what not.  Parking, no big deal, park where ever you feel and if someone double parks you, just roll their car out of the way.  My sister and I were both dead tired from eating all night and not sleeping for 30 hours.

Next day we woke up late and went downtown to check out the bazaar in the old city.  Beautiful little alleyways filled with snick knacks of every shape and size.  There was even one alley where they were actually making all the copper souveniers and you hear the the clanking of craftsman hammering away at the copper.  We kept wandering through the old town, and eventually made it to the gate of Marcus Aurelius.  In the meantime the prayer bell rang calling all Muslims to their nearest Mosque.  There are five prayers per day.  As I found out that night, one of them is at 6 am.   Back home for lunch and then off for a swim at the foreigner housing complex beach.  Nothing like the salty sea... mmm tasty!

Adventures in Libya

I should be sleeping right now. Tomorrow I am leaving for Libya, entering an unknown and very-hard-to-get-into country. I've decided to continue blogging about my new adventures after having so much fun writing about my bike trip across Canada - although upkeep on that blog was tough. However I promise to do my best to keep the blog-ball rolling on this one.

First thing, details. My sister and I are visiting our dad in Libya for just for 3 weeks. Our plane leaves at 8:20 pm tomorrow and arrives in Tripoli, the capital of Libya the next day, with a stopover in London. Libya is on the South shore of the Mediterranean Sea, this means warm water... and swimming in late October! Score one.

I am not sure what to expect of Libya, it is an Islamic country and most of my information or lack there-of comes from stereotypes roaming around my head. I am certain it will be nothing like what I expect, and wonderful none the less. Except for the sand, I'm certain there will be tons of sand and I can't wait to go to the desert... and throw a frisbee as far as I can in the desert, just so I can say I have.

Until I arrive in the land of sand, farewell.

in Thunder Bay

Right now I am in Thunder Bay, but do not have much time left on this computer. Ontario was long and full of brutal mosquitoes. We are staying in at a campsite in Thunder bay, we had a sweet dinner of pork chops, rice and veggies yesterday. This is the first time we have paid for lodging since Banff, since then we have been either camping on lawns, just off the road, or at Walmarts. It has been a relaxing rest day today as this is the first one where we are not staying with anyone and so we are not restricted by their schedule or tourist activities, since Thunder Bay has few. The mentionable ones are Fort William, which is too far for us, and the Sleeping Giant Peninsula, which we saw from the Marina. Besides that we spent a good bit chilling in the river by our campsite and washing off 6 days of grime.

Winnipeg was a fun stay, we were with another one of Mike's air cadet buddies. He is an avid hunter and we had deer for dinner there. It was awesome. Winnipeg is also the slurpee capital of the world, and has been for the last 9 years. After that we saw Dark Knight the new batman movie. Amazing movie.

Next up we are following Lake Superior to Sault Ste. Marie. It should be a scenic bike ride, and the first time we will be able to swim since we left the coast. In sault we're meeting up with Mr. Brent Gerhart for a fun time at his cottage for the long weekend.

Probably won't have time to update anymore until Kitchener, I will post some pics then.

Adios!

Calgary to Regina

First day out of Calgary we left pretty late, around 2 pm. Took a nice scenic route out of Calgary by the river. Mike had a flat along the way. Eventually we got out of the city and got on to country riding, already flat and prairie like. One thing I noticed is that the skies are huge in the prairies and you can see stormclouds forming a good hour before they hit you. This is just what happened, clouds were building up all around us, and just as we turned north on a road we got hit by the trailing end of a storm. Small and vicious, I'm glad we didn't get caught in the centre. We ended up hiding under a tarp for a bit. We continued on through winding roads to Beiseker a little town between Calgary and Drumheller. We decided to try the new strategy of not paying for camping and ask locals to stay on their lawn. So we stopped at the house with the biggest lawn and Mike pleaded our case and got us a spot. It was surprising that it worked as it was in the middle of the town, although it was a pretty small town.

In the morning our host, Bob came out to talk to us for a bit and his wife gave us blueberry pancakes. Then we started off towards Drumheller and the badlands. Nice picturesque rolling hills on the road, got some good prairie shots. As it would turn out, we didn't take many pictres in the prairies after the first few days. But the prairies also weren't as boring as everyone said they would be. They were flat and long, but there are little differences in the meadows that you probably don't notice ripping by in a car, but that make all the difference on a bicycle. That being said, once we got out of the prairies, I was glad to have hills. Anyways, we get to Drumheller and there a nice big hill into the Valley. We stopped for ice cream then worked our way to the biggest dinosaur in the world! This is another pattern that would repeat itself in the prairies. Each town has a sudden urge to attract attention to itself with giant objects. Or in one case, some town has the second largest pop can, pretty lame. After the dinosaur we hit up the Royal Tyrrel Muesuem of paleontology. It's a pretty good museum, but I was expecting a bit more than the usual dinosaur stuff. Call me picky if you will. Then we finally started out way out through the badlands. They are pretty sweet. Surronded by hills and layered so that you can see all the different colours of ocean floor from the different eras. Quick history lesson. This area used to by the shore of Bearpaw lake 70 mil years ago and the different layers of sedimentary rock were formed by rock depositing slowly over time. We also passed by the hoodos, which look like little capped peaks. You'll see in the pics. We expected these to be huge from all the ads, but they were only twice the size of a person. After a photo session there, we headed towards East Coulee, just past Drumheller and set up camp in a secluded grassy area after no one answered at the house we knocked on.

Next day we arose and tried to tie our longest distance of 130 km. For frisbee folk, we passed by a little village called LeHigh in the middle of nowhere. The true home of the LeHigh's untalented frisbee team. We climbed out of the Badlands valley and back into paririe landscape. Made good time, started seeing illusions on the road because it was so straight. It looked as if it just morhped into the sky and trucks simply floated on the road. Eventually made it to the small town of Duchess after a tiring ride. Splurged on some ice cream and bought dinner. We decided not to go to Dinosaur provincial park as originally planned because it was too far. Instead we made it to the sketch town of Brooks and lawn camped again. Made the 130 km.

Next day Mike and Pat wanted to stop at Macdonalds for breakfast... no further comment. Ran into a guy going from Calgary to Moose Jaw on an old 3 speed bicycle. We started off with a good pace. Also started doing pushups on breaks for fun. This didn't last too long. Very hot, stopped outside a little gas station for lunch and boiled away. Kept up good pace to Redcliff, greenhouse capital. From a hill in Redcliff you can see the prairies spread away all the way to the Cypress Hills at the Saskatchewan border. Very forboding. We made it into Medicine hat and saw the giant tepee. Spent a good bit of time at the info centre. This is where we foudn out that Walmart allows overnight camping for RV's. So we decided to see if they'll let us camp there. Surely enough they did. And so begins our classy streak of camping at Walmart. Smart move on their part, as we spent quite a bit of money there, and I'm sure the RVers do too. After dinner, we were still hungry, so we ordered a pizza to the Walmart parking lot, classy act number 2. We then bought chips and dip and stuffed ourselves until we were fairly sick. Classy act 3. So far we have camped at a WAlmart 4 times in desperation/excitement.

Next morning we woke up feeling sick and started off. Pat went into walmart to buy something and the lady asked him to leave his bags upfront because he looked scruffy. We were all pretty scruffy and sketchy looking at this point. Biked along, raced a train for a bit. Arrived at the Saskatchewan border and stopped to take silly pictures. After lunch I started feeling sick from something, this would continue on until night. Also I got a cold a few days before so it didn't add anything good. We stopped at a gas station later on and saw a huge storm cloud building up north of us. At this point I was very sluggish as we continued on. Eventually the storm started closing in and there part of the cloud was spinning and dropping towards the ground. We stopped outside a ranch and asked the local farmer there if we could hide somehwere on his property. He was very nice and put us up in his bunkhouse. Just as we pulled in the storm started. 5 min later it was haling like mad outside. By far the worst storm I've ever seen. The winds were so strong that it was over us in 40 min. Then it cleared up perfectly. Anyways, this guy was a rancher who has had the land since his grandfather. Legitimate cowboy, and all his sons are in the business too. We learned a lot about the cowboy lifestyle out here, its not just big belt buckles and cowboy hats (all though that is a part of it). A tree branch broke off onto their roof and they were out there in a flash working to get it off as it was blocking their tv signal. Big football following in the prairies.

Next day we headed off to Swift Current. More details to follow. In the meantime some highlights.

- Biked 170 km Swift current to Moose Jaw
- STayed in Regina
- Biked 200 km from Brandon to Winnipeg
- Manitoba has terrible roads, almost got run over 5 times
- Manitoba is thus named the most disgraceful and pitiful province
- We are now in Kenora, Ontario, back in the hills
- Have biked almost 4000 km so far

Calgary

Slept in nicely and then wandered over to downtown to pick up tickets for a festivities later that afternoon. This was through Mark's roomates company which was holding the party at a bar. He works at Price Waterhouse Cooper, so we climbed to the top of a very elegant building to get these tickets. We then strolled around downtown through the pedestrian street and eventually met up with Pat at a Greek place where we had lunch. After that we kept wandering downtown. Eventually we started heading back to Mark's place and stopped by MEC to pick up some necessities. I'm starting to hate going into MEC during days off. After a quick stop at Mark's house we went off to Booker's for the bar party. Mingled around there for a bit. After we had exhausted our meal and drink tickets and the rain stopped we headed back to Mark's place. He went off to pick up a friend at the airport and then we went out to experience Calgary Stampede craziness for the night. Cowboy hats and belt buckles everywhere. The line up at Cowboys was huge as it is one of the most popular bars, so we went to a smaller place. Blah blah blah and I forgot my VISA at the bar that night.

The day after, we slept in again. Mark went off to pick up more people from the bus station who were visiting for the weekend. So there would be 7 people staying at his place for the night. We got denied a free Stampede breakfast because we were too late, so we went for shawarma. After that it was off the the Stampede grounds. Huge grounds, Midway, stands and best of all... rodeo. We went to the rodeo show for a bit. It was pretty impressive, all done very professionally, and I couldn't understand any of the cowboy jargon being tossed around by the announcers. But we got to see some calf wrestling, bull riding, bareback riding, and other stuff. This was part one of the "cowboy experience." The other half would come from staying with a Rancher going through Alberta. After the rodeo, we wandered through the agricultural show for quite a while. Every brand of edible meat was being promoted, lets just say it wasn't meant for vegetarians. I did a survey that tested who you choose your pork chops. You went through a catalogue and had to choose what chop you would buy out of 30 on each page. My slections ended up being pretty random. I also got a hilarious I heart alberta beef sticker that now adorns my waterbottle. We then headed off to an italian restaurant for dinner. The main catch was that they served legitemate Italian pizza. It was awesome. Best pizza I've had in a long time, simliar to the stuff I ate regularly in Croatia. I then biked back to the bar to retrieve my VISA, it took awhile to find a manager and through the idiot bouncers, but I got the card back eventually. That night we stayed in to conserve money.

Golden to Calgary

We woke up late in Golden and left by 1 pm (which is very late), but it was a nice day. Normally we are up by 9 or 10 and out before 11, but it still varies a lot. Everyone else we've run into leaves much earlier 8 or 9 am. We are lazy, but we still get there. The path through Kicking Horse Pass feels much more like a pass since it is narrow and winding. On one side is cliff and on the other canyon with a muddy river running far below. We ran into a deer quietly standing beside the road. Very exciting as it didn't move much, but soon we noticed that one of its back legs was broken, so it couldn't move. Not so exciting. No cellphone coverage for Mike or Pat so we couldn't call the humane society anywhere. It was still extremely hot and we were progressing very slowly through the shallow climbs. We saw some white water rafters deep below in the river when we stopped for lunch. Eventually we made it to Field, the next decent sized town with an info centre. Once you get into Field, you have ascended or descended into a valley, I don't know how it works on the pass but you are beside the river. Here's some scenic shots.

Field in all its glory

At this point we had entered Yoho National Park. We bugged the people at the info centre for a bit, then decided to find a campsite as it was 7 pm. It was late enough that we didn't want to push it, even though we had only done 60 km for the day. We stopped at the Monarch Campground, just 3 km up the road from Field. Quiet little spot, no registration desk, self pay. We hadn't had an early day in awhile so it was nice to be able to read and chill. I had a nice spill along the way that added to the gashes on my left foot to be seen later. We ran into a French girl hitchiking across Canada. We slept among the mountains.


Next day we began the final ascent of Kicking Horse Pass, 15 km away. Similiar to the Rogers Pass encounter, but a much further early trek. The climb wasn't too bad. All of Kicking Horse is mostly a gentle incline, as opposed to a few brutal hills. We passed by lake O'Hara and the top of the pass. This one was much less spectacular, with no signs saying you were at the summit. At this point we also crossed into Alberta, so we stopped for shots with the sign.

From then it was all downhill... technically all the way to Ontario. No sharp decent like in Roger's Pass, but you slowly lose elevation as you descend into the flat part of Alberta. We made it to Lake Louise for lunch. Pricey town, but scenic. We wanted to keep moving to make it to Banff for Canada Day business so we didn't have a chance to check out the hotel on the lake. But we did chat to some recreational cyclists going from Canmore to Lake Louise and back. They seemed pretty pro. We took the less travelled Bow Valley parkway to get to Banff, not much traffic. The road is nestled tightly in between treelines, so it wasn't as open, but still a nice ride, especially with the sparse traffic. We got some good racing in. We stopped to view Storm mountain for another break. There we ran into an older cyclist who we met in Golden. He was also carrying a huge trailer like Mike so he found the climbs tough. That's one thing we noticed, panniers are much more suitably to climbing. The trailer is more convenient, especially if you have a racing bike (which Mike does), but also a bit pricey. We made it into Banff and bought groceries just in time to see part of the parade. Our campsite was all uphill, and farther away than expected, but we ran into Derek again there. He had some troubles with his bike, otherwise he would have been much further ahead of us. Spectacular dinner that night, pork chops, salad, soup. Full multi-course meal. Also beer, tried the local-ish Grasshopper from the Big Rock brewery in Calgary. Also tried bow valley beer, the local bottom of the barrel, it wasn't that bad, much better than lucky. Eventually we took a bus and made it out to Banff from our site for the fireworks. They were fireworks. We met up with Derek at this point and followed the receding crowds to a local drink spot. The local irish pub was empty, had a few drinks, left to find a more exciting place. Got to the Rose and Crown, more entertaining. Much later, around 2 am we walked for an hour and a half to get home, it was a bitch.

Next day we explored Banff for a bit. I checked out the Whyte Museum which had an exhibition with some Group of Seven art. It was mainly artists who tought out west, and not focused on the Group of Seven, but still very relaxing. After that, quickly went to see the Banff Springs hotel which is pretty sick. Looks like a castle. Then randezvoued with Mike and Pat. The plan was to go to Canmore and stick it out for a day there, but Mike wanted to meet up with some people in Calgary. Had a big arguement, couldn't decide what to do, so I downgraded to just spending a few hours in Canmore and not climbing the local peek so we could push a bit further for the day. So we did the short ride to Canmore, bought some food there and got on much better from the compromise.

We began by going down the mainstreet of Calgary, stopped at the fudge shop where my sister worked, bought a few postcards. Then we sampled some beer at the local Grizzley Paw Brewery. Spent a good bit of time relaxing to some music there. Beer was pretty good, they had a interesting raspberry beer. We then purchased memorabiliar in the form of stickers from the brewery. They had a luring buy 3 get one free deal that Mike and I couldn't resist. Along the way we've taken to buying stickers and patches everywhere, Mike and Pat much more hardcore than me. I have just bought 2 patches so far that I liked, those two buy most of what they find that has the name of a place we've been to. It's a good side hobby, they're bikes are well stickered already. I've sewn my two patches on, one on my backpack, one over the ugly MEC logo on my pannier. My goal is to buy a few more to at least be able to cover all the MEC logos on my panniers. Anyways, after that we attempted to find the elusive chocolate factory in the industrial area of town to get cheap sweets, but it was closed. Bastards. So we kept going down highway 1a, the less busy, more scenic alternative to the main highway. This took us through the booming gas station and convenience store that is Exshaw. We stopped just outside of town where we found a spot to pull off the road out of sight and backcountry camp. Lots of mosquitoes so we ate quickly and retreated to tents. Nice night out, late sunset as we had just crossed the border.

Next day we were up and off toward Calgary. We joined up with the main highway again and made our way down. Stopped at Olympic Park, which is a mountain biking spot in the summer. Lots of Stampede ads everywhere. Talked to my friend from Explore program Mark with whom we were to stay in Calgary. Everything was set, we biked into town via the scenic river route, then down Kensingto to Mark's place. Good times, went out for food at a local pub. Pat went to his cousins, Mike met up with friends of his own, so Mark and I wandered downtown. We were lured into the movie theatre to watch Mongol, a sweet asian produciton about Genghis Kahn. Very epic movie, It satisfied my need for ridiculousness. Went back home via Subway, where we saw some mean looking cops brutalize a local punk for swearing. Police brutality at its finest. Got home, Mark went with his roommate to pick up Lisa who had flowin in that night.

Kamloops to Golden

In Kamloops we had our rest day. We slept in, had a lazy breakfast then spent the afternoon lounging around the backyard of our hosts. We cooled off in the pool, chatted, tossed a frisbee for a bit and did some random cartwheels and ninja rolls in the backyard. Essentially we acted like school children. After a quick lunch we went to town to pick up some food for later and viewed the town from the local high point. It is a very widespread town in between the mountains with the Thompson River running through it. We went back to the house and had another magnificent Japanese dinner and stuffed ourselves. Then sat down for to watch Me Myself and Irene. We were craving a movie after a week on the road, it was very fulfilling.

Next morning we woke up and left Kamloops to meet up with a fellow from the local paper. Pat had arranged a meet with them to "get awareness for the charity". I got a flat, so we didn't get very far before we met up with him. He talked to us for 2 min and then wanted to get some shots of us biking. I guess we were pretty enough to make it in the paper, but not interesting enought to get an article. We kept blasting at a good pace after that with a nice tail wind. Ran into an older fellow who was biking across the country with Cycle Canada. This is an organization that sets the whole ride up, so all you have to do is give them $4000 and they carry your gear, set up your camp... the whole shabang. All you have to do is ride from spot A to spot B each day. The up side of this is no worries, downsides are very expensive and little freedom to stop as you wish, but it is a good way of getting into it if you don't have the guts I suppose. It turned out an excellent day and we played some games (categories and 20 questiosn) along the way to make things more interesting. Similiar to the long frisbee car rides. We stopped for lunch at 80 km, which is usually our end target. Fairly flat ground, once hill. At the top of this hill we took some majestic shots of ourselves.

We then decided to continue on to Salmon Arm to top of the day with 130 km, a record so far. We made it in but we were feeling the burn. Salmon Arm is ANOTHER nice little town in the mountains by a lake, we checked out the info centre, then biked up a decent sized hill which felt brutal because it was at the end of the day. Finally we hauled into what looked like a permanant home RV park. There we ran into a fellow who was coming back from treeplanting by Prince George and biking to Revelstoke.

Next day we headed on out through more mountain country towards the real mountains. We stopped in Sicamous to buy some food. It turned out to be a long break but it was enjoyable, the town had a little beach, but we didn't have time for that. We kept going through nice scenery towards Revelstoke. Lunch was at a little mini museum by a small creek. Lots of mosquitoes. As we kept biking last days power ride started to catch up with us. It was a bad idea to go all out and set a record the first day after the break. We had to stop at a huge hotel/tourist spot in the before Revelstoke called 3 Valley Gap. It was surrounded by steep cliffs and looked quite spectacular. We bought some postcards there and slothed around in their yard for a bit looking sketchy. Then we made the big push to get to Revelstoke. The final bit in was all downhill and very comfortable. We rode into the downtown area to find the info centre. Info centres become our natural stop off spot where we would bug the cute girls with questions about the area. Some of them were pretty useless becuase a lot of them were hired from far away like Ontario, so knew next to nothing about the local area. Downtonw Revelstoke is a nice little spot with two big bear statues at the front. It's a little touristy but what the hell. There was a band playing which was relaxing. We stuffed ourselves at a Chinese restaurant, then took 2 steps outside only to pass out on the chairs and watch the band for an hour because we were too full to move. Eventually we got up and made our way to the campsite the other side of town. It was full so the manager put us beside in a site with trailer where the dude was gone for hte weekend. Here are some good pics from Revelstoke.


Canadian Tire making its way out west behind the mountains.

We woke up late next morning and slowly wandered out. I had a flat in the morning, but pumped it up and it was ok. Very strange behaviour, this lasted until Calgary. Each night my tire would deflate, I would pump it up again and it would be fine for hte day. Right before Calgary, it went completely flat and it turned out the tube had a whole right on the valve. Anyways, we started off knowing it would be a testing day through Rogers Pass. It was very hot and there weren't any big hills at the start. We stopped at the Skunk Cabbage Trail and did a short hike through a marsh. Very unique thing to see in that area, a marsh. As we started, a tourist bus pulled up so there were lots of old people going by us. Here's some pics from the trail.

The bog

Pat and Jan

We passed by the Albert Canyon Hot Springs, where we originally wanted to stay. But it was too expensive and too far at the time. After this there was a slow hot climb. Started shirt soaking again because of the heat. The worst part of climbing a pass is when you start going downhill, because you know that you will have to make up for it later. Another phenomenon that occurs in the mountains is that you can't tell uphill from downhill because you've lost all idea of hwere the horizon should be. So you could be going uphill but it feels like you should be speeding along. Strange mountain hallucinations. We had lunch by a nice waterfall.








After this we began to get tired so our pace slowed down. We passed by a forest trail that we had originally planned on hiking. We gave up on it as it was too late. Our trip today took us through 2 parks, Revelstoke Mountain provincial Park, then into Glacier National Park. The latter is where we camped. We slowly pulled into the Illucillawaet campground expecting a desolate place. However it was booming with campers, an unexpected surprise. We had some pasta for dinner, and checked out hte map of the park. As it turned out there were a lot of trails in the area. So we decided to go to bed early and wake up in order to climb to a Glacier the next day.



Next day was June 29th, my birthday, booyakasha! We were up at 6 am to hike up to the Illucillawaet Glacier, which is very difficult to spell. It was tough to wake up, but as soon as I remembered what the reason was I was pumped. The estimate was 2.5 hours, but we made it to the head of the Glacier in 1 hour. It went through the forest and then opened up and went right beside the valley of the mountain. At the trail end, we began scampering up rocks to get to the actually snow/glacier. It was far from the trail end because the glacier has been retreating so much in the past century. Spectacular scenery, tempting to stay the whole day and ascend the nearest mountain.








But we had to head back. Down and packed up by 12, we made the short uphill bike to the top of Roger's Pass which had eluded us the day before. Then it was 20 min of 65 km/hr decent through 4 snowsheds. The snowsheds ensure snow doesn't block the roads during avalanches. On the way down we met a fellow cross country biker named Derek who we would bump into agian. He stopped with us for lunch, probably thought we were mad because of our random sugar-high shenanigans. Our lunch diet is solely sugar - trail mix, nutella, pb, jam, and honey sandwiches. VERY high in sugar. The way I see it is we burn that up on the ride and then refuel with carbs at dinner. As we continued it became scorching hot, more shirt soaking followed. We were hoping to pass through the elusive town of Donald to fill up on water, but as seems to be a pattern, there are many towns listed on our maps that don't exist. So we filled up at an RV park and bought choco bars. Eventually we cruised into Golden our stop for the night. It lies in between the two passes in the Rockies, Roger's Pass and Kicking Horse Pass. Unfortunately the only available campsite was a the top of a brutal hill that killed us. Before making it up this, we stopped at a Timmies for some ice cap (for the record a poor choice when you are so hot, soup would be much better). Mike had almost passed out from heat stroke in the past half hour. After setting up camp at the overprice Golden campsite, we drudgingly went down the hill to find dinner (knowing we would have to climb it on the way up). We had dinner at a Greek Restaurant for my birthday and went all out. PRetty sweet. Came back and passed out.

Mission to Kamloops

To continue the story across the land. After camping in Kilby, we continued our trek on towards Hope. The road continued through the Fraser valley which ends near Hope, which is surrounded by mountains. Hope is the chainsaw carving capital of Canada. We bought some food there and had lunch in town. On the way out we saw a big group of cyclists escorted by police biking from Kelowna to Vancouver to race money for charity. That's a good 500 km in one day, and they were still going faster than us! After hope we headed up the Fraser river towards what is known as the Canyon route as the river flows well below the highway. We stayed just past a small little town called Yale. There was a small hill right by the highway high enough that no one could see us that we camped on. Interestingly enough there was a little picnic table on top of this hill. We didn't want to haul our bikes up so we left them the other side of the highway concrete wall out of sight of cars. It was an interesting sleep between the highway, railway and the Fraser River. But as would turn out these three would follow us closely on our way through BC.

Next day we began riding up the Canyon and went through 5 tunnels between Yale and Boston Bar. There is only a small sidewalk on the left side of the tunnel to bike on. The sidewalk is very narrow so it's a pretty sketchy ride. Most of the tunnels were short enough that it wasn't too bad except for the last one. You couldn't see the end once you got in and Mike got a strawberry flung at him in the tunnel. Pretty dirty trick. On the other side, Pat also discovered that he had a tick in his side. That wasn't related to the tunnels. Some interesting stopping points where the Elvis rocks the canyon Cafe, with an insane amount of Elvis memorabilia. We filled up on water here. We also stopped at the tourist trap that is Hell's Gate. This is a narrow part of the Fraser River that they claim has a greater volume of water pass through it than Niagara Falls. To get down you have to pay for a gondola ride down (the steepest gondola in the world, at 45% incline). At the bottom we wandered around and tried not to spend more money. The only thing I couldn't resist trying was "Simon Fraser" fudge, that excused the shitty touristiness of Hell's gate. The whole day the road slowly rose high above the River. We stopped for Dinner at a Chinese restaurant just before Lytton that was recommended by a truck driver in Kilby. It was a good deal and the waitress was very chatty, she spent the entire meal talking (us mainly listening) about her son and her worries for his future education. Not that I'm complaining, it was enjoyable and she was one of the more down to earth characters we met. I forgot to mention that we stopped in Spuzzum a two house town that claimed to have market. The market ended up being two old hippies selling flowers and cookies out of their trailier. We had another good talk with them, mostly about international issues, they kept up to date with the news pretty well. Their cookies were also tastey. That night we stayed on top of another hill... between the highway, railway and river just before Lytton. It was a slow but entertaining day.

Our next day we made the short ride into Lytton to stock up on food and then continued up the canyon. At this point the scenery changes dramatically and everything dries up. The hills get strange colours with very few trees and mostly rock. One of the hottest days of the trip for sure. We also decided to attempt to break the 100 km mark for hte first time on the trip. We stopped half way at Spences bridge for lunch in the blazing heat. This is where we started the tactic of soaking our shirts in water to keep cool and hydrated. Just past Spences bridge is where the "western style" picture was taken that I posted earlier. Eventually we made it into Cache Creek, which is where the turn off for Kamloops is. We loaded up on food and some beer to keep the heat in check. Our camp spot was at an RV park just outside of town. I also got the chance to test out opening a beer with my iron ring for the first time. Works pretty well, but you have to do it quick to not kill your finger. The 100 km mark was passed.

We started off the next day with 4 eggs each for breakfast. It's actually not that much. There was a good tail wind and so we kept a quick pace. This along with the heat tired us out pretty fast and we ended up taking some long breaks. Also ran into a few other cyclists going the other way. Eventually we stopped in Savone in a diner for lunch. Aka, we made our own lunch and bought some stuff to not feel guilty. The rest of the ride was pretty hilly into Kamloops. Once we got there we met up with Pat's friend Savannah. Her dad picked us up and drove us to their place. It's another sweet town between mountains. We had a huge dinner there, watched a movie, and passed out.

Cheers for now.

Vanouver to Mission

After the hectic adventures in Vancouver and we made it to Surrey to stay with Mike's uncle. They were superb hosts and fed us very well, we ate all the pasta they made, very delicious. Next day we waved goodbye and set of on the real journey. This was the true start to our trip across the nation. After going through the outskirts of Surrey through some nice farm like scenery we made it to the Albion ferry. This is a free ferry that crosses a 50 m river, a nice 5 min rest. I hear they are to replace it with a bridge as it is doesn't make sense to have such a short haul ferry. We then continued biking on to Mission, where we bought and ate lunch outside a visitor info centre. After lunch we continued through the gorgeous Fraser Valley to Kilby Park. This is where we camped. It looked like an RV parking lot, but we were too lazy to look for another place.

Calgary was pretty wild with the stampede and all so I didn't have much time to update. Cheers for now, we are off to Drumheller today to check out the Badlands.

Vancouver

We landed in Horseshoe Bay in northern Vancouver across the river and biked along the scenic Marine drive to get to Stanley Park. Marine drive is a little road that goes along the coast through a beautiful coastal neighbourhood until you get to Lions Gate bridge. Lions gate bridge has was a good ride to get across and all with an amazing view. We then got into Stanley Park where we met up with Pat Mason, Mike's friend from Ottawa. Turns out he has the exact same bike as me. After we helped him patch a flat we did an easy tour of the Park. It's an amazing place for biking, essentially a National Park in the middle of the city.

After that we headed off to Jeff, John and Jaimie's place in downtown Vancouver. They have a sweet little pad right no the outskirts of the Hastings ghetto and beside the Cirque de Soleil setup in Vancouver at the time. That night we went to a Japanese restaurant close to Robson and Denman st with Jeff and some friends of Pat's. We order a bunch of skewers with different types of meat along with some Japanese salads. Very tastey, some of the crazier stuff included cow tounge and a strange marsmelowy tofu. My appetite has grown a lot with all
the biking, especially considering that we don't have much time to really fill up while biking, just enough to keep us going. On rest days I really feel it catch up and pretty much eat a horse. After the Japanese food we had some dairy queen and then realized we were still hungry, so Mike and I split a sub from Subway.

Next day was our only real day in Vancouver, and even that turned out to be very little. Our plan for that night was to stay with Mike's uncle in Surrey so we only had until 4pm to do any touring. First part of hte morning was devoted to a sendoff with the charity that Pat had hooked this trip up with - Rooftops Canada. It's an organization that provides housing overseas in areas with poverty, mainly Africa. They gave us some gatorade and power bars and asked a lot of questions. I was a little confused because I knew nothing about the organization or what the plan was at the time. It's fairly low key, the goal is to spread awareness and talk to local media to spread word, nothing elaborate.

After that we went to MEC to stock up on some gear. I am beginning to get fed up with MEC, we've been there so much lately and I am realizing that it's turning into a cult. People buy MEC gear almost obsesively and to excess. Next stop Granville Island! A little market island right in the middle of Vancouver filled with all sorts of goodies and the wondeful Granville Island brewery. Since I had tried this beer on Gabriola island I was eager to get a tour, but they were all booked out. Instead me and Pat split a taster round of their current draft beers. All around some good stuff there, although a bit of a pricey market. Soon it was 4 and we started biking to Surrey. Our plan was to take the sky train, but it is off limits to bikers during rush hour so we biked the long 40 km (more than 3 hours! with stops and all). Surrey is a shithole but it was interesting urban ride. This included the most brutal hill I have every climbed. The gradient must have been close to 25%, definitely more than 20. I was more stubborn, and killed my legs all the way to the top just so I can say i climbed it. Eventually we got to Surrey and stayed with Mike's uncle. He's quite the character and dabbles in all sorts of things including innovations and screenplay writing.

More on the journey to Kamloops to come.

Pictures

Here are some of the best pictures, not in order. Enjoy Hand stand on the biggest tree in Cathedral grove (a douglas fir). Supposedly the biggest tree in Canada is not too far in Juan de Fuca Park on the southern edge of the island.
The view from our cooking, chillin, relaxing spot on Gabriola Island. Very soothing.
The straighest trees around at Kilby Park close to Hope. This is for the treeplanters. No treeplanter would ever spend the time to make it this straight.
A Group of Sevenesque tree on the highway north of hope towards Lytton.
On the highway towards Spences brdige just past Lytton. This part is called the hot spot of Canada. Scenery completely changes to dry rocky hills with only shurbs and few trees. This is one of my favourite pics so far and looks like a scene from a Western.

View of Olympic Mountains in USA from Victoria.Inside cathedral grove.
The moss in the rainforest in Pacific Rim National Park.
The view from a little hill at a place we camped backcountry. It was one of hte sweetest camping spots we've had.
The beach at Pacific Rim National Park on the West coast of Vancouver Island. The beach is about 100 m deep which shows how crazy the waves get there.

Vancouver train yard

View from the ferry to victoria
Cool shot from the ferry
Another cool shot from the ferry An awesome tree at Royal Roads University in Victoria. The castle at the university was used for the filming of X Men 2.T

Tofino to Vancouver

I've been a bit lazy in updating, didn't get much of a chance in Vancouver. We left Tofino and hiked a trail through the Rainforest in the Pacific Rim as a last minute tour. All the rainforest out West is very dense and diverse. The trees are covered in moss and the ground is so uneven that the whole trail is on a boardwalk.

After that we headed off through known territory through the hills beside Lake Kennedy. These are the worst hills I've ever seen, steep and short. The worst one was an 18% grade, this may not seem very daunting but it is brutal, especially with 50 lbs of gear. Past the halfway point around Sutton summit we saw a black bear on the side of the road close to where I saw one on the way to Tofino. Yet again we passed by the gorgeous Sproat Lake where the road goes right by the lake with mountains on each side. We biked a total of 90 km and camped right of the highway by a little logging road.

Next day we biked into Port Alberni a little town between the mountains. We visited an old train station where a they still run a train from the start of the century. We had lunch at the harbour and devoured donuts from a local bakery. Delicious. The harbour area was pretty nice, all little wooden building from the train days. It was a nice long break, and after we began the climb to Alberni summit. It took us a good 40 min to climb to the summit which is at an elevation of 411 m. From the top its a smooth ride at 65 km/h down to Cathedral Grove. This is a little trail that contains some of hte oldest trees in Canada. We did half of the trail earlier, and now finished it off. We got some good pictures with the tallest tree in the park, a Douglas fir. It was tough because bus loads of tourists stop there to take pictures. Then we continued on to the East coast of the island where we stayed at Rathtrevor park with Mike's uncle. See the ocean again was awesome. We also witnessed our first of many West coast sunsets.

Next day we biked to Nanaimo and took a ferry over to Gabriola Island. It seems all the little island are gorgeous and undiscovered. There is a lot of sandstone on the island and it is a rock that erodes very easily. There's a spot called the Malasapina Galleries where the rock has been carved out so it there is a huge overhang overtop of a little cavern. This strethces for about 50 m so it looks like a wave from the profile. We sat there made dinner on my compace whisperlite stove, watched the sunset and rank local beer - Granville island cream ale.

Next day was a rest day also spent on the island. After that we took a ferry back to Nanaimo, did a bit of a tour around there, had an awesome nanaimo bar and then took a ferry to Vancouver.

More from there in a bit.

Victoria to Comox to Tofno

Our day in Victoria was awesome, we went kayaking down a little river towards downtown where we parked the kayaks in the harbour and had dinner by all the houseboats. There were a few seals in teh harbour being fed by tourists as well. After that we walked downtown and got a backroad tour of Victoria with Mike's uncle. It was pretty neat, he took us through some old narrow roads through nice little residential areas. We also climbed up Mount Tolmie for a look at the town from above. Overall Victoria is a beautiful cities with some great views.

Next day we got a ride up to Comox where mike had a buddy in the army base. More of a relaxing day, we did a small hike and made sushi.

Finally the hardcore biking begins, next day we bike down the east coast and then started across the island. A total of 90 km, half of which was through pouring rain. We got into a little "honour system" style prov. park called Little Qualicum Falls which was quite nice. Quite and in the middle of the rainforest, although everything on the island is essentially rainforesty. The forests are very thick and full of ferns and moss. Most of our warm clothing was wet and it rained all night so we had no way to dry it. Pretty shitty sleep.

Luckily the next day turned out to be gorgeous. Sun shining, we biked to Port Alberni a gorgeous port town right in the middle of the island comletely surrounded by mountains. On teh way we stopped at Cathedral grove a little hiking route that contains some of the largest trees in CAnada, mostly Red Cedars while the biggest are Douglas Firs. Very impressive. We stopped in Port Alberni to dry ouir clothing and stock up on food. I wish we could have toured around the town more. Then we biked up towards the west coast for 4 hours. Amazing scenery right beside Sproat Lake. Found a sweet backcountry spot to camp with an amazing view of snow capped mountains.

And so the next day we biked 60km to Tofino through toiugh hills. Or Pacific Rim Natonal Park, not Tofino. To summazrize, today is sunny after a week of clouds, beautiful, mike went surfing, I took it easy on the beach. Tofino is a small litlle hippy town.

Future plans are to bike back to Tofino in 2-3 days and possibly do a 7 hour hike (with overnight) to see Della Falls, highest in North America at 440m.

Adios for Now

Vancouver and Victoria Adventures

Good day lads and lasses, right now it is the morning of June 8th and we are in Victoria, preparing to leave for Comox. Heres a more detailed synopsis of the days so far.

June 5th

We landed in Vancouver and spent about 2 hours assembling our bikes from the mess that they were in the bike boxes. Vancouver was rainy and gloomy, which threw off my dreamy illusions of it being sunny wherever we went. We biked to our hosts place through some pretty nice neighbourhoods. Turns out Vancouver has a lot of really nice, well kept neighbourhoods and everyone spends a lot of time tending to their hedges. After some dinner we went to MEC to replace some gear. Im getting pretty sick of MEC right now to be honest, frankly its becoming far too popular, almost cult-like. Then we did a power tour of Vancouver downtown by bike. It was still pretty gloomy weather but nevertheless we explored all different parts of the city from the ghetto (hastings st) to the core area and waterfront. Maybe it was the bad weather but Vancouver didnt capture me yet, however a lot of our sightseeing was as it was getting dark too. Next time we will explore Stanley park and do a more fitting tour.

PS. Lakers lose to Celtics in Game 1, much disappointment follows.

June 6th

Yesterday was more of mental test with the shitty wheather and all. It was a different feeling to actually be out here knowing that you cant turn back as opposed to the happy daydreaming that took place in Ottawa safe from the elements and surprises of the road.

Today on the other hand would prove to be a physical test. We left late at 11 am and underestimated all of the distances. Just getting to the ferry took 3 hours. At first it looked even worst when we found out that we would have to take a 1.5 hour detour becuase we couldnt pass through the tunnel cross the fraser river, but we then found a shuttle bus that takes bikes across. As we would find out, the western cities (at least van and vic) are much much more bike friendly than anywhere else ive been. Victoria even goes as far as calling themselves the bike capital of canada.

The ferry ride was peaceful and a well needed rest. We ate some food, drank lots of water. Once we got off, we rode to Victoria, which took 4 hours, also a lot more than initiallyl anticipated. The lochside trail which follows the coast was absolutely gorgeous and I recommend it to anyone in this area. However, in these 4 hours i ate very little and forgot to fill up on water. I crashed and burned and the whole thing was pretty brutal. Near the end we stopped for subway, which was a saviour. The inital veiw of vic was amazing, more details to follow on our vic adventure. right now we have to leave for comox.

PS. Djokovic loses to Nadal in tennis, disappointing, but Nadal is the clay champ. NBA game 2 tonight.

For pictures, check out the group Mike created on facebook, it is in my groups, i havent had a chance to upload any to my albums.

Testing, testing, 1-2-3

This is my blog kick-off post. I've been scurrying about Ottawa for the last two weeks attempting to wrap up my student life, pack my house, play as much frisbee as possible, and of course plan the bike trip across Canada.

Less than two weeks ago, I decided that my 1960's Peugot road bike would not suffice for a 5000+ km journey across Canada. And so I began researching touring bikes. One week later, I bought a Devinci Caribou from Kundstadt Sports (pronounce it as you wish). At $1300, this is an entry level touring bike, yet it still had not problem emptying my bank account. Here is a picture of the beast from the DeVinci website.For those interested in bikes, here are some specs for the Caribou 1
- double walled, 36 spoked wheels (necessary when carrying a significant load)
- 27 speeds (to help destroy any mountain overpasses that stand in my way)
- Shimano Sora front derailleur (low end road bike derailleur)
- Shimano Deore LX rear deailleur (better than Sora)
- Shimano Tiagra shifters (byaaah! Upgraded from Sora, definitely worth it)
- Selle Italia XO saddle (first trip it did quite a number on my ass, but only time will tell)

I bought this bike because it is has some reputation in the touring world, although it is entry level. Either way, I'm bringing plenty of spare parts. Ideally, I would have bought the Trek 520 touring bike, a very respected and widely used entry level touring bike. However, I decided to buy a bike quite late and they were all sold out.

Enough technical info, onto the juice. The plan right now is to fly to Vancouver on June 5th with Mike and tour Vancouver Island for just under two weeks. On June 18th we head back to Vancouver to meet up with Pat, spend a few days in Vancouver and then head off East.

I have never been out west further than Calgary, and I must say, I'm pumped! Vancouver Island looks amazing, especially Pacific Rim National Park (close to Tofino) where we have reserved camping. The Rockies and BC in general look pretty sweet too from this far. I can't focus on anything beyond Rockies yet because they overshadow it. However, once this trip is under way, that will change.

I might put in another post before I leave town, we'll see.