Settling down in Fairy Lake for the night, a closed Forestry Service campground with no services but a beautiful landscape. I’ll be running out of water tomorrow morning so will make the decision to either boil, or use my MSR Water Filter to make sure I don’t get the water funk. Spent the previous night in a gated off area of French Beach, complete with roof, running water, and sinks. I’m low maintenance, pack in/pack out sort of guy and left no trace before the 8:30 departure time I had going.
Today’s weather was a complete 180 to what was going on Tuesday. The ride from Victoria to Sooke on the Galloping Goose trail was quiet, until I got my first flat of the tour, and yup – in the rear. Gray clouds, cold wind, and then rain coming down made my trip slower than possible. Had a chance to run into a fellow tourist outside the Wal-Mart who expressed an interest in my new flamethrowers, speaker holders and my lock. Finally picked up batteries for my headlight, which is letting me write this, and allowed me to read another toy/tool I picked up while loitering in Victoria – an Amazon Kindle! A friend in the lower mainland picked it up for me at a super steal of a price and shipped it over to the Victoria Bus Depot for easy pickup.
The Kindle is a wonderful device, lightweight, large enough to hold onto easily, and pleasurable to read. The speakers don’t distort with the Text to Speech often, and loading files wirelessly or with the USB cable was simple and easy. Being able to put my Barnett’s Manual of Bicycle Repair onto it and have it display immediately without using the insane amount of battery power a laptop would for reading sold me right away. There are thousands of Public Domain books available and I’ve got a cache of Science Fiction I’ve been dying to read. Buying content for the device will be rare but it will be nice to have as an option for say…. an author I liked. Now, I’ve just got to keep from smashing the device, a protective case is being sent to my mail drop hopefully by the time I get there next Friday.
French Beach offered a great look at the crashing surf, shots of the Northern Washington Peninsula, and a great look at wildlife, such as pods of Grey Whales. The wildlife is becoming more and more common, and deer no longer run, but stop, stare and go about their own thing if you don’t make motions to shoo them away. Glad I stopped there as opposed to Jordan Creek, my original destination as we suffered quite a wind storm, and I in the slightest interested in being woken up all night by howling. It turns out I did lay awake at some point in time throughout the night tossing and turning, realizing that my air mattress was deflated. Another flat! I stopped early today to make sure I could patch it, but I must have just left a valve open as everything’s fine as we speak and we’ve been fully inflated for close to 2 hours.
I had an enormous amount of energy and good feelings while riding the 50km to Port Renfrew – It was the first day I was able to try out my sound system. It worked as planned, was loud enough for me to listen to while riding, and still hear upcoming traffic. I do need a rear view mirror as there could be the possibilities of quieter cars sneaking up, and its generally a safer option for me to have one anyways – but I am content. I managed to listen to Metallica’s Master of Puppets, Pennywise – About time, and a recording of my old radio show SLEIZURE – 2009-10-31 – Halloweenie, a mix of dark and quirky electronic music. Even better when I had to stop after one of the many steep climbs and switchbacks for lunch on the side of the road, and peel off the majority of my clothes due to the searing heat coming from the burning planet in the sky was having music to accompany my can of sardines and scoops of peanut butter to tide me over for the remaining 10km.
I stopped at the Port Renfrew General Store, chatted with some locals a bit who assured me heading back out of the town to my next destination wouldn’t be as hellish, before stopping for 2 hr at a cafe which was having a meeting for its residents recommending that they band together to change an old growth forest area to something that capitalizes on the well known movie Avatar to Avatar Grove, and to use this opportunity to bring in German tourists to see the oldest, largest trees in Canada. I’m mixed on it, but did enjoy their cookies, coffee, and wifi.
I was planning on camping at Botanical Beach, but once I brought my bike down the 1.8km rocky hill, I found it to be too loud, with the water startings its return to bring in High Tide. I spent 2 hours exploring the tidal pools containing Anenomes, Mussels, Clams, Purple Starfish, fish and Hermit Crabs before having to take a completely different route back, I was trapped by the return of the tide! I made it out without issue and headed back up the hill and out of the town, heading towards tomorrows finish – Cowichan Lake. Yup, the area where those famous sweater’s are made, which I’m hoping to enlist the services of someone to make me a custom sweater and have it mailed to one of my upcoming destinations.
After some bumpy rides and some one lane bridges I finally stopped here for the night, and started doing some reading on a potential route change, hoping to leave Prince Rupert again by boat to Bella Coola, a very untouched area of BC, that would help me shave off some days getting to Cranbrook to fly to the Yukon. Unfortunately my plans were squashed by the fact that BC Ferries only sails there in the summer. I came up with a different plan however which will allow me to avoid alot of climbing, taking the number 5 south to Kamloops. I’m certainly doing the long route in BC, as the turn off on the Yellowhead highway is very close to the Alberta/Jasper border, however I made a promise to a friend to head south to Rossland, and I’d like to visit family in Kelowna.
My drivetrain is squeaking something fierce and my rear brakes are seizing a bit, looking forward to a light ride tomorrow to take care of some much needed work. I figure once I get into Kelowna I will have a shop service the bike including repacking bearings, and potentially pick up some new tires depending on their wear. Am surprised I haven’t burned out a chain yet based on my earlier rides.
The geese are obviously frustrated I am awake now, so I’ll end this.
