The weather gods did not want us to leave Vancouver, maybe they thought I should rest more. Wind and rain pounded on us when we made our way to the ferries in the Southwestern point of the mainland of Canada. we had taken the monorail East first as the direct route would have led us through the George Massey Tunnel, off limits for cyclists. The shuttle for cyclist had stopped for the season and we did not think that any bus could take our heavy bikes on their frontloading rack. we could not lift them up there anyways

After about 30km through mainly flat and wet land we ended up at the ferry, just in time for a 14.00 departure. It takes about 90 minutes to cross the Strait of Georgia to Vancouver Island, the largest island on the West side of North America.

The Lochside Trail, turning into the Galloping Goose trail later on, starts right outside the ferry terminal and is a great way to see a bit of the island. It is an old rail track, sometimes unpaved, sometimes crossing roads and even wooden trestles but always very scenic for all its 35km. We saw deer along the car-free trail, many flocks of geese and fields full of pumpkins. we enjoyed it so much that we ended up entering in Victoria in the dark…

We stayed 2 nights with our great Warm Showers list hosts, Mark & Cathy. They took us to a nice little Farmer’s market, one of the last of the season. It is nice to see that more young people are supporting the local farmers and eating healthy produce, even though it costs more than the preprocessed and mass-produced ‘food’ from the larger supermarket chains. I feel that our generation (at least a part of it) realizes that we should value fuel for our own system more than that for our cars…

It was nice to walk and cycle around town and into the parks without all the luggage, one of the great advantages of staying with trustworthy hosts. We relaxed near the harbour and did the first real maintenance on our bikes: as we had cycled 5000 km, we had to replace the oil inside our Rohloff back hub. It was very simple: open the screw, inject cleaning oil, cycle for a few minutes, (mainly in 3rd and 5th gear, so you use all parts inside), pull out the cleaning oil and dirt from the hub and inject clean lubricating oil. As easy as changing a tire and we are now good for the next 5000km!

Ivana’s Argentinean flag, on the back of her bike, again proved to be very effective and helpful as we suddenly heard some voice in Spanish behind us. We looked into the friendly faces of Estela and David, who lived nearby and were about to go for lunch, just like us. They wanted to hear more about our trip and invited us for a nice lunch and for an ‘Asado’ the next evening.

So even though we had planned to leave Victoria this day, there was no point trying to head out now, as Ivana was getting excited at the thought of Argentinean-style meat and some Spanish conversations

We ended up staying 2 nights at their place as the thought of another piece of David’s chocolate cake was enough to vaporize any ferry plans that day…

22 October: From Canada to the USA!

Immigration was surprisingly simple when we headed to the ferry the next morning. Just a few short questions and we received our permission to stay 6 months in the US! The ferry ride was nice, our bikes strapped together on the outer deck, together with the bikes of Russ, a friendly cyclist from Bremerton in the Seattle area, and two from German cyclists, also on their way South. We had a nice dinner together in the local Mexican restaurant; the first burritos, I assume many, many more will follow on our trip.. That evening we slept in the attic of Tristan & Julia. Tristan was a friend of a friend of our friend Andy. He had left for Seattle when we arrived but Julia and her cat took us two strangers in her house and made us feel at home. It s still a very pleasant surprise to see how hospitable people can be towards travellers and strangers.

Some biketravellers choose the Western route, but we went East of the Olympic park as we wanted to visit our friend Andy in Seattle. From Port Angeles, we took another very nice biketrail, the Olympic trail, through Sequim. This also followed part of an old rail bed, but also contained some strange loops and short steep hills. It starts near the sea and Ivana urged me to look for otters, as she never saw one before.

‘You have to look for otters, ok? I want to see them!’

‘Ok, how about those 3?’

Just when we she asked me, 3 otters danced through the waters, disappearing in the direction of faraway Mt Baker…

The track continued over autumn leaves and through sunny fields. Unfortunately it stops quite sudden and you have no choice but to choose between busy roads with narrow shoulders. It had been a sunny day and we had enjoyed the quiet parts with its wildlife (bald eagles) and blackberry bushes. The plan was to get to Port Townsend, but darkness was coming to soon and we settled for a garden in Port Hadlock after 75 km of cycling, it felt strange and good to be on the bike again…

23 October: Port Hadlock to Suquamish: About peanut butter & underwater treasures

The roads were quite nice, though not all had shoulders, but traffic was easy. After passing the picturesque town of Port Ludlow, the first challenge was the Hood Canal Bridge, a long and busy metal construction with no real space for cyclists.

Once crossed, we chose the less busy route which took us through the quaint antique town of Port Gamble. A few miles ahead we noticed a small sign “Fresh Peanut Butter!”. We checked it out and found that the small local company roasted organic peanuts and if you wanted some PB, they would make it on the spot. Especially for all biketravellers, he told me his secret recipe:

Very Secret Old Fashioned Peanut Butter recipe:

Ingredients:

- Peanuts

Tools:

- Peanut cruncher

Instructions:

- Fill top of Peanut cruncher with organic peanuts.

- DONOT add preservatives, salt, sugar, oil, or other natural or unnatural substances.

- Switch on machine.

- Collect fresh, tasty and pure peanut butter in jar at bottom end.

Apparently, he was having a hard time selling the delicious peanut butter. Not only because cheap brands filled with sugar, oil and preservative cost less in the supermarkets, but also because many schools are banning students from bringing PB sandwiches. Why? Because of the out-of-control claim culture combined with growing allergies for natural foods. So many children are now developing allergies, and as the lawyers are ready to sue schools for everything they (do not) have, the schools have to be cautious.

It is still not sure why the last decades this has risen so much in first world countries, but scientists suspect that too clean living environments (children can no longer play in the dirt and stuff things in their mouth and hands need to be washed 10 times a day with antibacterial ‘soaps’) the natural immune system gets messed up. Another thought is that the allergy is a result of all the creams (many containing peanut oil) that we are supposed to rub on our children, something that kids in Africa and Asia do not need…

Andy had given us another address to stay; from his friend John Williams, a fellow filmmaker, specialized in underwater photography. John was a very friendly host and it was nice to see some of the amazing footage he shot. It looked like it was taken on far away reefs, but all of it was shot just in the nearby Puget Sound, a strong reminder that beauty can be very near our homes and that we should protect it…

We had noticed that traffic was increasing, and just a few more miles separated us from one of the largest metropolitan areas in the USA: Seattle was waiting for us….

Vancouver is a nice city. Even though we had to get used to being in a large place again, we enjoyed the neighbourhoods, the bicycle lanes, the beaches, Chinatown, Sushi. I will keep this report short and just show you some images.

We were surprised by the large number of homeless people in the streets downtown and the lack of a real ‘tourist’ area. A lot is going on in Vancouver as the Olympic Wintergames will be here in less than 16 months: new buildings, houses and more.

We spend many days resting at Kristen’s place. I had to transfer many websites from one host to another, which is the electronic version of emigrating an entire family, but all went well and now www.BikeTravellers.com, www.ExposedPlanet.com and some others are finally reachable and fast again.

We went into some big outdoor and bicycle shops but did not really need anything. I commented about this on Bikeradar, a well-known website that had reviewed our Santos Travelmaster:

I am currently testing it on our ride from Alaska to Argentina. The bike is great, no problems whatsoever. My girlfriend, riding the same bike, and me were in a big Vancouver bikeshop after finishing the first 5000km, including about 800-1000km unpaved (Dalton Highway, Denali Highway and Cassiar Highway).

‘What do we need for our bikes?’ we asked eachother, looking hungry at all the nice gear and tools.

‘Ehhhh?’

In the end we realized we have to change the oil (recommended after 5000km) and as we already had the spare Rohloff oil with us, we bought nothing.

And once you have tried the Rohloff, you will never want to go back

(tripreports can be found on http://WorldOnABike.com).

After our first long trip on into town –on foot- ended up with blisters we started using our bikes and toured around the city and through Stanley Park. The park is quite big and houses many trails for cyclists (one way!) and hikers. We saw raccoons, geese and met some nice guys who invited us for dinner after we managed to meet them again a few hours later…

Of course we ate a lot, both in Kristen’s place as well as in town, the biggest find being an all you can eat Sushi Buffet! We found out that it was Canadian Thanksgiving (which is about a month before the US version), and Kristen and her housemates all went out to eat with friends and family. Just when we thought we would have to spend the evening alone, we got an email from Carol and Barry, inviting us for thanksgiving in their place in North Vancouver! It was great to see Barry again and meet Carol, who is full of wonderful stories; the food was delicious and we felt privileged to be there with them.

It was time to get to Seattle, but we decided that we did not want to go straight down, through the non-stop Metropolitan area of Northern Washington State. We decided to visit Victoria first…

4th October: Cache Creek – Lytton, 78km

Cache Creek is a bit of a weird city, or maybe it was just that we were there in rainstorms, while it is one of the driest parts in the country.. Anyway, the sun welcomed us again when we left the row of fastfood chains behind us and the dry landscape showed itself.

It was a fun day of cycling, as we were treated with some verrry nice downhills.

I have felt that one of the things that makes me most happy is cycling downhill fast: the wind in my face, the mix of speed, fear and excitement and the resulting cocktail of endorphins and adrenaline. Many physical and mental bystanders think that this borders to suicidal behaviour, but they have no idea about how much you can enjoy and celebrate life even in just a split second; it makes you want to scream and sometimes you just do

Halfway down I noticed some fruit stalls alongside the road and stopped at the biggest one and got some apples. After Mike, the owner showed us around and told us he had too much fruit and not enough pickers, we were tempted to stay a while and make some extra money. But with my back it would not be a good idea and we were still being chased by winter, so we headed back on the road instead, loaded with a bag of fruit and veggies that Mike had let us pick..

The rain suddenly came back in full-force showers and we stayed a while in a nice small lodge and bakery in Spences Bridge. We saw more of the huge freight trains passing and twice I counted over 210 wagons per train…

We planned to get to Lytton, where the Thompson River merges with the might Fraser river, but the small uphills and upcoming winds made us stop a few miles before. We ended up pitching our tent behind the house of an old and very deaf lady and were happy that we had not chosen some of the deserted campsites, as we were now completely sheltered from the wind, which started blowing with hurricane force, howling through the canyon…

5th October: Lytton – Spuzzum, 77km: wind & tunnels…

Unfortunately the next day the wind had not dropped much in force and we fought our way into it in our lightest gears. It was getting ridiculous when I was going downhill at 8km/h (5mph), having to push hard. Ivanas face was showing her frustration and tiredness, she is much lighter than me and almost got blown off the road by the winds.

After getting into the true Fraser Canyon, the winds slowed down a bit, but our idea that cycling in a canyon would mean no hills was definitely wrong. We were already quite close to sealavel, while about 250km away from Vancouver. Jackass mountain, named after the mules and donkeys hauling supplies up the Canyon in the days of the gold rushes, was a nasty climb and the resulting downhill was windy. The skies cleared a bit though and when we stopped in Boston Bar to buy some supplies, it actually got sunny and the wind dropped.

Next in our Adventure obstacle course were some unexpected dangers: tunnels! We had been warned about them but in reality only the first one was very scary. As a cyclist you are supposed to push a button, which will light some warning lights above both entrances of the tunnel, alerting drivers of our presence. That was very nice, but none of the drivers slowed down, and passed us with sometimes just centimeters to spare, while the huge roars of the diesel engines of the trucks and oversized RV’s reflected against the concrete tunnel walls, creating a deafening mix of noises. Ivana panicked as she is lighter and cannot cycle as fast, but we made it through…

There were more tunnels to follow, but at least the others had small elevated sidewalks, where we could cycle or just walk our bikes, which was definitely much safer.

Our map showed a small dot called ‘Spuzzum’ and when we got there it turned out to be only one parallel street with some houses. Some were messy, others well taken care of. We were looking for people when we noticed a large trailer, parked on a  nice green lawn next to a vegetable garden. Tips for Biketravellers: somebody who messes up his own house and garden might mess up your night as well, but somebody who spends energy in creating a vegetable garden usually is a friendly person and therefore a great host

This street wisdom definitely was true as when we rode our bikes onto the grass an elderly, but young and very friendly looking man came out, surprised to see any visitors. “Hi I am JP!”

It was no problem for us to pitch our tent on his lawn, he even started raking the dead leaves, while apologising for the ‘mess’ on the grass!’

‘You are the first cyclists I have ever seen! Wait, are you sleeping in that tent? You need a light!’ And with those words, he went into his trailer, then into his toolshed (‘The Shop’) and came out with a bedside table lamp and an extension cord. So that night we had the luxury of reading without head lamps and could even recharge the laptop.. Ivana tried to wake me up in the middle of the night as she heard some noises outside, but was not successful.

JP & his girlfriend Christy took us for a tour of the town the next morning. We passed a very nice piece of land, which belonged to his town-mate and friend Pete. We found Pete and his son watching over the Fraser River and they showed us around on their great land, filled with fruit trees. While we were eating some of the best tasting apples Pete had given us, we noticed a few piles of apple pieces on the ground. ‘Yeah, those damn bears. They eat all apples and shit them out right away!’.

Back at JP’s place we noticed the same piles of bear-scat and Ivana suddenly remembered that she had heard all those noises, right next to our tents. JP already had let us use the shower in his small campervan, the style you place on the back of a pick-up. when he saw Ivanas fear and the rain that had just started pouring down again, he told us that we could sleep inside his campervan if we wanted? (see JP & Christie here on 1000 Americans)

7 October: Spuzzum – Agassiz

It was great to be warm and cosy, while the rain and wind were pounding on our roof, but the next day we had to continue, the big city was waiting! The weather was terrible again, lots of wind and rain and some smaller tunnels and hills to top it off, so we did not see much of the fabled vistas in the Southern Fraser Valley. When it cleared up a bit, we did notice that the snowlevel was actually not so far above us, which made us pedal just a bit faster… We were now heading straight west for the first time since, well, since ever The winds playfully changed directions as well and tried to keep us from getting anywhere, but we made it to a small city called Agassiz. One of the best things of Agassiz is that they have a Dutch store! Yeah, we bough a small bag of Dropjes! Another bonus is the library, where we could not only get free Wifi, but were also surprised by a friendly woman who emerged from the building, just when it got dark and we were packing our stuff.

‘Hey, are you travelling on those bicycles?’

‘Yes, we are on our way from Alaska to Argentina’

‘Great, do you already have a place to stay tonight? Come with me, I live close, I hope you are not afraid of dogs?’

It turned out that Barbara was a traveler and a dog (and cat) lover, who had adopted several dogs she found on the streets in India. She was also a great cook and host and treated us on stories and a very yummie breakfast!

8 & 9 October: Agassiz – Vancouver via Mission: 50 + 60 km

After leaving Agassiz we were treated on a very steep hill. the sign said only 11%, but it was definitely more at the steepest, as even pushing was near impossible and a truck couldn’t make it. We continued on the highway 7, which was also know as the Sasquatch Highway. various sighting of the infamous Sasquatch/Bigfoot have been recorded in this area, including one in Spuzzum!

The roads were getting very busy now, the shoulder disappeared completely at times and we called it a night when evening traffic started to form ne big noisy polluting line on the Highway 7. We got permission to camp in a garden of an elderly couple, who were hesitant at first, but brought us breakfast at our tent the next day. It is nice to know that we can spread the knowledge that not all cyclist and travellers are scary people…

The final part into Vancouver was frankly not nice. Even though the city is known for its bike routes, parks and positive attitude towards cycling, there is no real way to get into the city on a bike, and it the entire last day we spent on busy roads leading into the real Vancouver, marked only by a small sign alongside the road. We managed to use some parks and after a nice lunch we were stopped for the first time by a police officer:

‘Is there any reason you are not wearing helmets?’ he asked

I pointed to my rear pannier and told them that they were in there. ‘You better wear them, people drive like crazy over here…’ , and with those words he took off, without actually checking if we had put on our helmets. We did though, as there was a lot of traffic and we only put them off when we reached the house of Kirsten and her friends, our host for the coming days. After 5000km we were back at sealevel. We had traveled from 70 degrees North to about 49 degrees North. Vancouver. It had a magical ring to it: the start of the cities, the start of maybe a mix of easier (more shops and organisation) and harder (traffic, more roads to choose from) cycling… I was happy that I could take a little rest, so my back could recover a bit and I could work on the website, that had been on- and offline constantly the past weeks. There was work to do…

Kowalski! Status report!

Amazingly, even after 5000 overloaded km, our bikes, panniers and Computer are still without any problems. My back is hurting again, hopefully the rest will do us good.

Here is a little visual overview of the sections above, unfortunately the last days are missing as the memory was full…

“Que paso?”

“My back hurts so much now, I cannot get up…”

We had arrived at Richard & Maggee’s place the day before. The pain in my back had become slowly worse during the past days, but at this moment it was so bad, I could not move. We were sleeping in the Yoga room, on comfortable, but thin mats, so I could not ‘roll’ out of bed either. It took about 10 minutes of painful balancing and slow finger movements before I could leverage myself into a semi-upright position. Ouch.

Once up, the pain was a bit less, but a cough and especially a sneeze made me grimace in pain. It shot sharply in unexpected moments from my right shoulder, all around my chest. I needed pills, a doctor or both..

After trying different types of pills the next days, Richard called a doctor and I could see him the same day. First pay $60, then talk to the doc. Once I told him that I had been cycling from Alaska the past months, he was convinced it was muscle pain, even though I told him that I could not pinpoint any specific muscle that hurt. I tried to convince him, but all he said was, that if I thought it was something inside my chest, it might be my lungs, and that I maybe should get an X-ray in the hospital.

Still the doctor wrote a prescription for a muscle pain reliever. As Ivana showed him that we used ibuprofen & diclophenac the past days and that it might have helped a bit, he said that that could not hurt either. We felt unsatisfied with this and went to the hospital. It was great to have Richard with us, he helped us all the time.

The ER room of the hospital was a bit messy. People in far more pain than me (it’s not called Emergency Room for nothing) were waiting several hours to get assisted. Once asked we found out that we will have to pay about $700, then another doctor would look at me and maybe take an x-ray. Waiting time would depend on the number of new patients coming in… They told us about another clinic, where we could walk-in, but when we arrived there, it appeared that we had to pay another $60, just to see a general physician, who would refer us back to the ER if anything was wrong…

We still had a nice time with Richard & Maggee; we rested, Ivana joined them for a field trip with the school kids; they took us to their friends for a great dinner, and we enjoyed their company. well-known writer of children’s books, (see them here on Amazon) , even signed a couple of books we sent to Jelte & Kira, Romke’s kids. You can check out Romke’s blog to see how they reacted!

Somehow the combination of rest & pills had made it possible to cycle again, and as winter was still on our heels, we headed South, but limited our days distance-wise.

27th/28th September: To Quesnel via Hixon, 62 & 63km

We had left the Yellowhead Highway and were now on route 97, the Cariboo Highway.

The 27th we only rode about 62km through sunny weather until we found the small town called Hixon, where Mr Toma invited to pitch our tent behind his restaurant. There was a Bluegrass festival right next door, which was fun to see and in the morning Mr Toma even invited us in for a huge breakfast!. He also told us to look up his friend Ted Martindale when we got to Quesnel.

That was another nice and short day and we found Granville’s Coffee as directed. Ted turned out to be a cyclist himself and not only invited us for a lunch in his diner, but also to pitch our tent in his garden and drove me in his Unimog to get some Heineken, so I almost felt at home

In the middle of the night Ivana heard something outside and when she touched the side of the tent, she screamed and almost jumped on top of me as something grabbed her from the outside! It appeared that the unknown monster was the cat, playing with .. read more about Ted, his dogs team and their tricks, Granville’s and his version of the cat-attack here on 1000 Americans.

29th/30th September: to 150 Mile House, via McCleese Lake, 85 & 63km

The weather stayed incredibly nice and we were happy not to have taken the shortcut via Vancouver island. it was a pleasure to see all the different landscapes, especially when we went into the Fraser valley, which we basically would follow all the way to Vancouver as that is where the Fraser River ends up.

I felt a lot better and had little trouble cycling the route to McCleese Lake, though the last climb out of the Fraser valley was nasty, but Jackie and her family made up for it, read and see them here.

When we woke up in the campervan next morning it was chilly but sunny and the McCleese lake looked beautiful.

We stopped for an extended lunch at William’s House after quite some hills. It was a busy, messy place, but as with many smaller cities and towns, the visitor centre was very nice and offered free Wifi, so great to catch up on email while enjoying peanut butter sandwiches in the sun. Life on a bike is not too bad after all We camped behind a half-closed restaurant and were not only offered a place to pitch, but also some drinks and cooked our pasta next to some horses, while V-shaped line of geese crossed the purple sky, heading south like us, only faster…

1-3 October 2008: 150 Mile House – Cache Creek, via 108 Mile House & 83 Mile House; 63, 39 & 93km..

Surprisingly it was not just warm today, but hot… There was a hot wind in our face and we had to look for a shaded place to have our lunch as we were getting toasted by the October sun! We felt like taking a dip in the long Williams Lake, but decided to make some more miles instead, as the wind finally settled down a bit. After our good experiences with the restaurants the past week, we tested our luck at Vida’s Restaurant in 108 Mile House. We were surprised a few times, not only with 2 delicious pieces of home made pie and another cat suddenly attacking (playing with) Ivana, but also by waking up the next morning by some footsteps.

I was awakened after I heard some soft noises. Then the sound of slow footsteps was to be heard just outside our tent. I opened the zipper a bit and looked right into the face of a deer, just a few feet away, his silhouette sharply against the dark morning sky. Another one was  next to it, and they seemed very surprised to see 2 humans looking at them and decided to take off quickly..

Finally the weather gods thought it was enough. Not only the wind picked up to storm speeds, but it also started raining, just when we had stopped at the Visitor’s center in 108 Mile House (thanks Brigitte!). After a long day of emailing, it cleared up a bit and we headed slowly up the long hill outside the town. When I reached the top and was waiting for Ivana to show up it was dry again, though still windy. I suddenly heard a soft hissing sound: a small and very sharp rock had caused my first flat after more than 4500km!

Just when we were starting to look for a place to camp that night, we were passed by a landrover, covered in stickers. It waited on top of the hill and we met Jose Jimenez, who had been driving his car for the past 8 months, all around America, 80,000km in total. He made some yerba mate for us and we enjoyed each other’s stories. But it was getting dark and we discovered the difference between travelling by car and by bike. He was going to try to reach Vancouver this night, something that was weeks ahead in our planning…

After camping behind some deserted roadhouse we climbed up some more and then finally we were dropping off the main plateau, and dramatically so. First a long downhill to the odd town of Clinton, then a small hill up followed by about 20km of downhill, lovely!

of course, what goes down, must come up, so there were some hills to follow, but in general gravity was on our side. The rain caught us just before Cache Creek, where even some lightning appeared. Apparently this was a phenomenon that was unheard off as this area is know to be extremely dry… We managed to camp on the lawn of Scott & Tina’s family, even though they had some medical emergencies in their family, as all Canadians we met they were very friendly and helpful. Let’s see if this was going to stay this way, once we were going to arrive in Vancouver, the infamous Fraser Canyon was waiting for us!

Kowalski! Status report!

I had my first flat, Ivana was doing fine and so are our bikes. My back seemed to hold out, though it was still very painful to get up and coughing/sneezing are not fun things to do… for those of you who like it: here are the altitude profiles for Prince George to Cache Creek:

We could not resist George’s offer to bring us back to the Meziadin junction. Though the ride from Stewart is beautiful, loosing a day –of which half would be uphill non-stop- cycling a stretch we had already done did not appeal. George was happy to get put of town and spend some more time with us, so we put the bikes in the back of the pick-up and 50 minutes later we got dropped off at the exact same spot where we had left the Cassiar Highway a few days before. Back to business!

After all the bear-less hours in Hyder, we got a pleasant surprise. I stopped to pick up CAD $3 in change from the shoulder: our total is now up to about 9 dollars in change found along the road, somehow people literally throw money away… Ivana came up to me and asked if I had stopped for the bear. Bear? Which bear? I looked ahead and saw a large black spot on the side of the road. Damn, she was right, a huge black bear was strolling in the grass. We filmed a bit and tried to warn a passing car, but he did not decease any speed and nearly hit the poor bear as he was crossing the road…

We had planned to stop for lunch and a few minutes ahead we rested near a so-called ‘bear-container’. No it does not contain bears, though that would be funny (funny/interesting and funny/haha), but it is a strong trash container. These are useful in more ways than one: the lids cannot be opened by pear paws so bears cannot get to the trash and will not get used to human food remains. As the sticker on it says: ‘be bear aware, a fed bear is a dead bear’ as once a bear is used to human food, it will no longer be afraid of humans and will have to be hunted down.

The containers have another very useful feature: the backside can be opened and campers can place their food bag inside, next to the hanging plastic bags hat are inside as well. So the supplies are safe from bears and other scavengers, but outside the actual trashbag, so everything stays clean. The availability of a bear container was one of the most important reasons for us to stop at certain places along the highways of Canada & Alaska; even though most are on ‘no overnight camping’ rest areas, we rather be breaking a non-enforced law than attract and feed bears…

It was clear that we were getting into the last and warmer part of the Cassiar Highway. Not only were the glaciated and snowy peaks disappearing out of sight, but we also encountered new types of animals: small yellow and black-striped suicidal caterpillars (even though only a few cars pass the Cassiar per hour, it takes the critters longer to cross it) and some small garden snakes, though mostly in the flat and/or dead variety.

Ivana and I always use to joke that we are collecting airmiles when we are climbing yet another hill and Newton would probably kinda agree as basically we are gathering gravitational energy. The long sweet downhills we always refer to as ‘free miles’ , even though we were riding in Canada, which is a metric country. It was nice to see that after a day of collecting airmiles, we not only cashed in our accrued miles for some free miles, but we ended up at the aptly named hidden but beautiful ‘Bonus Lake’ rest area to top it off.

We cooked in the dark by the light of our headtorches, sitting on the floating jetty, protruding onto the lake, while the stars winked at us. After I discovered my favorite Sea-to-summit titanium folding spoon on the bottom of the lake (thanks Ivana) and managed to get it out we could enjoy our pasta.There were three other travellers who had met at a famous Couchsurfing house in Vancouver, bought a van together and travelled North. We shared a campfire together as well as some wine and beer, but most of all: the spirit of travelling.

16th September 2008: Bonus Lake – Kitwanga, 84km

We rolled quickly over the last hills of the Cassiar Highway and ended up in the small towns of Kitwancool & Kitwanga, with a lot of First nation history.

We felt relieved that we had finished the Cassiar Highway. It had been tough, physically, but maybe even more mentally. One more big part of our trip was now behind us.

Kitwanga is where we had to make a big decision: do we continue cycling and go East to Prince George and then later South to Vancouver, or do we go west to the ferry at Prince Rupert and skip 500km by taking a boat down to Vancouver Island? Many cyclists had had enough of the bad weather and the drians of the Cassiar and had already chosen the 2nd option and we were several months later than them..

Ivana had the idea that she still had not seen the ‘real Canada’ and her people and as we also felt that taking a Southbound ferry was undermining our goal to cycle from one end to another, we decided: we will go East and go all the way!

We had planned to continue cycling on the Yellowhead Highway a bit more, but we noticed a set of large totempoles. After wandering around, it was almost sunset and we asked a man who was standing in his garden if we could pitch our tent in his yard. Sure, no problem, we could come in as well and eat with him if we cooked! It turned out that our host was Roger A Johnson, an elder of the Gitsxan First nation. He told us about his work, being an interpreter between the different chiefs and the mining companies wanting to buy and mine the mountains. Just as Roger was talking about the disappearing of the original culture and language – he was one of the few that could still speak it- a few very white Jehovah witnesses came by and handed him a booklet. It was called something like “First nation News” and depicted on the cover was a traditional First nation burial. But the inside of the booklet just rambled on how the original cultures were nice, but in order to be really saved everybody had to let go of the uncivilized habits and go with the religious flow..

Meanwhile Ivana was making hamburgers for all of us and we ended up with a nice meal together. The next morning Roger was waving us goodbye, loudly shouting his trademark ‘Good Morning Canada!!’, went into the house and gave me a nice present: a Gitsxan flag, which I have been carrying on my bike ever since.

17 September 2008: Kitwanga – Smithers, 114km

We were now on the Yellowhead Highway, #16. There were houses and farms everywhere but also too many trucks and cars. The scenery was still outstanding, but quickly we both realized that we missed the Cassiar: the wilderness, the wildlife, the loneliness, the pain.

One new thing we noticed that there were many field of cattle: a field with cows, a field with horses, a field with bears…

Wait. What? Yes, there were 3 bears in the field right beside us! They were eating the leftovers from the grain harvest and moved away as we came closer. It was wonderful to see these majestic animals roaming freely.

We spend a long time watching them, not feeling threatened at all by their presence at it seemed that this was mutual. When we got going again, the sun had dropped behind the glaciated mountains and after a long day and 114km of cycling, we entered the city of Smithers in the pitch black night.

It was a shock. Traffic Lights. KFC, Taco Bell, Mc Donald’s. More traffic lights. We were overwhelmed by the abundance of food and confused by the hectic city life, even though this would be considered a small town by North-American standards.. We called the number Willie Williams had given us in his home, a week ago, as we would like to meet his wife, who might be in town. His daughter answered and told us that not only Grace, but also Willie was in Smithers, and they were having a coffee in the ‘Tim Horton’. In the what? It appeared that Tim Horton is the Canadian version of Starbucks, but much more affordable and with delicious freshly baked muffins, bagels and sandwiches.

It was great to surprise Willy by riding up to the window with our bikes and talk with this great man again. He introduced us to his wonderful wife, whom we felt we had met before through his stories.

Moments later, a befriended couple joined our table and they invited us to stay in their house, up the hills. We were prepared to pitch our tent, but they invited us in and we had a comfortable night on the couch of the Hofsink family!

The next day we woke up to a beautiful day and rode back into town, to spend the day working at the local library. We stayed until it closed, which was after sunset and found ourselves to find a place to stay. We were still in shock by the neon, fastfood city life and ended up pitching our tent behind the local Boston Pizza, which had given us permission after serving us our dinner…

Day 70, 19 September 2008: Smithers to Houston, 70km.

Just when we headed out of the town of Smithers, a large pickup stopped next to us, with a big bearded man and a young girl leaning out.

‘Are you guys travelling around the world?’. That seemed a bit of a strange question, but in fact at least half true, so we stopped and said yes.

‘I am Paul and this is my daughter Jo. You have to come to Houston tonight! What would you like for dinner?’.

We tried to tell Paul that we had planned to pass Houston and cycle another 30km or so, but he would not take no for an answer.

‘Just take your time, here is the address, we will see you tonight!’.

It turned out that Paul had been cycling with his family for the past 30 years. He had a house full of bikes and a heart full of stories. He had hosted the South Africans Johan & Charmaine, whom we had met on the Cassiar. Their motorbike had broken down as as Paul is as big a fan of motorbikes as he is of bicycles and hosting new friends, he took care of them.

First we had some business to attend to: when leaving Kitwanga a few days before, Roger had asked us to check if his old friend “Oepie” was ok and send him his regards. When we found the gasstation that Roger had described, a cheerful man came up tro us. It did not take long that Oepie was Dutch-born and the next hour we spend talking about The Netherlands, British Columbia, while eating a real Dutch style richly-filled soup.

That night we arrived after a pleasant, sunny day of riding and had a great meal, cooked together. It was so nice to hear all of Paul’s stories and spend time in this bicycle haven and heaven. We simply could not leave the next morning, even though we had said goodbye to Paul as he left for an all day motorbike trip with his friends early in the morning. Ivana went on a tour of Houston with Jo and I spend the day catching up on work and emails and in the evening we enjoyed more stories and good food. We also got to use Paul’s well-stocked garage and finally cleaned our chains and Santos bikes…

Day 72/73: 20/21 September 2008: Houston to Vanderhoof via Burns Lake, 97 + 120km!

Our clean bikes raced over the Yellowhead highway, as the wind was in our back. Even with a late start, we still managed to ride over almost 100km of rolling road. We picked up our old habit of staying in rest areas (close to the No Overnight camping! sign), but this one was definitely the loudest so far, even though we were about 10km from the town of Burns lake. Not only was the traffic passing very close, but a large truck had its engine on all night (as the driver was sleeping here as well). To top it off, about every 30 minutes a huge and very loud rumbling turned into a deafening noise as the freight trains passed our tent, merely a few metres away…

One definite change since the quiet solitude of the Cassiar were the trains, the artery of British Columbia. For the next weeks, we would follow tracks, with usually hundreds of wagons linked together, filled with goods, grains, ore and other necessities for Western Life. It made shopping for our daily meals a lot cheaper though, as not everything had to be trucked in.

Another change was the disappearing of the forests, though we could smell them. Likely this is partly natural, as we were cycling on the Central Plateau, but looking at the dozens of logging and sawing mills and stacks and stacks of cut down trees, I suspect a large part is man-made as well.

Thanks to the friendly wind, we managed to have our longest day so far, even though there were numerous hills. After 120km we entered Vanderhoof, whose claim to fame was apparently that they were at BC’s geographical center. What impressed us much more were the friendly people we stayed with, the Himmelrights.

Though we had asked to camp in their garden, we ended up in their son’s room and had a great time with the family. It is always a pleasure to meet fellow travellers, whom you do not have to explain why you would want to see the world…

Just one more day from Prince George, then we finally can go South again! One thing that worried me is that the slight back pain I had the last few days, has grown worse and worse, to the point that I cannot lift my heaviest of Ortlieb bags without a grimace of pain on my face. Maybe it would be a good idea to see a doctor in Prince George. Or would it?