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….

Estela is from South America, David from the North. Thanks to the IT business they met up in Argentina and are now living together in the nice city of Victoria, British Columbia, ready for their first baby. David has learned some local skills during his time in Argentina and makes a mean ‘Asado’

We managed to delay ourselves until about 16.00 in Whitehorse and then left in a terrible downpour, and as the first few km were steep uphill to get out of the valley, we were feeling down. But the sky stopped dumping water on us and soon we found ourselves going up and down over rolling hills besides more Wonderful Lakes. We had set ourselves a new goal: get to Scott’s Anarchy Farm! We had met Scott in the Potlatch (see previous post here) and he had invited us to visit him when we would pass.

Unfortunately he was not in the Greenhouse: a big plastic covered collection of wonderful smelling flowers and vegetables. We waited outside for some moments and cycled around in the area, but as we did not had the directions to their house, we returned to the greenhouse. The rain started again, and we decided to sleep inside the greenhouse, setting up our inner tent only. It was by far the best smelling campsite on our entire trip.

In the middle of the night we heard some noises and Scott came in. He did not seem to surprised to see us sleeping in the middle of hundreds of flowers and added one more log to the slow burning woodstove, so the temperature stayed above freezing.

The next morning he came back with coffee. A few weeks later he sent us a great poem, please check it out here on his 1000 Americans page. We stayed close to the warm fire all morning and only after noon, we packed our tent and continued riding through the rainy Yukon lake District. The wind was friendly and even with our late starts we did over 100 km, ending up late at a deserted state campground, close to Teslin lake.

August 28 – 30: through the lake District with Mate & tortas

We had promised ourselves to start earlier, and actually managed to get on our bikes before 8 ‘o clock! We arrived quickly at the small place of Teslin, where we spend several hours in the library. We were surprised at the many small libraries we met, there is so much great stuff to see and hear, most offer Internet access and the ladies running them are without exception all nice and friendly, so support your local Library and get your kids to read!

We spend some time in the Teslin Motel, working on our reports and chatting with Heather, who was on her way North, on a big BMW motorbike (see her picture here). We fixed her iPhone for her and chatted with this lovely woman, who was in great spirit.. Do not pass the Motel without seeing the hidden gem: a small museum with stuffed animals in the gift shop (some of Ivana’s images are on Flickr here). This sounds much worse than it is, they have done a wonderful job. Oh, and the Wifi is free at the Motel

Ivana managed to cross the scary and long bridge, which had a steel bottom, through which you could see water below. As with most rivers, we had to climb a steep hill to get out of the valley it had created, but during the climb a van stopped.

‘Hola!’ Ariel & Claudia stopped besides Ivana in their van which was totally covered with pictures of Patagonia and maps. Ivana started chatting away in turbo-spanish, but I reminded her that we wanted to get to a rest area for the night before dark, 17km ahead, so we had to keep going. No problem, they said, we will wait for you there with mate & tortas fritas. These words had a wonderful effect on Ivana. She started cycling faster then ever before and raced up and over hills with a determined look on her face, it was very hard to keep up!

When we reached Claudia an hour later, she was surprised to see us already, but immediately invited us in their van. I heard a hissing sound and noticed that Ivana’s rear tire was making the noise. A staple was stuck in it: our 2nd flat tire! I quickly fixed it and set up the tent together with Ariel, while it slowly dawned on me that he really did not speak any word of English

We drank several rounds of mate and Claudia made her tortas fritas as promised. We had such a great time, they were so happy to travel and see the world and eachother. Ivana was happy to speak Spanish again and drink and eat the taste of home, even though she was so many miles away…

In the morning we said goodbye to them and headed up more and more. Fortunately the wind was still good as we kept on climbing until we actually crossed a continental divide, where rivers on one side were draining into the Arctic Ocean, while water that falls just a mile back makes its way into the Pacific via the Yukon. Logically this meant some downhill as well and we raced towards our stop for the night: a rest area next to the nice Rancheria Falls, where we ate our spaghetti next to a big campfire we managed to get going, though all wood was soaked.

31st August: Frost, bear & Nuggets

We woke up by a strange sensation: a yellow light came into our tent. Sun! I got up quickly and took off the tent to dry off the condensation. When I noticed that some small pools were actually frozen, I checked the temperature: it was only 2 degrees and it had frozen in the night! We had not noticed it in our cozy warm Carinthia sleeping bags, but when outside it was crispy..

We headed out early for probably the first time in, well, almost ever and got rewarded right away; not just with a deserted Highway, but with our first sighting. Ivana and I both heard some cracking noises in the trees left of the Alaska Highway. We stopped and looked. A black bear looked at us, hesitated and then ran up a steep hill, out of sight. Our first Black bear! We had thought that we would be scared, but we were both so happy to see the beautiful animal and had not thought about the usual precautions, though the bearspray was always within reach. We celebrated our first bear with a breakfast in the first restaurant, and as they had Wifi, we – as usual – managed to limit the actual cycling hours drastically by typing and reading..

Soon it got warm enough to take of my jacket, we were in T-shirt again! It was great, with the wind in our back and sun in our face we hardly noticed the many rolling hills and did our 2nd longest day so far: 110km. We ended up at Nugget City, a huge RV campground just before the junction of the Alaska Highway and the infamous Cassiar Highway. The friendly host allowed us to camp for free next to a picknick table in the trees, while the endless line of RV’s (Recreational Vehicles) lined up on the boring, empty and soulless patch of gravel. We have never understood why people need to take such large vehicles: the typical set-up is as follow:

- A 30ft or longer RV (Recreational Vehicle)

- With a Jeep, Truck or similar 4 wheel drive behind (the RV is towing it!)

- With (sometimes) some muddy bicycles on the back of either vehicle, usually too dirty to ride and clearly only dirty from the transportation, not from using it..

- Often a senior citizen is peering over the steering wheel, controlling (?) a 15 meter long combination, for which you only need a regular driving license… We are not afraid of the trucks in North America, these are professionals and know what they are doing, but these RV’s scare us, however friendly the people inside may be.

Some quick calculations tell me that they burn about $1/km, but I need some confirmation here. Anybody know how many calories there are in a couple of Snickers bars and a pound of pasta as apposed to a tank of gasoline? Then we can calculate the relative efficiency of moving two people and their belongings over 100km..

This was our last chance to change our plans as the two roads/routes would only meet up over 1000 km ahead: should we continue over easier ground with much more services or take the road less travelled? Choose the comfort of lighter loads

or choose the chance of more wildlife? What would you do if you were on a bicycle?

Kowalski! Status report!

We had some very nice long days, and the distances seemed not so long as feared. Still quite a few hills adding up to an average of almost 750 meters up and down per day… Almost 3000km on (and off) the road: Kowalski is still puncture-less, Greeny had her second, but otherwise the Santos Travelmasters have no problems!

My Spanish is still limited, but fortunately it is a bit better than Claudia’s and Ariel’s English. “No speakin inglis”, was about it and I am not joking here

With this they had managed not only to travel from Southern Argentina to the Arctic Circle, but they were the happiest people we met so far. They were having so much fun, showed us videos and photos told us about all the marmots they saw (which upon closer inspection turned out to be ground squirrels) and how they passed the borders (with others acting as impromptu translators) and how they managed to stay in campsites for many days while only paying one: “No speaking English”!

See their blog and some photos here (Spanish only