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…

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’

Mark Weston and his girlfriend wife (thanks Mark for the correction  ) Cathy Stewart are not only brilliant Computer Scientists and avid puzzle solvers, but also an active part of the new generation that wants to take care of the earth and themselves: shopping at the farmer’s market, eating vegetarian and hosting cyclists!

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…