Day 4 - Lytton to Cache Creek

Today we started today off pretty slow. It was raining on and off all night and it was still sprinkling in the morning. We had a long day yesterday so we slept in quite a bit in the hopes that the rain would stop before we had to start riding. This is also when Patricia and I realized we have different definitions of sleeping in. If the sun is up when we leave then we slept in, according to me, but according to Patricia 7:00 is not sleeping in. So I let her sleep some more while I went to soak my sore muscles in the hot tub. When I got back I started packing all our gear up and in the process woke her up again at 7:30.

Patricia had a banana and pb and j sandwich for breakfast and I had a can of cold zoodles leftover from last nights supper (no need to carry a can of zoodles up a couple giant hills). We packed up pretty slowly and were on the road sometime after 9:00. We also said good-bye to our friends, Mark and Brent, who we shared the campsite with - hopefully they have a safe trip.On his way out of the campsite, Mark got a flat tire and it was a good thing too because while they were changing the tube I went to the washroom and I found Mark's camera charger still plugged in.

Just down the road(and up a hill) from our campsite we took the picture below. You can kinda see where we camped on the left as well as the railway tunnels we saw from our site.While taking that picture I walked across the road and up a little hill, and on my way back I saw a moose track in the ditch.

Moose track in the ditch!

We continued biking and noticed that the scenery is slowly changing. Everything is getting more desert looking and the mountains are becoming more barren.

Me standing on a big cement retaining wall to protect the highway from falling rocks.

Patricia took this while we were riding, you can see the road in the distance.

About 20km into our ride we saw a sign for bacon and eggs. We were in the middle of no where and couldn't resist a second breakfast that sounded so delicious. Breakfast was fantastic and the coffee was hot...good times. Across the road from the diner there was a stopped train that had apparently been there all night. While we were waiting for our breakfast a man came in and started talking to the waiter and was counting his money to see if he had enough for breakfast. The waiter later told us that he was catching a free ride on the train to Kamloops and had just been sleeping in one of the empty train cars. After his breakfast, he switched his strategy since the train hadn't moved for so long(presumably it was broken down) and he began hitch hiking down the side of the highway.

After our breakfast we were loading our stuff back on the bike and getting ready to start biking when we saw another bike tourist coming down the road. We got all packed up and eventually caught up to him.. He is biking to the east coast and is also from Ontario. We talked briefly and learned he was also hoping to stay in Cache Creek tonight. However, we were going a little faster than him and slowly pulled away. We didn't see him again today, but I imagine we'll see him again tomorrow since there is basically one highway to take.

Best breakfast we've had in days.

This sign got our hopes up but we never saw any.

A really curvy section of road...fun riding.

We pedaled and pedaled and pedaled and eventually made it to Cache Creek. Our first stop was the grocery store where we met two other cyclists who are also going across Canada. We talked for a while and they recommended a motel that they were staying at right across the street. At this point it looked like a storm was brewing and it was already lightly raining so we decided to stay the night there too. We have clothes, sleeping bags, and our tent sprawled across every surface in the room so they dry and air out. We had chips and kraft dinner and a bunch of other random stuff for dinner and had nice hot showers. I imagine we'll sleep good tonight.

And we made it!

We have really good internet connection here so that explains why this post got so many pictures added to it. Anyways, that's about all we can think of for now. Tomorrow is another big day, it is only about 85km to Kamloops but the ride is mostly uphill with a rather long and high climb at the end. Oh, and don't forget to check out the Stats page, we update it every time we do a new post.

Chris and Patricia.

Day 3 - Our Biggest Day Yet

Hello!
Sorry for the lack of updates, the campground we stayed at last night had no service! It was beautiful though, it was called Kumsheen Rafting Resort, and it had pretty much everything you could imagine - basketball, horseshoes, volleyball, tetherbal, a pool, a hottub, and the most beautiful view you could imagine! It is also super sureal since we are the only people here and there is all this awesome stuff to do...we have only seen the girl at the check in and thats it. Unfortunately, we are both so exhausted from the huge day we had that we aren't able to take advantage of most of it. This being said, this post was written yesterday so try not to get too confused.

The bridge out of Hope

Today we left the campground in Hope, BC. This campground was pretty uneventful, although there were a few notable instances. We kept our food under the sink in one of the washrooms so bears wouldn't attack us (naturally) and when Chris went to get it in the morning, he noticed a mouse had chewed through our bag of sandwiches and had eaten a chunk out of one of them. He ripped that chunk out and ate the rest of the sandwich. He says he inspected the rest of the sandwiches and they appeared fine. However, he didn't tell any of this to me until much later in the day when all the sandwiches were gone... I wasn't too impressed, but the sandwiches were delicious.

We had a pretty big day today, we covered over 122km, which is fairly impressive in itself - only most of the time today we spent climbing up mountains. I'm talking about half an hour spent on the lowest gear, just givin 'er. We also passed through quite a few tunnels, all dug right into the mountains... pretty neat. We had to walk our bike  through most of them, but there was  one that had a button similar to the button you push at a crosswalk that made these lights flash on both ends of the tunnel to tell cars that there was a bike inside, so to be careful - neat stuff. From Hope, we decided to take Highway #1 (Transcanada highway). This highway runs right along the side of the Fraser River and it runs through the Fraser canyon. Throughout the day we caught glimpses of the mighty Fraser River, and it was really pretty. We also saw the tourist's attraction "Hell's Gate" which is basically an AirTram that goes over the deepest and narrowest point of the Fraser River. We didn't go on it because it was really expensive, and we couldn't see too much from the parking lot but it was still kind of neat.

Made it through our first tunnel!

Hells gate info...we didn't actually go on it though.

Walking through the longest tunnel of the day.

 It was a good day though, we ran into these guys who stayed at the same campground as us last night, and they were biking to the same place as us, so we kept on passing each other back and forth and eventually all of us made it into Lytton, BC. Chris went into the grocery store to get dinner, and while he did a couple of locals approached  me and the other two guys (Mark and Brett) to ask us about our trip - they were really strange, we think they were either really drunk, or high on something because they kept on repeating the same questions, and the one guy kept patting Brett on the back and they were just wierd. The one guy had never heard of Ontario, and I thought that was pretty funny - he asked where we were from, and I told him Ontario, to which he replied "Is that close?" I then told him it's just East of Manitoba, and he didn't know where that was either. Eventually though, the one guy called over his buddy because we were trying to find a campground. We were all pretty exasperated but were extremely relieved when the buddy turned out to be really nice, and extremely helpful. He pointed us towards this campground and gave us easy directions. We eventually found the place, and are sharing a site with Brett and Mark.

The view from our campsite and Patricia sitting at the table.

The view from our campsite facing the other way.

Train across the canyon.

Close up of the gravel slide tunnels.

The weather has been so perfect for us so far (knock on wood) and we couldn't be more happy. Today was 19 degrees and so sunny! My face is totally sunburnt which kind of sucks, but this is what happens when you spend the entire day outside.

Oh one more interesting side note - at one point we were taking a break along the side of the road, when this horse comes running towards us! It looked like he got away from his owner or something because there was a girl and a dog both chasing after it down the highway! She probably wanted to catch it ASAP since a horse running the wrong way in the middle of the TransCanada Highway is not a recipe for a clean road. We don't know if she ever caught it, last we saw he was running into a forest at top speed.

The plan is to sleep in tomorrow since today was such a big day, and we're hoping to get to Cache Creek - 84km away. We might stop before then though, depending on how we feel since I anticipate being rather sore when I wake up.

Well thats all for now, we'll update again soon.

Day 2 - To Hope, BC

Hi All,

So today wasn't a very busy day, we only made it 66.61kms and ended in Hope, BC. There is method to our madness however, as apparently tomorrow has some brutal climbs, and our trailor is like an anchor so the break tonight will be much needed. Hopefully we sleep better tonight then we did last night! Chris's beard was scrathing on the sleeping bag last night and I was terrified because I thought something got in our tent!We were both pretty sore this morning, and we slept in so we didn't leave the campsite until about 9 o'clock! The ride was beautiful though, lots of trees and hills and some cliffs, and we even got chased by a dog at one point!

Random shot during the day

Made it to Hope

Chris and I have been consistently impressed by how friendly the people are here. Every town we stop in, we are approached by people asking where we are going, and if we need help finding anything, or just to yap about our trip and recommend places we should stop or go and see. Even in Vancouver when we didn't have our bike with us, people were always more then happy to make sure we found our way. We must have looked like tourists or something because people were constantly asking where we were looking for.

Other than that, the ride has been beautiful. We have been following along the fraser river for most of yesterday and today and occassionally we are able to catch a glimpse of it. The mountains are starting to get bigger and bigger - but also more beautiful, and we now have a clear view of the rockies - we couldn't see them yesterday.

We have been trying to decide which highway to take out of Hope - there are three possible highways to take: 1(Trans Canada), 5 and 3. Originally we were going to take the 3 since we read a few journals of cyclists who have gone that route. Then, we did google map directions and the 5 was the shortest distance so we were planning on taking that. However, today we stopped at a tourist information center and the man there recommended that we take the 1 since it has far less climbing. So we're going to trust the local and hope that the 1 treats us well.

Right now we are all settled in at a campground in Hope, BC. Got a fire going and just had dinner. Its not super exciting but here are a couple pictures of our site and food.

Our site

Our food

Tomorrow should be a fun day, we are hoping to ride more towards 100km, and the inclines are going to start getting pretty rough. Wish us luck as we conquer the rockies, and we will update again ASAP!

Patricia & Chris

Day 1 - Happy Mothers Day!

Well, we finally got all of our gear together and hit the road.

We left Garret's house around 5:30-6:00 and began our journey east. Our plan was to bike 171km to Hope, BC. We quickly realized that probably wasn't going to be possible. Our trailer with all of our gear in it is like an anchor. On some hills we slowed down to about 10 km/h - good thing we aren't in a race. We are becoming rather worried about the Rockies, but I guess we'll just have to take the hills as they come.

Mid-Day Break

The ride this morning wasn't too eventful aside from Patricia and I bickering back and forth a couple times and a coyote looking for food at a dump. The roads weren't too busy and the drivers were pretty friendly - only a few people came a little close while speeding by. Hopefully, traffic doesn't get too much worse ... can't imagine that too many people will be commuting out here.

 Patricia's bike seat has been bothering her since our first ride on the tandem, but we've been trying to adjust it as we go in hopes of fixing it. We didn't succeed and began keeping our eyes peeled for bike shops today so we could get a new one. We saw two or three this morning, but being sunday, they didn't open until 11am and this was around 8:30. So, we kept biking and when we got to Mission, BC around 11 am we decided to wait until noon which was when the bike shop there opens.

The bike shop was called Wentings Cycle and they were really helpful. They let Patricia try out a few seats and we found one that was much more comfortable. They also threw in a part that I needed to fix my bike pump(which was needed since I broke it last night pumping the trailers tire up) - we were surprised they had such a specific part. As we were leaving they noticed that two of our water bottle holders were empty so they filled up two water bottles with water and gave them to us. And we were on our way again.

The new seat!

We kept on biking and had decided to stop at a campground we saw on google maps at Erroch Lake. When we were getting close we bought hotdogs from a gas station for a snack :D A few minutes later we realized we didn't have anything to light a fire to cook them so at the next gas station we bought some matches. While buying the matches the clerk said the campground was closed this year :(

We kept on biking and figured we'd at least check it out since it was right on our route. When we get there it was most certainly open. Its called "The! Campground" and the lady running it was very friendly. We got a tour of the facilities that included drinking water, free firewood and hot showers(with awesome water pressure) - a bike tourists heaven. The forests in this area are very tropical and there are some huge trees around the site. Also, many of the trees are covered in a very thick moss which looks really neat.

All set up and ready to cook some hot dawgs.

Shot of the sign as we left the next morning

Guess thats about it for today, we're off to bed soon and hitting the road bright and early tomorrow.

PS. Happy Mothers Day, Moms.

Luggage Found!!!

Several phone calls to Greyhound and we finally have our trailer and the camping gear that was also in the box! We are very relieved but we probably won't begin our trip until tomorrow morning because we haven't picked up our bike yet. The bike is still at the FedEX depot here and we didn't want to get it for two reasons. The first is that all our tools were in the box with the trailer so we wouldn't have been able to put our bike together and thus, would have had to figure out someway of getting a giant box back to Garrets house. And second, if our trailer box did get lost or took too long to arrive we may have had to cancel our trip and would have needed to ship our bike back home and that is much easier done with our bike in the box and located at a FedEX depot.

So, for the past couple days we've just been hanging out with Garret and his roomates and seeing Vancouver. Our first day here we bought a transit day pass and rode a bunch of buses and trains around the city(which is much larger than we realized). The olympic village was about the only "touristy" thing we saw. We also walked around UBC for a while and went to a beach there. Garret took us out for delicious Thai food and also to a coffee shop - this temporarily dulled the pain of not having our trailer. Other than that we mostly just frolicked and randomly walked around in various parts of the city. We also phoned Greyhound several times during the day and didn't get much information. It seems the strategy Greyhound uses for locating lost luggage is to passively wait and hope that it arrives at the station. This concept was very hard for us to accept since everything we needed for our trip was in that box. We would have much preferred an active searching strategy.


We have been calling Greyhound since we got here. Yesterday morning a lady said she would go down to the bus loading area and see if our box had came in and call us right back. She never called us back so we left a voice mail about an hour later. We didn't hear anything for the rest of the afternoon. We decided to call back around 4'o'clock and we learned that they had our box! So, we got to the station as fast as we could(~a 40min transit ride) and got our box. Now that we had our tools we could go get our bike :-) But, FedEX closes at 6 so we took the SkyTrain towards FedEx which is also the SkyTrain to Garrets so if, when we got to Garrets stop there wasn't enough time to make it a few more stops to the FedEx stop we would just get off at Garrets. By the time the train got near Garret's stop we only had ten minutes so, we just got off at the stop to Garrets house. We got subway and then put together our trailer and checked over all of our gear...everything was there and it all looked in good shape :-)

The plan for today is to get our bike when FedEX opens at 11am then put it all together and ride it back to Garret's house. Garret has gone to work at his new rowing coaching job so, Patricia and I are just having a lazy morning until 11 when our bike arrives. We estimate bike assembly to take at least a couple hours so, that would put us leaving in the early afternoon which wouldn't give us much daylight riding time. We will most likely be spending one more night here(much thanks to Garret and his roommates for putting up with us ;) ) and leaving bright and early tomorrow morning. Our goal is to make it 150km to hope but, that may be a tad ambitious for our first day...we'll see.

Now that we have our trailer and know our bike is safe we are in a much better mood. Some of the previous posts may have came off as being slightly bitter towards the trip but, we have met lots of nice people so far and the scenery along the entire bus trip was amazing. It really is an eye opener how different the terrain, culture, and the people are across the different parts of Canada we went through. Thats about all I can think of for now so, hopefully the next post is from us safe and sound in Hope, BC tomorrow night!