Day 1

After what seemed like forever, I finally made it to Brad & Kim's place (and little Katies) at 9:30 pm on the same day that I left, but with gaining a day thru the International Date Line, it was really the following day.

It was a long trip anyway, 2 full days.

No dramas with the flights and even Customs in the States weren't too bad even though they made me unlock my bike bag at LA and they put it on the plane to Vancouver unlocked. So much for all the security they talk about.

Day 2

Friday morning I unpacked the bike and started putting it together. Had no real problems with the bike, just the top cap on the headset got scraped a bit and the bag has a small wear hole in the same spot - someone must have dragged it along instead of carrying it. Nothing a bit of cardboard won't fix next time.

Kim gave me a ride into Downtown late in the morning so I could get some maps and my bearings. My small backpack had pulled a strap from the anchor point so I also had to find a shoe repair place to get that fixed. Ate lunch in Chinatown and Kim picked me up in the middle of the afternoon. While I was waiting, a few people on the opposite side of the road were looking a something in a park, so I cruised over to see what it was. It turned out to be a Marmot which is almost on the point of extinction. A young couple who walked past told me this as they had done a project on them while at school and this was the first one they had ever seen live.

Rode downtown late in the afternoon to check to see if Brad's derailleur hanger had arrived but it hadn't. Brad and Kim went to the airport to pick up Brad's dad Malcolm who is also over to visit.

Pizza on the deck with beer, a red and some port topped off a great day.

Day 3

Kim was taking out some newbies to her triathlon club for a training ride this morning, so I tagged along. It was a nice little spin along the Galloping Goose Trail for about 90 mins. My hosts all went to Vancouver to visit more relatives straight after we got back, so I have got the rest of the long weekend to myself. Well almost to myself as I have got Magnus the cat to keep me company. The first job was to see if I could find out why my phone charger wouldn't work. I thought I must have stuffed up the plug so I took the whole thing into town to check it out. The guy at the electronics store said that the plug was probably fine but the transformer thingy would only work on 240 volts, not the 110 they have over here. I was going to have to buy a local charger if I wanted to charge it. From no on I'm just going to turn it on once a day and that will be it. He thinks the PC and camera will be OK, but I'll have to wait and see.

Went for a ride around the coast from downtown and past some huge mansions and stopped at Oak Bay Marina for a coffee. There were 3 seals swimming around the marina waiting for the charter boats to clean their fish. You can also buy pieces of fish to hand feed to the seals. They are quite gentle the way take the bits from your hand.

TOTAL DISTANCE TODAY 75km. (That includes yesterday's bit and it's all been roady stuff)

Day 4

I was scheduled to go hiking with Kim's mum but it got cancelled at the last minute. I had the day to fill in, but didn't have any maps of the trails. I found a map which showed an area with MTB trails and decided to ride out there and see if I could find them. I got to the right road but couldn't find the trails, so I kept going until I knew that I had gone far enough looking at the basic map that I had with me. The only interesting thing on the way out was a deer on the side of the road that just stood there even when I stopped to take its picture. I turned around and hadn't gone too far when I heard motorbikes near the road but on the opposite side. I rode in and asked them if they knew where to go and they gave me directions to a walking/biking trail. I eventually found the entrance and went down, down and further down, always thinking that I was going to have a big climb out.

I eventually got to sea level on an inlet and was relieved to find a map board and a groomed trail back up to the ridgeline 1.4km up. The big map board here showed the trails I was looking for and seeing that I was so close, decided to go through that way as there was another way out at the bottom.

At this stage it was 1:30pm and I only had eaten a banana since breakfast and only had a quarter of a bottle of water left. With this in mind stayed on the main access road but found a single track that branched off. I took it but I'm sure I was going in the wrong direction as there were lots of places where it was impossible to ride up with rocky step-ups but would have been good fun going down. This trail finished out on the access road again and it was then time to cut my losses and head back to the nearest town for something to eat and to get more water.

I took a different route back to town which was interesting at times as the bike paths just seemed to stop with no direction to get to the next bit.

TOTAL DISTANCE TODAY 55km OVERALL TOTAL 130km

Day 5

It's a public holiday today (Monday) and they have the Victoria Day Parade downtown. I went in and had a look. It pretty much like other parades but the big difference is the high school bands. There must have been at least a dozen and only one that I can recall was from Canada. The rest were all from the States, mainly Washington State and I guess they must all go to the various parades in the general area. The small ones had about 20 and the big ones 50 and they have flag twirlers, cheer leaders and the musicians. It's all pretty full on.

I had some lunch at one of the malls and was going to head out on the Galloping Goose trail again but in the opposite direction to where I had been before. I only got about 7km out and it started to rain lightly. I knew the forecast was for rain in the afternoon, so I decided I didn't really need to get wet and turned around and headed for home. As I'm sitting here writing this it is raining steadily now so I'm pleased that I wimped out.

DISTANCE TODAY 13km TOTAL DISTANCE 143km

Day 6

With everybody back home it was a lazy morning. We sat out on the deck chatting and then Kim, Malcolm (Brad's dad who is over here as well) and I took Katie for a walk to the local mall for a coffee. Went for a ride downtown to get some maps of Whistler so that I could work out some accommodation for when I go up there.

DISTANCE TODAY 11km TOTAL DISTANCE 154km

Day 7

A friend of Kim's, Bill volunteered to take me around the MTB park I was trying to find on the weekend. I also found a map of the trails a a bike shop so I took that as well. It was a 35min ride to meet Bill near the main turn off and in we went. The trails were a lot more technical than back home with even the blue trails having lots of rock drops and roots galore. We did one double black run which I was able to ride OK but that was about my on my limit.

We were getting close to finishing up when we found some BIG dirt jumps. When we stopped to have a look at them we could also see some north shore stuff further up the hill. We went around the hill to try to have a closer look and when we got close there was a huge house right alongside. The guy out front of the house came over and told us his son had built it all and he had just had a pro freestyle event there 2 weeks before. It turns out his son is Jordie Lunn, a pro freestyle rider. There is supposed to be a video of it on the web but I haven't been able to find it on the sight he gave us. I took some photos of the stunts to show where you have to launch off a dirt jump and onto a ramp 10feet above. It was scary just looking at it.

Bill and I headed out of the park, him heading home and me to the cafe on the main road for some lunch. It was almost 2pm when I finished, so decided to ride back in for another lap. Using the map more times than I can remember, I went out on a few trails we hadn't done earlier and found my way around without too many problems. Only found one big rock that I wasn't game to ride off as it was vertical for the last couple of feet.

The ride back home was pretty sedate as I had to save some energy for the night ride with Brad and his mates. It was a 15min ride to his mate's place and it turned out that there were only 3 of us going. We went up down and around Mt Douglas which was only 5 min away. Once again it was rocky and rooty and in some places muddy as well, so muddy we had to carry the bikes and walk along pieces of wood laid out. By the time we got home after 10pm I was stuffed.

DISTANCE TODAY 83km TOTAL DISTANCE 237km

Day 8

The old legs were feeling the pinch this morning so it was another lazy morning with just a walk to another coffee shop. Went downtown in the afternoon to pick up my bus tickets to get to Whistler next week. Went for a leisurely ride around the coast near some of the new hotels and apartment complexes which are pretty schmick.

DISTANCE TODAY 19km TOTAL DISTANCE 256km

Day 9

Malcolm and I went whale watching in a 12 person zodiac which was super fast across the water. We saw a pod of 6 Orcas and it was quite a buzz to be close to them. Also saw a pair of bald eagles and a few seals. All up the trip was almost 3 hours and it was a beautiful day on the water.

Arriving back to the dock it was 1pm, so we went to the local pub and had some lunch and a couple of pints of their own brewed beer while sitting out in the sunshine.

On the way home we walked past the Vancouver Island Brewery and they had brewery tours going so we had to go and have a look. The fact that we got to sample all 6 of their brews was just icing on the cake. It was a weary ride the rest of the way home.

DISTANCE TODAY 0km TOTAL DISTANCE 256km

Day 10

It was the start of the Swiftsure Ocean Race for yachts this morning so we went down to have a look. There must have been close on 200 yachts in 5 divisions and they started reasonably colse to the shore so it was good to watch.

Brad and I rode out to the MTB park in the afternoon to do some of the tracks that I hadn't done on previous visits. They were even better than what I had ridden and after some long climbs it was great fun coming back down.

DISTANCE TODAY 49km TOTAL DISTANCE 305 km