Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada) to Whitehorse, Yukon (Canada)

My Greta Garbo phase is over. No longer cycling solo. Met up again with Alain and Tom, Swiss guys that I met last year in South America, in Vancouver. The last time I saw Alain was in Bolivia when I watched him cycle off into the rain forest with Felix the map cutter, an organic farmer from Dresden. At the time I vowed that I wouldn't let myself get hurt again and rush straight into another cycling relationship on the rebound. However time is a great healer. After a year pedalling on my own it has been good fun riding with them from Vancouver to Whitehorse.

We have developed our own exclusive touring language which is a combination of badly pronounced Spanish (with lots of over enthusiastic r's being rolled all over the place), Swiss-German and English.

In addition to the social and economic benefits, travelling together in a group has the advantage of saftey in numbers in Canada. Every day, a bit like the Pope I send my 2 young Swiss guards out into the forest first, to act as appetizers (or appies) for the bears. We have only seen the smaller black bears so far no big Grizzlies yet. Even though black bears aren't very big, they are big enough-and I don't stop to take photos.

Lots of mosquitos too. Everyone talks about how bad they are. They are not very nice when you are standing still or going slowly uphill. In the morning they hover just above my tent queuing up for their breakfast of blood. I think they can work out from my body heat which side that I am going to emerge from. Not sure what most of them eat when there are no cyclists around.

Although British Columbia is massive it is not too hilly and have covered a lot of ground this past month (2,400km). Also met a lot of very very friendly people along the way.

Weather has been mixed and changes quickly. Blue skies one moment, the next moment taking shelter from rain in a public toilet watching Alain eat peanut butter and raw onion sandwiches. Only the beauty of long distance bicycle travel can expose you to such contrasting sensations.

Particulary enjoyed the Stewart Cassiar Highway. It has been a long time since I have been anywhere this remote, carried 5 days of food, and we were lucky to enjoy our best weather on this section.

Having a rest in a nice hostel in Whitehorse (the Hide on Jeckell) for a few days at the moment. Hopefully get into Alaska sometime next week. Planning to finish pushing north sometime at the end of this month.

Anyway hello to everyone. Hope you enjoy the photographs.

Just a reminder that I am riding to raise money for Medecins Sans Frontieres. If you would like to make a donation over a secure internet link please visit my website www.pushonnorth.com.

Push on

Tim

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