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Published: August 3rd 2006
Part 1 As you know, the next exciting destination on our intrepid World Tour (after Peru) was St.Helens, Merseyside. (AKA: home) We’ve popped a few pictures of my brother’s wedding on here - the wedding was fantastic, the Bride looked beautiful as did the bridesmaids…and the Groom scrubbed up OK too. The weather was lovely, and after Pimms on the lawn, we partied like it was 1999 (again).
We had a great time at home…..trust me, Blighty is lovely when you’re not working (!!) and predictably I shed a load of tears when saying goodbye to my family, but the World Tour continues and just 13 days after returning home we began our epic journey back to North America…………..
Part 2 Yes, I know we’ve been to Seattle and Canada already but this is the Summer Edition! After an endless series of flights, including an unplanned shuttle bus from LAX to Orange County Airport after our original flight was cancelled, we finally arrived in Seattle…exhausted. Seattle was enjoying stupendous temperatures and even at past 10pm it was sweltering. We collapsed in to bed that night in our stifling hotel room and without the energy to even eat
any dinner.
This was my third visit to Seattle (and Rod’s umpteenth)…..we’ve never experienced the unrelenting precipitation that Seattle’s famous for, but still the heat surprised us, so we took it easy the next day, watched the World Cup, relaxed at a coffee shop on affluent Queen Ann Hill, scoffed ‘happy hour’ grub and generally recovered from the journey. The next day we took the Greyhound bus to Vancouver where it was nearly as hot, and Simon (an old friend of Rod’s) collected us.
Over the next few days, we planned the rest of our BC stay and wandered around Commercial Drive and Kitsilano areas in between World Cup matches. Then, Rod decided I needed to experience the ‘Grouse Grind’ and so Simon, Rod and I headed over to - and then up - Grouse Mountain one sultry, weekday evening. Here’s a link,
if you want to know what it’s all about. We were not alone….many Vancouverites treat the Grind as their outdoor gym and head up there several times a week (nutters!), and plenty of them turned up that evening. I decided that, since I’d managed the Inca Trail recently, the Grind probably wouldn’t be too much of a challenge. Foolish girl! It was
far steeper than anything we’d climbed on the Inca Trail albeit relatively short (at 2.9 km) and, yes, it was a slog. We managed it in 1 hour 2 minutes, which I was fairly satisfied with (although no doubt Rod would’ve been a fair bit faster without me)………the record is 23 minutes!
The following day we headed up to Whistler. Just like the day we left in April the sun was beating down, but this time it was pushing 30 degrees, much greener, and the casualties hobbling around had mountain biking rather than skiing injuries. The crowd also seemed a little different too…the Canada Day holiday weekend crowd included lots of families and lots of young ‘uns intent on partying rather than outdoor pursuits. It was particularly bizarre to see people still in their snowboard gear sunbathing by the lakes (after coming back down from the glacier). Oh, and unfortunately there’s also some of the meanest mosquitoes we’ve ever come across!
This time we stayed at Jackie and Joern’s B&B (
Cedar Springs Lodge), a long-time favourite of Rod’s. It was nice to see familiar faces and Joern’s breakfasts were scrumptious as ever. Over the next 6 days I got to
be particularly lazy while Rod went off in search of his long over-due cycling fix (bikers: refer to Rod‘s blurb below). Actually, I did borrow a mountain bike one day for the pootle to Lost Lake, but it was an instrument of torture so I’ll leave the cycling to Rod from now on! The sun beat it down the whole time…perfect for sunbathing at Lost and Rainbow Lakes. We did manage to make it up Whistler mountain, which was more than a little surreal. Very familiar spots looked very different: although there was still a fair bit of snow, there were now plenty of rocks breaking it up. Not the pristine winter-wonderland we’d left behind, but stunning nonetheless.
We also caught up with Drew (who Rod met on his Backcountry course back in February) and sank plenty of beer and pub grub….still, I think, the best thing about Whistler!
After a brief pit stop in Vancouver, we headed into the BC interior to Keremeos, to visit one of Rod’s old housemates, Tamara, along with hubbie, Adam, and 7-year old son, Quinn. We had a very nice weekend catching up, being fed (ever so well) and watered, chilling out
and watching the final games of the World Cup. A particularly civilised afternoon was spent lounging by the Similkameen River glugging beer and homemade sangria and enjoying a scrumptious picnic, with the occasional dip in the river to cool off. Rod also got to rediscover his long lost football skills (there’s not many of them to find!) playing footie with Quinn.
Back to Vancouver (again), after narrowly avoiding a speeding ticket: the quaint English accent worked a treat on the RCMP. We got back just in time to witness the World Cup hysteria of Commercial Drive’s large Italian population….think huge traffic jam, with people piled on top of cars and waving Italian flags…much yelling and horn honking! Later in the week, we met Kris (another of Rod’s old housemates) for breakfast, before heading off to Deep Cove (a particularly beautiful little community nestled beneath Vancouver’s North Shore mountains)…Rod rode off to Mount Seymour for a few good mountain biking trails and I chilled out with a book and a great view.
The next day we caught the ferry from Vancouver to tiny Mayne Island (one of the Gulf Islands close to Vancouver Island), where we‘d booked a campsite
- so Sod’s Law dictated it had to rain! In fact it was the only rain we had during our entire visit back to North America! After a miserable, grey afternoon (and a growing addiction to
Nanaimo bars), the cloud finally started to break up and we got some lovely evening sun, so we enjoyed a spell in the hot tub from where we had beautiful sea views.
The following day, after a short hike to the top of Mayne Island, we caught the ferry to Vancouver Island and then a bus in to Victoria (the capital of British Columbia) where we spent a few nights. Victoria was pleasant enough. We got to enjoy some good live music in our hostel courtesy of
a local singer-songwriter while we supped cheap beer, but we couldn’t quite stretch to afternoon tea at Victoria’s famous Empress Hotel!
Next stop: Ucluelet and Tofino on Vancouver Island’s west coast. By now we were having to organise our daily activities around the Tour de France coverage on the TV. We started at Ucluelet where we stayed in a great hostel and just took it easy, with a short walk on a coastal trail and I even managed
to get Rod to sit on a beach for more than 30 minutes! Tofino was a little livelier and pricey with it. By all accounts, the town has exploded in recent years as it’s fully exploited its potential as a tourist and surfing spot, but it’s still beautiful. We managed to get a room in a small guesthouse overlooking the ocean and we decided to spend our budget on a sea kayaking trip and cook our own dinners! The kayaking was good fun, despite Rod’s rudder troubles, and later that day we lounged around on a stunning little beach for a few hours.
Back to Vancouver (yet again) briefly as the heat wave re-emerged. A few days running round and another day in Deep Cove, followed by a hot, lazy evening at English Bay and then we were back off to Seattle (again!) where
our favourite hotel rewarded our loyalty with a free upgrade to a deluxe room and a bucket of cold beers… Result! We spent most of our time hiding from the fierce heat and enjoying more good’n’cheap happy hour food and beers, before heading off on our journey to the Cook Islands…
Biker’s corner For once
I get a word in edgeways…. Any non-bikers might want to skip this bit as I can’t see it holding your attention for too long!
First biking stop was back in good old Whistler. After 6 months without a trusty steed, I braved the heat and the mosquitoes and got out riding all of the 6 days we spent there… and didn’t even get round to spending a day at the renowned bike park on Whistler mountain (the trails around the valley are just as good, cost nothing to use, you get fit in the process and don’t feel inadequate if you’re without 10 inches of travel and full body armour!)
I started on “Kill Me Thrill Me” - a single black diamond rated trail, and quite a sharp reintroduction. The climbs did indeed nearly kill me (I’ve never seen my heart hit 196bpm before!) and the descents did indeed thrill me (and I actually rode them quite well which surprised me!) As is common with the more technical trails in the valley, it had lots of tricky root strewn climbs (that require that little bit extra power just when you’re already on the point of passing out),
a few nice “North Shore” style wooden stunts (generally they’re used to get over otherwise unrideable terrain such as bogs and ditches to keep a trail flowing, and the trickier bridges usually have a chicken run option…) and a fair few nice steep granite rock sections (anyone who has visited the trails of Dalbeattie in the Scottish borders, like the rock sections there but they keep coming at you!)
The next day I just scouted around the trails near Lost Lake whilst Rach was sunbathing. Lots of blue rated trails that provide a perfect introduction to the Whistler style of riding (yes - I should have started off here on the first day!)
Over the next few days, I carried on trying out new trails (erroneously including a climb up the “21 Switchbacks/Alpe d’Huez” climb in the peak mosquito hours of the early evening - it’s a much better descent!). Amongst these, I revisited “A River Runs Through It” (years back, I tried to ride this trail - which is like a practice route for North Shore style stunts - and had to walk all of it), making a respectable stab at it this time, and I finally
got to do the valley’s epic trail, “Comfortably Numb”. I thought a 25km trail couldn’t possibly be what I would consider an “epic”… but turns out I was quite wrong! It’s 25km of sustained technical singletrack - hard work up and down for a good solid 4.5 hours of riding! More nice use of wooden stunts to keep it flowing (at least until you jump off half way across them!), endless steep rock climbs and descents, more roots than you can shake a stick at and a few rather nice views over the valley. I ran out of water with 1.5 hours to go, so the last endless descent became a real endurance event. Despite the raging thirst, a fantastic trail that is a work of trail building art and should be attempted by any bikers visiting Whistler in the summertime.
Back in Vancouver, we made a couple of trips over to Deep Cove, where I can leave Rach with a book, some sunshine and nice scenery whilst I cycle up to Mount Seymour (the “big softie” of the Vancouver North Shore, but still way more technical than anywhere I’ve ridden in the UK or Europe). I actually got
a few photos of “CBC” trail (the only time I carried the camera biking!) which is another work of art. A trail builder repairing the top of CBC called me “old school” because I rode up to the top rather than driving up - blimey, I’ve just turned 30 and already I’m old school! CBC links into a few other trails lower down and then “Ned’s Atomic Dustbin”, which is a favourite of my previous visits here… pretty much all (relatively) fast and rideable like a good technical downhill course. On a second visit, I had to be content with just riding “Team Pangor” due to a mashed chain… not my best day on a bike but a good trail nonetheless with lots of nearly achievable stunts! Leaving me feeling like I was just on the verge of getting to grips with the North Shore riding but time had run out…
Anyway, that’s it for biking until I pick up my bike again in Australia after shipping it ahead (thanks for the help with that, Baz!) My top tips for BC riding are flat pedals, shin pads, perseverance and go do it!
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fiona
non-member comment
hiya, how's the cook islands? it's 102 degrees here and the aircon can't keep up. off to japan on fri with jeff.