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Published: July 14th 2010
Our community Bikes
Charli in Our community bikes, these guys were amazing help to us!!!! Big thanks!!The Trip begins - last days in vancouver
Five days ago we began our epic tour across cananda.....so far it has been pretty immense, and im going to write all about it!!!!! I decided to split it into days riding cos it feels nice to document what we have been doing.
After an amazing time in vancouver, with all kinds of random adventures we spent our last day shopping, and trying to sort out our bikes........ ive got to admit I was over over keen to leave vancouver as really what i had been after was biking, country side and adventure and for over three weeks i had city city city!!! The last few nights in Vc i saw a bit of allen, a lot of zinta and met up with my old freind chris. The most memorable things from these days was breaking chris's balcony window and taking a healing dip in the ocean with allen.
The window smashing was a bit weird, i think id been walking around in a daze since i got to cananda and this kind of woke me up, id had a bit of wine and the door had been open all night, i got
the flim
working on the documentary side of the project..... up quite enthusiasticly for the toilet, went to go inside and the next thing i knew i was covered in glass and blood!! i was really lucky not to have fallen head first into the glass!
Chris was really cool about it, i reckon i owe him a bit of cash but we cleaned everything upo and carried on to have a good night with nice catchign up and energy sharing.
Before setting off me and al took a beer down by the ocean, it has been beautifull having our spirits meet again and i could really feel some cosmic energy flying,..... i dont know what it all means but i think something has been woven........ before i left we took a nice dip and al tells me it washes away all the old stuff.
Day One riding
THe first day turned out to be upsetting and hard...... but what is, is right? All excited, panniers packed, nervously i cycle down to the bus depot to meet the fourth member of our group!! Me charli and kay are waiting......... and the sun is getting hot.......and we wait some more.......and still no anne. So me and kay meet and go to
after a rest
a breif rest on the first day.....we werent ready for hills! a coffee shop which has wireless, plug in the computer and kay tries to ring anne....ring ring, not happening, so kay goes to email anne, and befoer she even does that as im up bringing a coffee back (given free of charge for some odd reason) kay explains we have bad news..........No anne, not now, not never, Anne for personal reasons she cant tell us has decided she is not coming.
I dont know what has happened with anne, i dont know her so well, she seemed really nice, i hope its nothing too drastic, but really, and ill eat my words if im wrong, i think somebody just backed out last minuite with nerves and feels like shit so wont tell it like it is.
Thats cool , but its really fucked up our project quite a bit. My first reaction was oh fuck........... because really i had not planned on just travelling three people, infact my main excitment about the trip was to cycle with more people and make a project. But that said, im an optimist and i will give this a go, and........ teyln is due to join us in 12 days, but.........she has hurt her
wild camp
our first wild camp!! shoulder so............ As sad as it is , im going to evaluate my plans then. Ive told kay and charli this, they understand, but the whole project is under threat now and thats a real shame.
So the first day anne came out and met us and gave us the safer sex kits ...... and didnt tell us why, and left. I personally think even if it was a relative dying, for such a big project, id give my team mates the reason........ i think kay and charli are more sympathetic, i just think it sucks a lot and that i dont have respect for that way of doing things. Im sure im being harsh but i guess we all have certain thigns we need in our life ,and thats how we choose our freinds and who we do projects with, sadly anne isnt going to be one of those people.
At around 3 oclock we set off riding, i dont know how many km we did, but we camped up in a beautifull spot, off some lake road.
I found the going tough the first day, lots of rises (obviously).......and it took a while for the city to
wild bikes
our bikes, resting ;) die out and the nature to kick in............ I hate strip malls and thats all there seemed to be, strip mall strip mall strip mall................... then suddenly, it kicked out into trees, pine trees and long tall hard roads.....and beautifull smells......and rich folks towing boats behind them on trailers...... We all had some trouble with our gears, and we were rotten tired by the time we found a spot to camp, and after two weeks of cloudy days, the hottest weather of the year starts rolling in.......unusually hot even for here, 36 degrees i noted at one point.
Day Two - The ride to hope
Id really love to write how many km and so on but........... the speedo was aquired in a fashion that means the manual isnt here to programme it so for now, lets say the second day was...... a good distance. Aye you gotta check the photos ill put up, we really start to climb, following the river...... and the train track, such scorching heat, sweating buckets but feeling more and more invigorated and alive....... On the way we passed a really nice lake and me and charli took a dip. We took a super long
Another rest
Resting on the second day lunch to hide from the heat and i passed out under a bench. I cant really explain the beauty around ehre, its overwhelming it really is , The lake we swam in was like......... well it was like the pure force of nature sitting there right in front of you and saying , mmmhmm, look at me, and you look and you go ahhhhhhhh. And thats everywhere since the beggining of the ride, overwhelming, powerfull nature! That night was a little frustrating, we was trying to find a place to camp up....... but we were following the river on one side and a swamp on the other..... A few times we saw some promising spots but on investigating we foudn ourselves literally covered in mosquitos....... at one point i shook around twenty of them off my leg.........So on we went.
Eventually we pulled up at a couple of houses in between some hills and knocked on the door, the guy said...... i suppose and we pitched up on a peice of grass....Whilt being attacked by hundreds of mosquitos! Fuck........ i hate them...... they bit me to peices, we got the tent up, opened the door and me and kay
leapt in. Charli was whirling a towel infront of the door and kept counting down from five at which point kay would open and the panniers would be thrown in ......... then zip down, each time about six or seven or more got in,........and well........ you know what, we killed them. Thats somethign to think on, we murdered around 50 id say in total, they were hurting us so much that for some reason i dont know , i decided, in fact we all did, that it was worth it, to kill any that had got into our home. I actually dotn know what to make of that, ive done it before, and ill do it again , but it kind of fucks with my whole every being is equal and you shouldnt kill idea........... if fifty dogs were going to suck a little of my blood would i kill them? doubt it, id probably run away..... i dont get this kind of stuff, i dont understand myself in these ways.
Day Three - Hope
We cycled into hope on the next day and got there about i dont know, 10, and we were tired, and we ate, and we
toileted and we washed in sinks and then we talked about that big hill, this hill that people told us of, 46 km uphill, some of it 8 percent grade and we realised with teh temprature already in the 30s probably at 11am that it was just plain suicidal to try and climb the hill that day, or should i say mountain. So we fixed up our bikes (with teh help of a guy in a bike shop who helped us for an hour for free) and then we decided it might be worth paying for a camp site and getting some proper rest and a shower for what would prove to be the hardest cycle I ever did..........
Before setting off we took a day in hope chilling, we met some more tourers, one a girl charli knew, thats crazy.....thats like random crazy coincidence that seems to circle these adopted families we have all carved out for ourselves........i swear we are all related by coincidence and love, not blood, its hard to explain what i mean........but im sure some of you get it.
The end of the night i went and practiced my falun dafa down by the river.......and what a river, beleive me , it was so fast you would be swept up in a second........... Then above, the biggest biggest most beautifull mountains , ow, you can almost forget yourself, and the beautifull forrests clinging to the hills......and this wind like........................its talking to you, infact one point i strummed a note on my guitar and the wind blue into it and harmonic notes floated out........it was kinda creepy and beautifull at the same time..... one thing ill say is , meditating like that surrounded by that nature makes you feel the right of things, like, you kind realize all the shit you been fiddling about with and just wanna breath right for a while. Same with my last phrase cant right explain it makes sense to you, but it makes sense to me.
Day Three ... The climb
We woke earlier than even we expected, 5.30 am we were out packing, eating breakfast and ready for the big ride....... Around seven we set off out of town as the sun peeked up over the mountain tops, i looked at it and kinda smirked to myself as i felt my muscles begin the groan that later that day would become a scream. They said it was all uphill and that was no lie. But its funny, these huge mammoth mountains are trippy and deceptive making uphills look like downhills and vice versa...... Sometimes you could swear you were riding a flat, and you look behind you to see a steep grade twisting off into the valley.
This route would of been hard enough on any day but the heat beat down at us persistently, The first hour we were blessed with the fact that the mountains were too tall and so the sun had not risen over many of them, but after that, there was practicly no hiding. There was a lot of sweating and our rest breaks came when we saw a patch of shade to hide underneath. So strange, hiding from the sun under the shadow of a transport sign or a bridge the same way and with a similar desperation you take cover from a heavy rain......
Somehow though we kept climbing and climbing.......and before we knew it we had put half of the hill behind us. The second half was monstrous in difficulty, At points you could be taking really steep sections for up to 20 minuites if not more. The last segment on the climb came near a point called the snow pit. Which is a giant tunnel that is designed (or so we guessed) to protect the road from a frequent avalance area. Here we all nearlly broke down, and we must of stopped 8 or 9 times. IT didnt help seing warning signs for trucks about the gradient and even seing the veichles struggling up it!! MY legs were like jelly, but there was nothing to do, drink drink drink and ride ride ride, stop for raisins and ride some more. Welcome to the rocky mountains!!
The route was littered with beautifull flowers and trees and plants, and the views are just breathtaking, in the next few days we would see just how dramatic and varied the rockies could be, but for this day we finally made the summit , took a photo, washed in a waterfall pool at the top and with a big smile for myself , began what would proove to be a two day descent!! wow! big high five!
Day five - To Merrit
That night sheer exhaustion sent us all into slumber. We had found the first rest area for around sixty kilometres after hope,....maybe a ltitle longer. Had a meal and stealth stuck our tent up in the forrest and crashed. The next day was to be a kind of recovery and acceptance day both mentally and physically. The ride was practicly all down hill for the first 30 km with a breif hill inbetween. Riding down hill for so long is a thrill , but truthully we are all still adjusting to riding so much and there have been hard points , but i truly feel we are dealing with each other with a lot of respect and love.... but as for this day, it worked out that a little space was needed for various reasons and I decided to ride off a little bit ahead while kay and charli took a breather. The land up to merrit was rolling and beautifull and for the most part i was pre occupied with all the beautifull flowers i saw, theres a real peace to this trip and i am finding it in the strangest things. The end of the ride was a wickedly paced downhill into merrit where the side wind near through me off the bike. It was really nice to ride alone for a little
Merrit is a cowboy town, thats for sure, it was sunday and saw dust was blowing around town making me cough. Life seemed slow in merrit , its kinda in a little bowl between the mountains and has a real surreal feel to it. Kay and charli rolled in as i was grabbing something to drink and we had a shop, for the night and rolled out of town to try and find a place to pitch.
The road out of merrit was all downhill too......joy, and the wind was blowing us a long and we were all smiles, long grass blwoing in the wind and signs creaking as we passed, a very surreal view stretched out infront of us, one that the next day would amaze us!!! We were heading for the canadian yorkshire dales!! That night we (and this is all serious yes) ... we strolled up a long path, past an old abandoned school bus, three cow skulls and saw a rocket ship in the distance, past this lay a minature church, and beyond that a gateway ....... into a concrete castle. I shit you not. I was freaked, I said i didnt really feel to great about going into that castle and asking to stay on their land, but kay and charli kept me calm and into the castle we went.
After a breif chat with his wife she popped back inside and out came the man of the house (to me it really felt a little like that) Don mcloud came down the steps and chatted to us in the gatehouse of the castle. Of course we could use his land, he owned a lot of it..........He was going to london, to go to another castle , an event he attended every year...... what were our last names?? I wondered if he was tracing our family routes as he said this. In no way as i write this am i mocking don mcloud, i thought he was wonderfull, letting us sleep in an old pumphouse down by the lake. But i wont deny that this was one hell of a surreal expereince and i could almost of thought i was in a film.
Day Six and Seven - To Kamloops and restdays
So we spent the night next to an old green pump house, dead flies hanging in the window and a dead bird on the floor, but right next to a huge lake , we even saw an otter coming up out of the water....... oh and i forgot to mention earlier, on the day of the mosquitos, i saw my first bear! hehe, a little baby running from my joyous screams through the woodlands!! So yes it was a lovely night, i read a lot, charli cooked beautiufll noodle soup and i got my best sleep since we started, all warm and cosy as the wind blew ferociously down the valley..............The world seemed to me big and wide, and i felt messsages blowing in the wind that soothed my soul.
The wind did not soothe the tent, in the mornign we woke to find it had clean ripped the poles through the tent..... Only last night did we also discover the same wind had snapped and bent the tent poles, in affect making this tent useless.... We are still working on a sollution to this problem....infact right now kay and charli are out searching for sollutions at camping shops. The ride to kamaloops was......... ok i keep saying this but ......... FUCKING BEAUTIFULL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I asked charli if she had ever been to yorkshire........... no......... and me and kay both told her, well now you dont need to.
This was the yorkshire moors, transported to canada, and given a more....rugged, tall feel with odd shaped mountains at irregular intervals, and lakes strewn here and there along the way . Wind and rain pelted us and we were soaked, i prayed the rain to end and eventually it did, but storms chased us all day, huge cloud scapes in the distance with storms pelting distance lands but luckily not us.
The whole day was up and down rides down this everlastign valley of bleak and beautifullness. The storm finally hit as we zooomed down a complete mammoth of a hill into Kamloops!! The black cloud loomed over us and hailed down hard as we speeded away from it down the hill and saw the kamloops below, a large town surrounded by space like dessert hillls!! Here we would set up camp in a campsite and take a chilled night and smile about the day. The most funny thign this day was a dog who chased kay, seemed to want to get itself killed........ it was so beautifull, but didnt seem to know what traffic was, eventually we had to send it away with a shout and hope it didnt get itself killed on the way off!
So now we are in kamloops, and tonight and tommorow and stuff we try to make the project, new and fresh and start being active. Its super hard, it was super gutting losing a project member, but i am determined we will help each other make this project a sucsess!!!
I hope you are enjoying reading about the journey, and please share far and wide.... and write to me here if you get the chance. and if you want to read the blog of our group please go to www.saferwheels.blogspot.com
Love to you all and i hope your summer adventures are filled with what you need too!
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Mummy!
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Glass Doors, Baby Bear & Falun Dafa
Sam, what can I say, you always amaze me with the way you write. Who else could break a glass door, meet a baby bear, discover the Yorkshire Moors in Canada and have a surreal castle experience all in one week? I loved your method of getting you and all your panniers in the tent, mosquito free, I was imagining you all with your crazy method with the zipper! It is a shame your speedo didn't have a manual with it, you must learn to source goods from a more reliable source in future ;) You seem to have been through some pretty amazing countryside but I bet your leg muscles are building up well again? Take care all of you, and keep bloggin, I always look forward to them. xxxx