Nanaimo
Sunday was an extremely long day---if we were to follow the plan laid out in our book, then it would be the longest day of the whole trip.
We started out heading north for about 20 miles, then caught a ferry across to Vancouver Island. We were hoping to find a bike shop in one of the towns at the ends of the ferry, but apparently the bike shops in these parts aren't open on Sundays... We did a little bit of bike cleanup ourselves, then started heading towards Mexico, in the correct direction for the first time!
The combination of flat roads and good weather allowed us to go much faster than before, so we decided to stick to the 74 mile day that the book prescribes. We stopped for a great dinner of beer, burgers, and a huge plate of nachos, then dragged ourselves the last few miles to the campground. We pulled in around 10pm, which made it a little hard to choose a campsite, but it was fine. Also, the park had showers, which was excellent!
Monday was not nearly as good. Since we reached our camp so late on Friday night, we got a late start, so we only made it 20 miles to Nanaimo by lunchtime. (And they weren't a fun 20 miles---we had to cycle on the shoulder of a busy 4-lane freeway for most of the ride.)
We stopped at a great Mexican cafe for lunch, but when we came out, we found that one of Ryan's panniers had been stolen, and some of his other panniers had been rifled through. Ironically, this was right across the street from the local courthouse, too!
The most important things in the pannier were Ryan's sleeping bag and passport. Fortunately, we don't need the passport to get back to the US, but the sleeping bag and the pannier are pretty necessary for the rest of our journey.
Anyway, we got a hotel room in Nanaimo for the night, and we're going to try to sort things out tomorrow. We'll probably stay in hotels or hostels for a couple of nights, but we'll try to keep making forward progress---we think we're going to cross back into the US tomorrow.
Total distance so far: 248.9 miles
We started out heading north for about 20 miles, then caught a ferry across to Vancouver Island. We were hoping to find a bike shop in one of the towns at the ends of the ferry, but apparently the bike shops in these parts aren't open on Sundays... We did a little bit of bike cleanup ourselves, then started heading towards Mexico, in the correct direction for the first time!
The combination of flat roads and good weather allowed us to go much faster than before, so we decided to stick to the 74 mile day that the book prescribes. We stopped for a great dinner of beer, burgers, and a huge plate of nachos, then dragged ourselves the last few miles to the campground. We pulled in around 10pm, which made it a little hard to choose a campsite, but it was fine. Also, the park had showers, which was excellent!
Monday was not nearly as good. Since we reached our camp so late on Friday night, we got a late start, so we only made it 20 miles to Nanaimo by lunchtime. (And they weren't a fun 20 miles---we had to cycle on the shoulder of a busy 4-lane freeway for most of the ride.)
We stopped at a great Mexican cafe for lunch, but when we came out, we found that one of Ryan's panniers had been stolen, and some of his other panniers had been rifled through. Ironically, this was right across the street from the local courthouse, too!
The most important things in the pannier were Ryan's sleeping bag and passport. Fortunately, we don't need the passport to get back to the US, but the sleeping bag and the pannier are pretty necessary for the rest of our journey.
Anyway, we got a hotel room in Nanaimo for the night, and we're going to try to sort things out tomorrow. We'll probably stay in hotels or hostels for a couple of nights, but we'll try to keep making forward progress---we think we're going to cross back into the US tomorrow.
Total distance so far: 248.9 miles
Posted by Ben at 10:43 PM
1 Comments:
Too bad you didn't make it to Victoria, and apologies for the crazy criminal canucks
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