Vancouver!

Wow, so much to talk about I do not know where to begin!  Most importantly, however, we are in Vancouver, and my Trans-American cycle is finished!

The Washington coast north of Seattle was beautiful.  We were travelling up the Pugent Sound and never really left view of the sea.  The smell of salt water is uplifting!  There are also huge mountains in the Olympic Peninsula, which were stunning.  If not by the water, we were surrounded by huge pine trees.  It was lovely to finish the days in a campsite right by the coast.  I took an opportunity to take some photos with the bike in the water, and take a dip, but it was super cold!  I spent a couple of summers when younger swimming in the Scottish Atlantic, without a wetsuit, but the Pacific took the biscuit.  I could only manage a sharp 20 seconds!

The great thing about cycling around the Pugent Sound was that we had to take a number of ferry rides.  I love cycling on and off a ferry, something very satisfying about it.  The views from the water also give another perspective of the terrain.  My father says that the best way to enter a place, particularly a city, is by water.  I definitely have to agree with him, and the ferry into Seattle was particularly impressive.

En route, Andrea was able to meet Laura and James, who were coming south from North Washington.  It was lovely to see them again, but it was weird to be back with them having lived side by side for a month.  James was finishing in the next few days, but Laura is going on to San Diego - so best wishes to her!

Andrea has been fantastic and a very strong rider.  I think most people would have complained cycling with me, but she nailed it.  I had promised that the days would be short, and most were, except for one!  We got to a point of no return, and being by the sea, I expected it to be fairly flat, but it was not - we did almost 70 miles that day.  Some people would ask and require sponsorship money for that kind of distance, but she did it no problem with a loaded bike!

N.B. A bit of advice - just because a road follows the coast, it does not mean it is flat.  Some of the steepest gradients of the trip have been in this section!

The only major issue that Andrea had to put up with was my stupidity one day with fixing her bike.  To replace a puncture, I turned her bike over, and in the process I unknowingly moved her bell so it rested again the gear lever.  Down the road she complained that the front derailleur was not working and after a look at it, I concluded that she would have to ride the rest of the day stuck in that gear, and then we would get her to a shop the next day.  The next shop was 30 miles away, but luckily there is a good bus system around the Pugent Sound (with bike racks on the front of buses - Boris take note).  She went ahead on the bus and we arranged to meet in Port Townsend.  Anyway, to cut a long story short, the bike mechanic looked at it, moved the bell, and all was right!  Port Townsend is a cool place by the way, and just like an English fishing village, with a lovely smell of fish and chips!

My first view of Canada was the evening after Port Townsend, when we had supper on top of a cliff and watched the sun set over Vancouver Island.  No words needed to describe what that was like.

From Anacortes, we discovered it was possible to take a ferry to Vancouver Island, rather than follow the mainland north to Vancouver, through a lot of suburbia.  It was strange to leave the USA, but I was very happy to enter Canada.  We were stopped at immigration on our bikes and got out passports stamped with a few questions - that was fun.

Vancouver Island was straight away different to the USA.  It felt a bit more like the UK, and was definitely richer.  Victoria is the capital of BC, and a very quaint town, but possibly a little too touristy.  We stayed in a hostel run by a Chinese man that could barely speak English - that was fun booking over the phone!  What is clear is that Canadians love the royal family, as the Queen was mentioned in a lot of places.

The final ferry took us just south of Vancouver.  What a sight to see the city emerge on the horizon!  We had to take a bus for a bit with the bikes as cycling was not allowed on a certain road, but then we got dropped just short of the river south of the city.  After getting lost, we eventually found a safe route across the river (rather than on the motorway!) and entered our final destination.

On the opposite side of the road was a sign for Vancouver, which I had to get a photo with, but it took 10 minutes to cross the busy road!

Vancouver is awesome!  Very energetic and incredibly diverse, with all sorts of nationalities residing here.  We are staying in the house of the aunty of Don (who started Bike the US for MS).  It is in a beautiful area, and we are both incredibly grateful to her!

So, right now we are exploring Vancouver before Andrea leaves next Thursday.  Downtown, Chinatown, Granville Island, Yaletown, Jericho Beach, etc.  Tomorrow we may hire a car and drive up to Whistler and spend a couple of days in the mountains (which overlook the city).  I plan to do some mountain biking - take a lift uphill this time!  BC is a beautiful and massive place.  It is about 4x the size of the UK and 70% of it is covered by mountains.  The only issue is that everything is quite expensive, so getting around is not cheap.  Once Andrea goes, I may continue cycling a bit, as that is much cheaper than staying in the city.  What is certain though, is that this is a city I would be happy to live in!!!