Our first experience with a "Warm Showers" host turned out to be SUCH a great experience, it really put Shane's mind at ease. He had felt a bit awkward about camping in people's yards and being in their way. Instead, Terry made us feel right at home and when he heard we were going to be riding the Sunshine Coast, he even offered for us to stay there for free if we wanted. I spent some time figuring out if it was possible, and it is. So now, we will be spending 3 nights in an AMAZING Eco-Lodge, built by Terry, for FREE!
We will have to cycle two longer days to make this work, but it will be worth it for sure! We have never been to this section of the Sunshine Coast (north of Lund) and we are always looking for new places to explore! This will be in mid-July. For now, on to our current adventure!
We had a wonderful breakfast with Terry of fresh farm eggs and tea and chatted about our trips. Shane asked him how many other cyclists he had hosted and Terry said NONE, we were the first! I hope we were good guests! He was a FANTASTIC first host.
We had a ton of time to kill on our second day. The couple we were staying with, live in Shawnigan Lake and did not get home from work until 6:30. They generously had offered to cook us burgers with raw veggies and ice cream. I had offered to pick something up and they said "If you want to, but not necessary!!" I am so totally impressed with the kindness of these families willing to take us in and FEED us. Amazing!
It was planned to be a 15 mile bike ride, plus a 25 minute ferry. The ferry left every hour so that was no big deal, 15 miles should take us no time at all, so we planned to just take our time on the route, go to the Butterfly Gardens, and get to the ferry by 4:30. We only had about 7 miles to cycle after the ferry and figured that would give us enough time.
We started the morning with Alli's trail a bike rubbing on Shane's tire. We should have known that the way Shane had connected the rack was not going to be stable enough. The welding class at Oroville had made some solid connecters for the top part of the rack, but the bottom was connected with a little ring that had a bunch of play in it. We cycled out of the way to get to a CAA (Canada's version of AAA) for some maps of our route and at a hardware store Shane was able to find a $4 part to make his rack SOLID! Then we were off.
We wanted to cycle the Lochside Trail so looking at the map I found the best route and we started on our way. Now, keep in mind how islands are formed - UPLIFT! right? So the first road we were supposed to turn left on was a near vertical climb - I passed right by that on. Remember - we are pulling about 160# so a hill of any size is a challenge. If it looks daunting, it is probably impossible. We will be walking up a lot of hills on this day!
We finally climbed our way through an amazingly beautiful neighborhood to find the trail I was looking for, but before we could get to it, we had to drop DOWN a near vertical dirt trail. A huge frustration I am finding on this trip is that a lot of this uphill is for no good reason! you just climb up to go back down again, over and over. This is why we should stick with bike routes.....they tend to have an easier grade to climb.
The Lochside Trail was absolutely amazing. Finally a nice smooth grade, paved or well packed roads, parks along the way where we stopped for the girls to play and we could play frisbee (although neither of us played that well, I think our bodies would rather have a break!) At the junction of Lochside and some other road we needed to take a left and cross the highway. Of COURSE, there was a gigantic hill to the top and we had no idea if we were even going to be able to cross there. Well, we huffed it up the hill and took one look at the highway and said NO WAY!!! There was no way on this Earth that I was going to cross this highway with the girls, plus, we could see the road we needed to get to and it was another VERTICAL climb. Maybe if we kept going we could find a way to get there without the crazy hills (HA!! The answer to that is NO!)
We flew down the steep hill back to the Lochside trail and kept heading North. There was a road that looked like it might cross the highway more safely - with a bridge or a light or something so we road that direction. At the corner was a sign "Fresh Organic Strawberries" and it pointed to a little farm shop that was a great place to take a break. What was NOT so great was that we could see from where we sat and ate our lunch the HUGE hill we were going to have to climb to get to the Butterfly Gardens and the Ferry Terminal.
Turned out that the hill was beyond our abilities. We ended up pushing our bike up it for about a half a mile. But once we got to the top, it was an easy ride down. I had seen on the map that there was a shortcut through a neighborhood with a bike trail connector and right to the gardens so we headed that way. 2 miles of never having to pedal. that is the trade off for the crazy uphill. We got the junction where the bike trail was supposed to come in and it was at the bottom of another very steep hill. Shane apparently did not think the trail was down there, which I did not realize until I was at the bottom. to my right was a NO TRESPASSING sign and to my left was a house being built and straight ahead - where the trail should have been was an overgrown field of weeds. No bike path anywhere in sight!
At this point, I turned around and see Shane and Alli WAY at the top of the hill, he says, "Should I come down??!!"
UGH!! I huff the 160# bike up the hill, oh wait - Jill was helping so it was only 120#'s, what a relief! I think I am learning that sometimes the best route is the busier route. The back roads are beautiful but end up costing us a lot of time and miles that are unnecessary! It is only day 2...I will learn.
We get to the Butterfly Gardens without trouble after we get back to the main road. This is a whole other post in itself, but in a nutshell, this is the reason why we tend NOT to take the girls to these places that seem like a good idea, but are so much money.
We had been in a shopping center parking lot for an hour and the girls had been entertained fine (free), we had been at a park for an hour and the girls had been happy (free), we had been in a grassy field for an hour and they had fun (free), we had found a beach to play at for 2 hours and they had a BLAST (free).......and THEN we paid $45 to go the the butterfly gardens and after 30 minutes they were ready to leave.
It was COOL.....dont get me wrong, but seriously not worth the money for us, and not half as fun as the other things we had done. We KNOW our girls, we KNEW this was the likely outcome, but it just seemed like something we SHOULD do. We need to be done doing things that are expected and just stick with the things we LOVE!
We headed to the ferry, rode an easy 2 miles after and found a beach for the girls to play (mentioned above....we stayed for 2 hours) We figured we had 5 miles to go, an hour would be PLENTY of time to ride there. However, we are forgetting the VERY important concept of UPLIFT. Those 5 miles ended up taking us TWO ENTIRE HOURS!!! Somewhere along the way (and already 30 minutes late) I realized that in recopying my directions I had not written down the HOUSE NUMBER, only the street we needed to get to. We have no phone service so I had not written down their phone number (silly me) and I have no way to access the internet unless we find WIFI.....we were exhausted, lost, hot, hungry, and feeling in despair, but we just kept going.
Luckily, everything kept going ok....when we came out on a street, it was right at the street we needed, so we just kept going. I figured that we could get NEAR to the location I had written down (1.3 miles on Renfew Rd.) and just start going up to doors until we found the right house. Then we got to the intersection of Shawnigan - Mill Rd and Shawnigan Lake Rd. I had written down R - Shawnigan. Great......I am regretting the shortcuts I took in all the directions I wrote down.
We went right and I checked the speedometer to track the 1.3 miles, just hoping that this would work out. It started out good. the road turned into Renfrew which was what we needed, but this was never going to be a neighborhood....there were just summer homes randomly spread apart. And there was hill after hill. Keep in mind, we had already gone 24 miles at this point, barely eaten anything beyond some jerky and olives and an HOUR late for our hosts! (Shane and I, I should say...the girls had all sorts of treats!!)
At 1.3 miles I stopped and the girls and I just picked the nearest driveway to walk down. 2 houses....both empty. We walked back to Shane at the road. We were feeling so frazzled. There was a small road that went off to the left so we rode to that and the girls and I walked to another driveway. 2 houses, first one empty....second one - a sweet couple (Roz and Ron) answered the door and saved our sorry butts!!!
They quickly pulled out the phone book and pulled up the internet so I could look up our hosts phone number. I called and talked to Phaedra....she was so kind to me. I felt so bad for being an hour late but she was just happy to hear we were fine and apparently we had JUST passed their house. Then she said, "Is Ron there? I was going to call him anyway!!" Too funny!
We got on our bikes, rode happily the .25 miles back to their house and finally arrived. 3 hours and 30 minutes on our bikes, 26 miles completely and we walked in to meet hosts #2 - Ian and Phaedra who were more than happy to make us feel at home. They offered us their guest room which we took without any persuasion! The table was set and all ready for a feast of burgers, the girls got to take a bath and Shane took a shower. Then they served us HUGE bowls of vanilla ice cream with homemade strawberry preserves. What a fantastic way to end our crazy day.
The girls got off to bed at 10 (I think a 7:30 bedtime will be a thing of the past until we get home!!) and I sat down to work on a blogpost. Phaedra set up her computer so I could use it. I reached into my backpack to pull out my index card with all my passwords and realized it was gone.....along with the 50 days of directions I had worked on for at least 30 hours before we had left.
I had pulled up google maps for each and every section of our trip, then rerouted nearly all of them to get us off the highways....I copied all the directions onto index cards that I could clip onto the front of my bike for easy reference as we ride. And now they are gone....all of them....plus the passwords to every bank account, all my email, blogger, facebook....my heart SANK!!!
My evening was a hard one. What had I done with them? I realized that I had taken them out at Ron and Roz's house because I had to log in the warmshowers site....but it was 10, I couldnt call them....what if they threw it away? I figured if they had seen it they would have called Phaedra's house to let me know. Maybe I had shoved it into my backpack and it had fallen out on our ride over, now just laying in the dirt on the side of the road.....my mind went crazy thinking of all the scenarios. We have a significant amount of money in our bank accounts (since we had saved for this trip and are saving for our car) so I could just hope that it was sitting on the counter where I had taken it out. In the morning I could call or go over....
Well, 4:40 am I woke up and could not get back to sleep. I could not believe we were on day 3 and already things were unraveling! How were were going to do 47 more days of riding without knowing which backroads we could safely take? By 6:30, I just couldnt take it anymore. I told Shane I was going to ride back to their house and leave a note on their car to call when they got up or before they left to go anywhere. As I rode up to their house I could see them sitting on their patio enjoying their view of the lake. Thank heavens for early risers!!! Roz jumped right up when they heard me and ran inside to see if I had left my notes there. And....of course I did. I was jumping for joy.
Day 3 has started and we are right on track....Roz went to copy a few of the more daunting days for me so I would have a backup....but I do not intend to lose these again. It is our lifeline while we are out here. if we are going to get from place to place safely....and avoid the highways....and not get lost.....I need to guard these from now on!
Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.....cant wait to see what other adventures await us on this trip....47 more days of possibility.
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