Day 1 – Vancouver to Lake Cowichan

72 miles (116 km) – Total so far: 79 miles (127 km)

Time riding 6 hours 57 mins Average speed 10.4 Max speed 32 mph Altitude Left at 7:30 am Arrived at 6:10 pm

In my chosen cheap range of Downtown Vancouver hotel they offer a free breakfast, cereal, coffee, croissant and bread. Great for a quick start, which is what I needed, as I was aiming for the mid-morning ferry to the Island.

It took me longer than I can recall to put the bike together, could be due to the long journey and day, but all was good to leave at 7:30 am. It was a Monday morning in Vancouver city, so the working week getting off to its usual busy start. The city has plenty of bike lanes and tracks though, so within 5 minutes I was in Stanley Park, and effectively out of the Monday rush hour.

Over Lions Bridge and on to bike tracks along the north west coast of the city and Marine Drive, reaching the ferry terminal at 9:18 am. Great to be riding again, and though busy, a really good ride over the big bridge and up and down the Marine Drive hills.

I wrote that on the ferry. A pleasant morning, great riding, partly cloudy.

But the afternoon was quite different. From Nanaimo at the ferry terminal on the island it’s either the Trans Canadian Trail or the highway, the Trans-Canada. The trail is rough, and travelling would be much slower so I took the 4 lane busy highway, which does have a decent shoulder though. Normally, with gentle undulations, this would be quite fast, but today there was a strong southwesterly and I was into it all afternoon. About 50 kilometres on the highway, then onto route 18 for 25 km to Cowichan. This goes up to 300 metres, and by now the sun was bright, 27C in mid-afternoon and the strong wind, all making it hard work. Throw into it the forest fire and breathing smoke for half an hour and it was good to get to camp.

This is the hottest summer British Columbia has had for 50 years. The penalty for using water in your garden is 60 days in jail. Forest fires have been a big problem for 2 months now.

Though I have a good spot in the hiker biker area, the site is not great. It’s lakeside which attracts noisy small kids, motorcyclists with loud music, and for some reason, yappy dogs.

Other blogs say it’s 4 km into town, but it’s only 2 if you use the short cut on Route Ideal. I’m off to see what’s on offer.