Photos at last!

Well, we sucessfully navigated the Fraser Valley and have arrived in Vancouver. It really feels like the Across BC part of the journey is done, and from here on in we`re just on vacation. We`ve got until Thursday afternoon to make it to Victoria so we now have time to slow down and enjoy. The plan is to spend a day or so here in Vancouver, staying with friends, and then head to Saltspring for a few very slow days at Ruckle Park before heading on towards Victoria where we`ve got two weddings to enjoy. Should be just grand.

But here`s some photos of the journey from Nelson to here. How shameful that it`s taken so long to get them up...but here they finally are. Enjoy!

Matt after being stung near the eye.


Just out of Christina Lake, on the trail to Grand Forks.


How kind of Grand Forks!


Climbing out of Grand Forks, heading towards Greenwood. Gorgeous ride.


Navigating one of the many, many gates along the trail.


Overgrown trail!


Beautiful morning at Arlington Lakes, between Midway and Penticton.


Frying up the pile of perch given to us by fishermen in the campsite. People are really kind to you when you show up on your bike in the middle of no where!


Major milestone!


Myra Canyon Trestle


Trestles again. Notice the burnt forest from the 2003 fires. Most of the trestles are now reconstructions, but a few are still original.


Roughing it in Naramata. We HAD to, the trail went right by...


Laundry, bike trip style.


Still roughing it, in Penticton.


Penticton to Summerland


Climbing a virtual wall.


Heading up the Tulameen River from Princton, heading towards the Coquihalla.


A night in a hotel! Still sort of camping though...


Once the trail meets the Coquihalla we rode on it at times, and at other times on trails or roads running near it. Trails sure beat highways for riding!


Fording a river. Which would have been even cooler if it weren`t for the fact it turned out we`d turned off the trail and had to ford right back again to get back on it. Oops.


Camping outside a collapsed former KVR tunnel. That is the tunnel the strap stealing rats lived in. Also the night of many bears and much wind.


Fallslake Creek Falls and an old KVR trestle.


Old, grown in railbed. Great riding (no ATVS!).


Quintette Tunnels just outside of Hope. They are really cool! Worth a visit next time you drive the Coquihalla!


Riding Highway 7 from Hope into Mission.

Stumbling upon a Slow Food Cycle Tour in Agassiz...we really wanted to keep following it, but had to be content with eating organic hazelnut burgers in a hazelnut grove surrounded by other cyclists and slow foodists. Not bad.

Loading the bikes on the West Coast Express bus (they don`t run the train on weekends. Very disappointing) to get from Mission into Vancouver.


Which brings us to Vancouver! There is a section missing in these photos, from Nelson to Christina Lake, but they are on another camera card and I`m feeling computered out. It was a cool section, with tunnels over a km long and great views, but I`ll have to show them to you some other day! More fun to be had!