It's sort of fitting that our somewhat sporadically updated and neglected blog would fail to mention that we had successfully completed our journey until over a week after we met our goal.
In our defence, our arrival in Victoria saw us swept up in a flurry of wedding activity. First I was one of my good friend Andrea's bridesmaids on Saturday
and then we went to Matt's friend Kelly's wedding on Sunday.
Good times were had. It was beautiful. And the bike trip seemed to disappear into a blur of dress clothing and delicious food. All the hard picnic table benches and bad food cooked on a camp stove was quickly forgotten as we swaggered around plush venues eating delicious canapes. Poor us.
We arrived in Victoria after spending a few beautiful days on Salt Spring Island relaxing and celebrating the end of a totally fantastic adventure.
It was gorgeous and such a wonderful wrap up to our trip.
And given that our goal was to reach Victoria, we didn't say no when our friends offered to bring our bikes and gear home from for us in their car.
We waved it all good-bye and got to travel back unencumbered on public transit. We didn't complain and neither did our slowly recovering bums.
And we arrived home on Monday afternoon, and have been slowly reintegrating back into life on the Sunshine Coast. What a wonderful place to return to. Life is good! Can't wait to talk to more of you in person to catch up on your summer stories and share more of our tales in detail.
Hello Sheena and Matt,
ReplyDeleteWe are two elderly Dutch cyclists and have been travelling the entire world on our bikes. In 1974 we cycled through the east of Canada (Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia).
Two years ago we cycled in New Zealand and heard there about the Trans Canada Trail.
After reading various information on the internet we got a better understanding what is all about, but some questions remain.
Now we are planning to cycle from Vancouver to Calgary in 2011, July and August.
As you will understand we have read your blog and I think you could give us some information.
We want to cycle as much as possible on the rail trails, mainly because there is no motorized traffic on (and of course the advance of very low inclination in mountain areas). I suppose that will also be the TCT. When there are no such rail trails available we would take small roads with none or hardly any traffic. I think it will be more less the route you both have cycled.
What is the total distance from Vancouver to Calgary?
You had partly very hot weather, is this normal in this area or was it exceptional?
Are ATV's indeed sometimes a plague and how many kilometers would we have this problem?
What about bears, we were used to elephants on the road in Africa, but bears is a complete other story.
Henny and Nelly Barelds
h.j.barelds@hccnet.nl