Last Saturday morning we loaded our bikes up and took a ferry to Langdale for a ride up the sunshine coast. We were vaguely shooting for Ruby Lake after hearing rumours of beauty and a great Italian restaurant but once in Madeira park I had my foot on the ground that we would stop at Katherine Lake instead (my whole body was almost on the ground and Ruby Lake would be another 20 or 25 kilometres away).
The sunshine coast is kind of cool because it’s this little strip of highway only accessible by ferry. It was not too busy and the people who were around were all really friendly.
The one thing I didn’t like was how so much of the coast has been developed. Houses and houses up and down. At least the lakes are wonderful.
Funny story: We biked from West Vancouver to the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal. I had taken tent poles from Faron’s trailer and strapped them to the back of my bike because I wanted to help out with the weight (I’m always scared to sneak a lift of Faron’s packs because he usually takes everything for us). About 5 km from the ferry terminal we stopped on the side of highway 1 and I had unstrapped things from my bike to get a snack from my panier. Then I put everything back together and we continued on.
Around 10:35am and after buying tickets for the 11:10am ferry I looked at my bike: “where are the poles?” “Faron did you take the poles?” “Yeah I have them.” (Does he know I took them to carry?) “Do you really have them?” “Yes…let me check.” No poles. Crap. Poles flew off my bike. I can buy new set. Tent company no longer exists, poles irreplaceable. Crap. I’ll bike back and maybe they came off somewhere around the terminal. Ferry boarding in 25 minutes. Seems hopeless. Crap.
I felt so horrible. Horrible enough to get in a cab and drive my shameful face away. And then I realized that was our only hope. I got into a cab and had him drive me back down the #1.
How happy I was to see a long purple sack laying on the side of the road!! We picked them up, return to the ferry terminal, still caught the 11:10am and had a tent to camp in!
The food highlight of the trip: President’s Choice White Cheddar Macaroni and Cheese. It had been too long since the last time I ate it:
Food runner-up: breakfast was pancakes made with rehydrated dehydrated saskatoon berries and shavings of a Fruit & Nut Cadbury chocolate bar, topped with saskatoon berry / chokecherry syrup.
Some things I learned (other than the moral of the whole tent pole ordeal):
- Pedal “cages” are not cages but clips and this is why clipless pedals can be called clipless. (Even though they’re quite clippy no?)
- Translink may refuse to let you take a bike trailer on the bus. Something about it having wheels. Yeah…sure. (Boo.)
- The coffee crisp ice cream at the shop on the boardwalk in Sechelt is not Coffee Crisp as in the chocolate bar but ice cream with crispy coffee flavoured bits.
