Arrived Safely in Fraser Lake, BC
July 7th, 2009Well, we are on the road. We survived the thirty hour bus ride to Prince George, barely. You can usually stretch out and sleep on the almost empty bus from Yellowknife to Hay River, but this time they sent a tiny van with a trailer instead of the usual coach — we were a little cramped.
Once we arrived, we sent our kayak bags on to Prince Rupert as freight so that we can meet them there. We assembled our bike, bought a few groceries, and headed out in the middle of the afternoon.
One thing I never knew about Prince George (or never noticed) is that to get out of town, you have to go straight up a hill. We managed it, but it was tough going because the gear shifter on the bike was malfunctioning. We did lots of pushing as well as riding and finally made it.
One of the highlights of the day was when we walked right past a bear who was trying to cross the highway, but not having much luck with the heavy weekend traffic. We didn’t even notice the bear until we were already past it, so we had a chance for a good look backwards.
We travelled about 30 kms the first day and found a place to camp beside the road. Our campsite was a little rough, but it was loaded with ripe wild strawberries, so we couldn’t complain. We were tired and went right to sleep without cooking anything.
Day Two of the bike ride, we were still plagued by problems with our gears. They just weren’t working properly, “slipping” in and out of the lower and middle range and just generally making it hard to build up any momentum. Riding a tandem requires a fair bit of coordination for the two riders, so anything that disrupts your cadence causes problems. Still, we travelled sixty-five kms that day to Vanderhoof, where we stayed in a motel for the night. I needed to work on fixing my air mattress, which (though I checked it) had sprung a leak the night before — and there is nothing I hate more than waking up laying on the ground!
The next morning, we rode down a big hill into the main part of the town and stopped at Tim Horton’s for breakfast. We usually never eat fast food or sweets, but you really sugar, fat, and carbs when you are biking all day. On the way out of the parking lot, the gear cable snapped, so we limped over to the Co-op across the street, where Roberta picked up a few groceries while I worked on the bike. A few hours later, we were back on the road (I always carry spare cables — be prepared!).
We pedalled on through some beautiful and hilly country, but still had trouble with the gears. We stopped at a pretty spot next to a field, where I dismantled the shifter again and through trial and error, finally got them working properly once and for all. Part of the shifter is stripped inside, but at least now we can use the full range of gears without that annoying slipping sensation.
We stopped in Fort Fraser for some greasy food and awesome homemade apple pie as the rain started to come down. By the time we left, it was raining heavily and we decided to stop at Beaumont Provincial Park, a few kms down the highway, for the night. We only travelled 40 kms that day, but that seems to be a reasonable daily goal for us with this bike and the heavy trailer, especially if we want to have time to make camp and stop to look at birds and butterflies.
Beaumont was very nice, but it poured rain all night and hasn’t stopped since. We stayed fairly dry and comfortable, but we’re looking at our options for drying out. We’ve pedalled here to the Fraser Lake Public Library (about 20 kms) and are going to figure out whether to push on and camp in the bush or stay here and dry out first. We might even hop on the bus or train for the next leg, because we’d rather skip some of this section than when we get closer to the coast.
Anyhow, things are going fine. We’re sore, but starting to toughen up!
