Into the South

A week later, I was back on the ferries again, heading back to Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island. Passing between two of the Southern Gulf Islands we were told over the ships tannoy that another ship had reported seeing some whales to the other side of the islands. A few minutes later, in the narrow channel, we passed within a hundred meters of six or seven orcas, or killer whales, swimming and jumping past.

On the Island again, I joined two cyclist off the ferry, looking for the cycle route - the Galloping Goose Trail, which led down the coast into Victoria. Aside from a couple of navigational errors, we quickly made the twenty mile traffic free (well, it had heavy bike traffic) into British Columbia’s capital.
The next ferry took me out of Canada, from Victoria to Port Angeles on the Washington coast. Arriving close to midnight, I made it a little way from the ferry terminal, and set up camp off the side of the road and into the trees.

This route through Vancouver Island avoided riding through the long built areas of Bellingham, Seattle and Tacoma. The coast route is actually very unpopulated and quiet, especially in Washington State. I was impressed by the landscape, and although Washington had no real cycle lanes, it was probably the best riding of the trip, helped by the weather. For the last few days, the west coast had been hit by strong winds and very heavy rain storms. Now, it was still, warm and sunny as I made my way west through the rain forests across the Olympic Peninsula.

I stocked up with food at Forks, the only village that day big enough to have a store selling decent bread, and headed south to the coast, where I was lucky to find a free hike-n-bike campsite. In America, campsite doesn’t mean tents, it means large RV’s - motor-homes bigger than buses. The largest I saw was in Alaska, an RV so big it needed ten wheels, this was towing a large Jeep Cherokee 4x4. On the Jeep were a few bikes, and behind the Jeep a large, maybe 25ft motor boat was being towed on a trailer. People, usually old people, can drive these with a standard car license.

RV’s were by far the most dangerous, and annoying part of the entire trip, so these hike-n-bike vehicle free, cheap campsites were extremely useful.

The next day, I tried to find information about possible campsites at the tourist information in Aberdeen. I got the answer that would be repeated at every information centre I went to in the USA. “I don’t know any”. If you ask anything not related to RV’s, the answer is always the same. Actually, the first leaflet I picked up, for an RV park just south, wrote that it allowed tents and had special rates for bikes.

This turned out to be a good choice, camping by some motor bikers touring the coast, they had the benefit of engines and a large trailer filled with food. This they happily shared and I got a great meal, and the following morning woke up early to sausages and fresh eggs - one of them kept chickens at home.

By midday I reached the Astoria Bridge, a massive bridge crossing the wide mouth of the Columbia river, and the border between Washington and Oregon. Well, the 1966 bridge, being four miles long took a while to cross over to the town of Astoria. Settled by Lewis and Clark in 1805, this is oldest American settlement west of Rockies.

Stopping at a tourist information centre, I was given an in-depth account into the areas two hundred year history. While I was trying to find out about campsites the information guy gave exactly the same talk to the next visitor, word for word, obviously just a memorising small speech he’d learnt. He went back to the normal “I don’t know” answers when I asked about bikes and campsites.

I got a slightly different answer at the next tourist information the following day, when I asked a girl where the travel agents were, as I needed to buy some more travel insurance. It wasn’t hard, being a town of five blocks, and she confidently gave me directions to the location - which I found no problem. I found the travel agents on the other side of the village after asking at the library.
But I did manage to pick up a free Oregon Coast cycle map, an invaluable guide to cycling the coast route, providing the route in detail, the elevations, and details of campsites.

The entire coast of Oregon I found to have impressive, wide cycle lanes and was well signed, making for great cycle touring. I actually started meeting and passing a few other groups of cyclists riding the coast.

On the second day in Oregon, I past over the forty-fifth parallel, and a large sign saying I was now half way between the north pole and the equator. I worked out that in terms of latitude, my whole trip take me one twelfth of the way around the world. If I was cycling in a straight line around the equator I would of gone over a tenth of the way around. But I don’t think I’ll be doing that, as it would mean a ride over the Andes, through a lot of jungle and some of the most dangerous countries in the world.