Introduction: Two days in Victoria, British Columbia - Western Canada 2007 - CycleBlaze

Introduction: Two days in Victoria, British Columbia

This is a journal of my 38-day bike tour during the summer of 2007. I pedaled 3084 kilometers (1916 miles), carrying all my gear on a Speed Ross short wheelbase recumbent. It was my 12th tour on that bike but only my 2nd tour using underseat panniers.

The map below shows the route of my tour. Most of the distance is in British Columbia but I also rode several days in Alberta and 4 days in the state of Washington. This was the farthest north I had ever biked.

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This image shows the actual inside passage ferry route.
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I planned to end the tour near Portland, Oregon. But my frame broke and I ended the tour 5 days early in Chelan, Washington. The 9 year old Speed Ross is now retired, replaced by a Bacchetta Giro 20.

The bike setup is essentially the same as what I used on last year's tour in Oregon. The bike is described in detail in the introduction of that journal.

My 12th and final self-contained tour on the 1998 Speed Ross short wheelbase recumbent.
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The Canada flag was free at the visitor center in Victoria. The Tyvek flag is stapled to a cardboard pole but it survived the entire trip.

On this tour I have a new tent, a Mountain Hardwear Skyledge 2. It's slightly smaller and has much better ventilation than the old Sierra Designs Half Moon in which I slept nearly 400 nights. I also have a new camera, a Canon SD-800IS. It's much smaller and lighter than my old Nikon Coolpix 4500 camera. The new camera has image stabilization, so I decided to carry a 2 ounce "Ultrapod" instead of a 2.2 pound "real" tripod. As a result I'm carrying 3 pounds less photo equipment that I did on my previous tour. The bike is still extremely heavy, though. It usually weighs over 100 pounds when the water bottles are full and I'm carrying 2 days of food.

The bike tour started on June 30 but my wife and I left home on June 27 to drive to Port Angeles, Washington. We spent the night at the world's worst motel, the Traveler's motel in Port Angeles. On the morning of June 28 we took the Victoria Express passenger ferry to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It makes the crossing in one hour, much faster than the Coho car ferry.

The ferry from Port Angeles arrives in Victoria inner harbour.
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We stayed two nights in Victoria at the Ramada Huntingdon hotel two blocks from the ferry. It cost about the same as the awful motel the night before but was a million times nicer. Our first day we walked around the Victoria inner harbour and downtown area. We had quite a bit of rain, with an intense shower while we were in the Royal B.C. museum. They had an interesting exhibit of artifacts retrieved from the Titanic.

Victoria inner harbour.
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Twilight view of the British Columbia parliament building.
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Our main activity the second day was a trip to Butchart Gardens via bus. It's a 45 minute drive north of downtown Victoria. We had a great time touring the gardens. No rain until we were just about to leave. They have a huge supply of free umbrellas for visitors to use.

Butchart Gardens, north of Victoria.
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Butchart Gardens
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Butchart Gardens
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Butchart Gardens
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We had still more rain later in the day but it cleared up just before sunset. We ate a memorable dinner at an Indian/East African restaurant-there's nothing like that in the rural area where we live!

The weather forecast looks good for the start of the bike tour tomorrow...

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