Sunshine Coast Cycle Tour

We've survived our first overnight cycle tour together! Up the Sunshine Coast to Sechelt and back. We had been trying to do this trip for a few months, but had ironically been put off by weekend after weekend of bad weather. The weather in and around Vancouver has gone decidedly downhill since we arrived, and now it's pretty much, without any exageration, constantly cloudy. The forecast for the weekend was in keeping with that - "rain sat am, light rain sat pm, showers sun am, and cloud with occasional rain sun pm". I read somewhere (the Kathmandu catalogue I believe - very knowledgable!) that the eskimos have like 100 different words for the snow, dealing with it so much, well Vancouverites are like that with rain. So, we finally came to the realisation that if we were going to do the trip before May 2009, we would have to brave the weather. Plus it was Lance's birthday...

Just in case you think I'm exaggerating, a colleague on the following monday excitedly asked how the trip was, saying how pleased she was that we got such "spectacular weather", and in the same breath told me about a small plane tragically crashing just near Sechelt (where we were), due to heavy fog! Seriously - these people need to get out of the country more!

Anyway - depsite the weather, we had a great time! We took the bus up to Horseshoe Bay, and the ferry over to Langdale. The clouds are bizarre, apparently due to the 'dew point' and the peculiar landscape of sea hitting towering mountains (can anyone explain this to me?) - so they just hang there, no matter how warm it is, or being right at sea level. We rode through Gibsons, a very cute seaside town home to an old Canadian TV show Beachcombers", more cute towns Robert's creek and through Sechelt (not so cute) and stayed at a lovely little BnB with, most importantly after a solid afternoon's riding, a seriously grunty spa!



It was good riding, we followed a lot of coastal back roads, it was relatively flat, lots of gorgeous scenery, and hey Lance was carrying all our gear (despite it being his birthday)! He was still a lot faster than me sadly...

Enjoy the photo essay below... (I apologise for my seriously dorky appearance - it was cold!)

Loading the bikes onto the first bus Saturday morning

Julia riding onto the ferry



Lance on the ferry

Lance at one of the many bays


Lance taking a photo of me while riding at about 50km/hr down a hill no hands....

Local artwork

The view of Mt Baker (USA) from Robert's creek. Apparently you only ever see it once in a blue moon.



Me resting at any and every available opportunity


Our great B&B! - included hot tub, fire place, bath robes and slippers, breakfast....



in Gibsons...

The home run to the ferry!

So close....



Lance loading bikes on the bus home



and riding in the door or our apartment building, mission accomplished!

Ice hockey and Poop Cakes

So we had our first taste of real, all Canadian culture on Wednesday night when we attended our first ice hockey game. Ice hockey is Canada's official sport and despite that only 4 of 20 something NHL (National Hockey League) teams are Canadian, there are more Canadians playing in the league than Americans.
On Wednesday it was the Vancouver Giants vs the Tri City Americans (who ever they are?) - in the WHL (Western Hockey League) which is one down from the big boys in the National Hockey League. It was a lot of fun - alot more violent than any sport should be, although I have to admit I was disappointed that there were no fights (contrary to the Giant's rep). But the Giants did win, in a nail biter down to the final two minutes, victory...



The highlight of the night had to be the play breaks - particularly the Tim Horton Tim Bit mini league game of 5 year olds playing icehockey in their shirts which came down to their knees. 'Playing' is probably a bit generous - they'd get the puck, then fall over it, and everyone would come in for D and fall over them - it was soooo cute! Kicking myself that I didn't get a photo/video of them. There were lots of other fun things too including blimps, chicken races on the ice, mascots, t-shirt cannons, fried food etc.


On Tuesday we visited "Fright Nights" at Playland. It was Halloween on Friday and everyone gets into it bigtime here - my work have a potluck lunch on Friday and people dress up in costumes (mighty mouse won this year) and bring food like spinach dip in airplane sick bags, or cakes baked in kitty litter trays with "poop" icing and pooper scoopers to serve ( I think Lance's work was much more sensible).
I'm not so much into that but Fright Night was good fun! It's at nighttime at Playland, Vancouver's amusement park, with some very fun rides, including one of the oldest wooden rollercoasters in North America (which was scarily rickety - and you got serious air time on it!) and they do the whole thing up with Halloween decorations, evil-looking gargoyles, graves and skulls galore, (no small feat!), have dozens of scary house attractions, a Halloween maze complete with escaped psych patients and Frankenstein and then people in costume running around scaring innocent bystanders all night.