(June 30 – written by Dave)

We had an exciting night in the old Woss Lake Campground.  We were in bed early and sometime – I have no idea what time it was – some varmints decided that they wanted to investigate our tent.  Small varmints of unknown origin.  Luckily, Nancy heard them and roused me to come up with a plan.

We tried the old pound on the tent floor and yell.  That was completely ineffectual.  On to Plan B – haul all the bags inside the tent and hope that they gave up at the tent wall.  This seemed to make them stop, or at least leave us alone, other than one or two that tried to climb the tent wall a couple of times until Nancy played pin ball with them.  Good thing as Plan C was to put everything in the bear (and varmint) proof bags and find a tree.  We almost hung the food in earlier in the evening – perhaps we should have.  Nothing else bothered us during the night but we both slept fitfully, ever on the alert for the pitter patter of little feet across the tent.

We were up early but still not in time to beat Michele out of camp.  Armed with his new bear spray, there was nothing that could slow him down.  He left camp about 30 minutes before we did, giving us a big “bon courage” as he departed.  We could still see his tracks through the gravel road as we made our way back into Woss.  It was only 3.5ks of gravel and it seems so much shorter in the morning.  Something about last night and the feeling of potentially being lost in the forest made it seem longer.

We stopped for one last look for the famous Woss Vegas Cafe and were able to confirm that it was indeed closed for good.  So rather than world famous Woss Vegas cinnamon buns, we settled for two convenience store cinnamon buns.  We ate them later for morning tea and they turned out to be pretty good – though not “world famous” worthy.

The ride itself was a little bit like yesterday.  We had tailwinds and lots of forest corridor riding.  More and more North Vancouver Island mountains started to pop out here and there when we got limited views through the clear cuts.  There is nowhere near as much snow here as there was in Alaska and the Yukon so the mountains are not as dramatic – I still tried to get a few worthy snaps.

For days now we’ve been seeing road signs warning of trucks.  There are two kinds.  One for small trucks and one for log trucks.  I could swear that they change the direction in which the trucks are travelling.  Nancy thought maybe the small trucks changed direction, but didn’t think that the log trucks changed directions.  I was bound to prove that I was right but for the first 50k all we had were log trucks heading to the right.  Finally about 50k into the ride, we got a log truck sign heading to the left.  See below for both photos.  No, I’m not losing it.  These are the things you think about when on a bicycle tour.  I wonder how many motorists notice the sign and more important perhaps, I wonder it is done on purpose and if we are supposed to be taking some kind of safety warning for it…  Further research is required.

Eventually we made it Sayward Junction and our intended stop for the night.  For the record, we never found Richardson’s store and those other world famous cinnamon buns (we think it might show up on tomorrow’s ride).  We found the junction pub and had a tasty late lunch.  We had a bit of a struggle picking a place to camp as there were two RV parks and we’d heard good things about both.  So much choice after spending so much time with such limited options travelling up north.  We were stymied.

We eventually settled on the Sayward Valley RV Park.  It is a very nice park with everything we needed – laundry, great grassy sites, showers and a good store.  They also have some 50 chainsaw wood carvings.  The latter is not generally on our list but it does answer the question of “what do they do here in winter”.  The statues were quite nice and of a high standard – from what I could tell – enjoy a few shots of them below.

Tomorrow is Canada Day.  We head to Campbell River and a reserved camping spot.  We were a little nervous finding one on the holiday and really don’t know what to expect on the roads.  We plan on getting an early start and being done riding fairly early.  We may let off a bear banger or two along the way just to get in the spirit.