(July 1 – written by Dave)

Super quiet night in tenting area of the Sayward Valley Resort.  The owners were working feverishly on their Canada Day float late into the night but neither of us heard a sound.  We were both a little tired from the sun – we think.  We are liking this warm weather but are certainly not used to it.  Today we rode again without arm and leg warmers and vests.  And yes, we had a tailwind once again – at least until the last 3k when for some reason, the wind switched directions.  We’re not complaining mind you, that’s four days in a row with tailwinds most of the day.

We headed back to the Crossroads Pub for brekkie this morning.  We both had pancakes and eggs.  Well, I should say, we both had pancake and eggs.  The menu said 2 pancakes and 2 eggs but we only got one pancake and two eggs.  When the pancake is as big as plate, and by that I mean a really large cafe plate, no one is going to complain.  Nancy actually only ate half her pancake, taking the second half with her for morning tea (which I will report now was not shared except one teeny, tiny, measly bite – so much for our saying “teamwork makes the dream work”) (Senior editor’s note – hang on a minute, if you choose to eat all of your pancake at breakfast then I am not sure it is really fair to expect someone who has refrained from eating all of theirs, even though they wanted to, to share the piece they saved…).  Nancy remembered that the last pancake she had was made by Dee in Kitwanga and it was nearly as large – she ate the whole thing back in Kitwanga.

We ran into a father/son touring duo at the Crossroads.  They were super nice and gave us great info about the road ahead.  We returned favour but somehow managed to miss out on both of their names and a photo.  Must have been the sugar high caused by your junior editor eating his entire pancake (dang, I should have saved some of mine for morning tea – would have for sure, had I known that the senior editor wouldn’t be sharing with me L).  (Senior editor’s note – see above.  And just to be clear, Dave had two pieces of raisin/nut bread smothered with butter and maple syrup in his bag for morning tea, so he was not going hungry).

Anyway, back to the ride.  We were supposed to have something like 30k of mostly uphill 30k of mostly downhill.  The uphill was pretty easy really, probably something to do with the tailwinds.  We didn’t stop much and traffic was very light compared to the last couple days.  We had ZERO log trucks and the feared holiday traffic didn’t really materialize until the last 3k riding out of town (with the headwind).

We managed to find Roberts Lake and subsequently Roberts Cafe.  Unfortunately the cafe seemed to be closed.  Not sure if it was a permanent closure or if just for the holiday.  Kind of crazy if it was the latter as there were certainly enough folks out and about to make trading worthwhile.  We’ll never know if their bun merited “World Famous” status.  This is made sadder by the fact that we actually stopped just before the cafe at the lake where Nancy ate all of her leftover pancake (and in case you’d forgotten, I got one eensy, teensy bite).  Boy I sure could have used a cinnamon bun at that point. (Senior editor’s note – see above, again).

Soon after Robertson Lake we reached the top of the hill for the day and had a nice 15k mostly downhill patch.  The road was really bumpy here but no cars passed us so we could safely ride out in the traffic lane.  I took the lead, setting a fast pace, in spite of not having the energy of a full half a pancake like others in our riding party did.  (Senior editor’s note – but having the energy of two pieces of maple-slathered nut/raisin bread, in addition to the full pancake he ate at breakfast, which was way more than the small piece of saved pancake that I had).

Riding was more forest corridors today, at least until we popped out to the water almost to Campbell River.  We didn’t get many photos as the entire shoreline is line with timber mill processing plants and most views were blocked with powerlines or no trespassing signs.  Traffic was starting to pick up and around 1PM we were happy to reach Campbell River.  We rode straight to the waterfront area where the big Canada Day celebrations were taking place – picture lots folks in red and white, a band and jumping castle.  I had hoped to get something to eat there but nothing really looked that great.  We wanted lunch and the likes of cotton-candy and caramel corn didn’t cut the bill.

So, after some back and forth, we ended up at the Quay Side Bar and Grill.  I had a yummy bacon blue cheese burger and Nancy had the prawn and crab macaroni and cheese.  Both meals were great.  We split an IPA as we knew that we had a few K more to ride and it was hot now.  We didn’t really need to be weaving our way to camp.

After a quick stop at Starbucks and the Real Canadian Super Store, we slogged it out those last 3k to the RV park – and what a park it is.  It’s a pretty rough spot where nearly all of the units are semi-permanent.  Or at least they have some form of wood structure around their bases that make it look like they would be hard to move.  The owners are nice and have a nice trailer.  The rest of the crew is more on the rough side.  Oh well, it’s only one night.

Tomorrow we have a shorter day to Cumberland and the Riding Fool Bicycle Hostel.  We’ve heard a lot about it and are excited to see what it’s all about.  We are planning on a rest day there just to make sure that we have a proper chance to investigate all of the Cumberland Brewpubs in-house ales.  We’ll be trying to find another brekkie spot early as well.  I’m thinking that I’ll order pancakes, maybe a double serve so that I can have one for morning tea.  From what I’ve heard, leftover pancakes are great for morning tea J.  (Senior editor’s note – learning to use a bit of restraint to set something aside for later is a good trait to develop, so we’ll see how he goes…).