Day 32 - Victoria to Abbotsford

Up early to a beautiful day and muffled noises of preparation from 14 riders, who were on their first day of cross Canada riding. (These are part of a diverse group of people who are making the trip with a baggage van, we have talked of before.) Preparations were made, photos taken, questions asked and answered, and the first push of the pedals.

We meandered through a deserted Victoria Saturday morning and headed south and up the gentle grade to the Mile Zero Marker. We exited town on the blue river bridge shown at the top of yesterday’s blog, and got onto the Goose Cap Bike trail heading north to Swartz Bay Ferry. We stopped for second breakfast at McD’s opposite the Waddling Dog, and then back on the Trail, we were in the Ferry Terminal just after 11am.


We had to wait for an hour for the next ferry so spent the time eating and basking. Such a Pain! When the ferry arrived we rushed onto it with a 100 or so others, only to find that we had boarded the wrong one and just made it off before they closed the doors. The correct ferry was then boarded and we enjoyed a good trip across the sound to Tsawwassan.


As the weather was so good we decided to miss out the planned camp site and go on a little further, and so for the next 80km we were looking for another one! The route along Avenue 0 is very rural, and involves a 160m climb at the start, but after that, it rolls gently down almost into Abbotsford. The route is the actual border which is marked by the occasional post. In Abbotsford, we went into Tim H’s and had a long chat with a guy who had exact, and detailed information on the campsite we were looking for except for one teenie little piece- it no longer existed. This caused us to back track about 4km and find a Super 8, across the road from which there was another Tim H’s. We bought 2 large hot chocolates, took them back to our room, where we diluted said them with the last of our medicinal rum.

Shower and lights out at 9pm. A very memorable day.



Pictures

19.5kph average

Distance: 132km
Total Distance: 2241km
Alt change: 560m
Total Alt change: 12279m