Day 33 - Abbotsford to Hope

Up late this morning and took the breakfast in the hotel while doing the blog. So we are now a day ahead of schedule; Marge has suggested we use it as a sick day one day when the tennis is on TV.

We started out riding alongside the TCH on a service road which finally broke off and took us into rural Frazer Valley. There are no hills here, and the wind was behind us so we made good time to our first, “Where do we go now stop?” We were standing looking lost and a guy stopped his van, and said pointing to our bike, “We have one of those,” and asked us if we would like help. He patiently explained a very nice route he took on his tandem up to a Pub in Chilliwack and told us he was off to Ireland for a tour with his tandem shortly.


Strengthened by the knowledge that there was a pub in a few km we sped off into the east only to run out of steam just outside a Tim H’s. Pub grub forgotten, we made do with soup and a sandwich.

The day warmed nicely, as our new route wended its way alongside the mountain, then turned north to route 9 where we met Doug and Pam. Doug was waiting for his wife who was cycling a similar route to ours. Cut a long story short, Pam said a very nice prayer for us before we left. Only a kilometer or two down the road we were thankful for it as we crossed the very narrow Frazer River bridge in heavy but well behaved traffic. Marge and I did a collective “Phew” when the road opened up and gave us the hard shoulder back. Once on Hwy 7 there was little traffic to worry us as we ate up the final miles to Hope. The campsite was where we expected it to be, and within no time we were set up and shopping for supper.


So that’s it for today. On a scale of 1-10, a positive 10 I would say. Let’s do all again tomorrow when we have the first of the serious climbs up to Allison Pass; about 1400m or so. Night Night.

Pictures

23.3kph average

Distance: 91km
Total Distance: 2332km
Alt change: 230m
Total Alt change: 12509m