27/06/2009 by Brigid.

In the cold light of day, we began to have doubts about some of our fellow residents. Amongst the obvious tourists in the hotel foyer, there were a number of thin and unhealthy-looking types with ragged clothes, who blended remarkably well with the trolley-pushing bag people, drug addicts and other misfits who populate the area’s streets. Since we could neither connect to the hotel’s wireless network, nor make an international call using our American pre-paid calling card, we had no reason to hang around any longer than it took to pack the bikes.

We took Hwy 99 out of the city, through Squamish and Whistler. It is a great road. Vancouver will host the 2010 Winter Olympics so they have been making great strides in improving access. Almost as far as Whistler, a new dual-carriageway winds its way around the coastline, offering wonderful views of islands and inlets. Past Whistler the work continues. At one point, John and I found ourselves unexpectedly dirt-riding over several miles of twisty unsurfaced road in a construction zone. Then, all of a sudden, we found ourselves back in open countryside, with more stunning views.

It was a slow ride. It seemed that every time we were tempted to speed up a bit, we caught out by degraded road surface, a sneeky bit of construction or a narrow wooden bridge under repair. Best we get used to it though, as I am sure we will find much worse over the next couple of weeks.

We got in to Williams Lake at about 8pm, slightly damp, after being caught in a brief, but vicious, downpour. After our Vancouver hotel room, the Drummond Lodge Motel was pure luxury. Our huge room even had a balcony overlooking the lake. We changed into some dry clothes and went to find dinner at the Laughing Loon pub down the road.

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27/06/2009 by Brigid.

The guy shaking hands with John is Timo. While we were waiting for Portland Motorcycles to put my bike back together, he brought his Finnish 1200 GSA in for service. Timo was midway through his own, solo, “Long Way Round” adventure. He left Finland in April, and has crossed Europe and the Balkans, Russia, Mongolia and Korea, before flying his BMW 1200 GSA into Vancouver for the start of his North American leg. Now, that’s a real trip and a half. Timo had been on his own for the majority of the trip, except for crossing Mongolia, and his only technical issue had been a punctured tyre – caused by riding over one of the many broken bottles discarded on the road by Russian drivers.

My bike was only in for a routine 24k inspection but, as luck would have it, when they dropped the final drive, they discovered a gunky mix of dirt, oil and water, along with a leaking seal and, inevitably, some corrosion. The service manager had never seen anything like it, and assumed I must have been doing some extreme off-roading. I didn’t want to disappoint him, but the presence of red-coloured soil suggests to me that it has been there since our last US trip in 2006 … (The Wilde brothers will remember our back roads tour of the cemetary in Erick.) Anyway, the technician polished off the rust as best he could and replaced the seals, but the extra work meant that the bike wouldn’t be ready until lunchtime, so John and I were left twiddling our thumbs all morning.

We eventually got away at about 2pm. With a minimum five and a half hour ride ahead of us (without any rest breaks), we didn’t bother with any sight-seeing. In addition, John had promised to look in on a family friend, so we needed to get a bit of a wiggle on.

As it was, it was nearly 9pm by the time we arrived at the Hotel Patricia. We certainly do pick ‘em. When we mentioned where we were staying to Claire, she laughed and warned us to look out for the crackheads. She was right. What a place! We didn’t dare leave any luggage or accessories on our bikes overnight, so took everything up to our tiny room before meeting Claire and Steve next door in Pat’s Pub. Great place. It was film night, and they were playing some sort of Australian slasher movie about vampire zombies. It was extremely hard not to be distracted by the sight of our hero brandishing a lawn-mower as he defended himself against the undead masses. Very messy.

Despite our closet-sized room, we liked the hotel well enough. Comfortable bed, good linen and friendly staff and, after a few pints of the pub’s micro-brewed cream ale, we were asleep before our heads hit the pillow.

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