M - Bye to Squishy Town

Well, we really like it here, the weather has been great, the climbing is amazing and we met some great people but it is time to move on. We are headed into the big city for one night in Vancouver. We are planning to share a hostel room with the Danish boys Alex and Rasmus. Then it will be over to Vancouver Island for a bit. From there we think we might take the ferry across to Washington, and start the eastwards trip through there.

Wow - we never normally have a plan lasting more than a day or two!

J - Climbing in Squamish

We are bumming gear and bouldering to get some climbing done while we are here. We always regretted leaving Yosemite so quickly without doing much climbing. In hindsight it was silly so we are not going to make that mistake again even if we have to climb with nothing but a handful of nuts.


We are about to leave the comfortable little nest provided to us by our good friends Lachlan and Jess in Calgary.
One of the many lakes in BC.We spent the afternoon climbing Star Check outside of Squamish, BC with Fred Beckey legendary North American climber.
Still climbing well at 86.

Not a new tattoo but a charcoal mark from testing out the camp hosts exhaust system for leaks.
I leave my little bit of sweat and skin on Easy in an Easy Chair. One of the most climbed boulder problems in Squamish.

Merewyn and Jackie tip toe up the apron. A glacially polished slab of granite below the Chief.


Squamish is a great little town, quickly becoming a larger town. The winter olympics have been given to a nearby area Whistler, BC and this means that Squamish is a very desireable place to be now especially with the vast array of great outdoor activities here.

M - Dunno what to call this one!

Another couple days of riding and we have arrived in Squamish. A famous climbing location, we are camped just outside of town under a huge granite cliff called "The Chief" it has a longer name but no-one can spell it.

Too bad we don't have a rope or any trad gear! So today i bought the bouldering guide. We met some other climbers right away, and they have a little bit of gear, so we might get to do some routes yet, here's hoping we can find something easy and run it out a lot!

From Penticton to here we rode some nice twisty roads, finally I am learning to corner the bike properly after so many miles of straight highways. Lunch yesterday was in Lilloot (sp?!) next to an enormous pelton wheel which had funny shaped cups and I really should have taken a photo of it. Then we passed through Whistler which is one of the scariest places I have seen, all totally new looking and packed full of starbucks and designer clothing stores.

I am starting to feel more settled into the roving life again, and looking forward to making a big trek eastwards. Just after I dip my toes in the Pacific Ocean, we haven't seen the sea for months and months.

M - Aches and Pains after a week back on the road

So far we have made it to Penticton in Southern BC, a nice wee town, with some excellent rock climbing. It is the long weekend (Victoria Day) so some of our Calgary friends have driven out too, (they only took 9 hours rather than 4 days though) meaning we have gear and people to climb with. Also a laptop to write this blog post!

We have been wandering our way across the southern part of BC, stopping to soak in hot Pools at Ainsworth, where they have a really cool hot pool in a cave, and Nakusp. Nakusp is neat in that the pools are owned and run by the community, and while we were soaking, we could watch humming birds drinking from the feeders they have hanging there. Funny to watch such tiny birds fighting over a very plentiful food supply. We swapped bikes for a day, with me riding the big 1200cc Bandit, each of us declared that we preferred the bike of the other! However I think the change in posture is what was nice, so we will swap more often in future to have a bit of variety.

This area has some of the best motorcycling roads in Canada, and we have been able to use some of the edges of our tires, rounding off some of the flat spot that develops on straight roads. We crossed two lakes by ferry, the first at Kootenay Bay, and the second at Needles. The Needles Ferry is a cable ferry and it was so smooth we were half way across before I even noticed we were moving. No worries about the bikes falling over in the swell!

There are signs that the bikes are starting to get a bit worn out. My speedo cable keeps falling off, so it has now been removed. Annoying as Josh's speedo is less than accurate so it's a guessing game as to how fast we are traveling. I think I can put it back on with some 'lock tight' and maybe a bit of duct tape also.

More seriously, we stopped just outside Nakusp to look at some Osprey nests, and petrol started pouring out of the cap on Josh's tank. Every time we shut the cap, it would rise up and start to spill over the top! All the problems which stop us from riding seem to be fuel system related. Eventually we determined that a pipe which is supposed to carry fuel overflow and evaporated fuel out of the tank has a hole rusted in it below the fuel line. Josh devised a plug for the top of the pipe out of the end of a pen with a piece of wood stuck in it! Apparently this is a long term solution. Repairs inside the fuel tank are notoriously difficult.

Unfortunately Josh has the camera just now or I would have been able to put some pictures up for you all... maybe soon!

M - Almost ready to head out again

We are all set to ride away from Calgary on the bikes tomorrow. Neither of us feel terribly sad to leave Calgary, but we did make a few very good friends here, and we will miss them a lot, especially Sherman.

The plan is to go West again into southern BC which we are told has the best riding roads in Canada, all of which we missed on the last trip. We will spend the May long Weekend near Pendicton at a place called Skaha for some rockclimbing, and hopefully a few of those Calgary friends will be there too. We'd like to ride as far as Squamish near Vancouver, a major Canadian climbing destination.

Then we will pass thought Calgary again briefly before going East, hopefully all the way to the Atlantic. No doubt there will be a stop over in Wisconsin, and we would like to visit the Maritime Provinces of Canada, especially New Foundland which we have heard is very beautiful.

We then have to return our bikes into the USA to sell them before we fly home to NZ.

So, I have a tank of gas, we are mostly packed and the major job left to do is to head down to the pub for some beer and wings, our goodbye drinkies.

M - transition

At this point we have moved out of our house and we are staying with friends Jess and Lachlan in their very nice home in the SW (thanks again guys!) We sold our car and as much of our furniture as we could, giving the rest to the sallies.

I have just realised a funny thing, our laptop is called an Acer Aspire, and our car was a Ford Aspire, now I need to take a look at the other things we bought here in Canada. Perhaps this particular marketing has a resonant affect on Josh and I? Josh frequently claims to be immune to advertising despite any number of examples to show this is simply not true.

The plan form this point is to take a short tour through southern BC as we missed most of it, riding quickly across to and from Alaska. There are a number of hot pools to be visited, one is even underground in a cave. We might manage to circle around and come back through Washington which we also haven't seen. Then back through Calgary briefly before riding east, stopping again in Wisconsin. Ultimately we want to reach the east coast, and visit the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and some of the north East Coast of the USA. Finally we will sell the bikes (or give them away!) and fly home. Whew!

There are a number of people we are hoping to visit along the way, and accommodation is likely to be more backpacker hostels, campgrounds and the like as the free camping options are more limited than in the west.

Short term we are rationalising what things we would like to take or send home. Josh is having some trouble with irritated eyes meaning he can't keep his contacts in for long. This needs to be resolved as he cannot ride very easily wearing his glasses.