Much has happened......

Ithas been a while since I last penned anything. It is nearly a week since we crossed into the States. We pedalled in rain for the first couple of days and LMF was definately a factor within the group. On leaving Bellingham on a wet cold morning, an 8 oclock pedal out was planned -Gilly and Di disappeared to a Starbucks to get an early morning caffene fix, Michael disappeared into a garage to check tyre pressures yet again and I was sheltering in a bus shelter from the rain wating. I was then approached by a 'hobo' of no fixed abode and we then had a discussion of how good life on the road could be. However he did say that after a while it wore a bit thin and he was looking for accomodation.
On the road today we received news that Gilly brother died unexpectedly which will have an effect on the trip. Gilly has decided to fly home from Portland on 17th Sept  and rejoin us in Crescent City about 2 weeks later.
Last Friday we caught a ferry to the San Jaun Islands where we met up with Jim & MARLENE. GILLY & and I had our first days camping WEREAS THE OTHERS RELAXED IN A HOTEL. Great islands and the sun started to shine for the first time. A little less LMF - at last.
We have gradually chuncked south on some very busy roads and in ever increasing temperatures. We have camped in a couple of State Parks but today we are in a Motel.
Drama - it has been over 80 deg for the last 2 days and today Pat succumbed to the HEAT. 911 and 2 ambulances - Pats heart rate over 175and blood pressure almost non existant. A few hours in hospital and an arm full of saline solution and he is OK and he rejoined us for supper.
We are half way down Washington, the Odo is exactly 250 miles.
It seems to be going OK.Jim & Marlene seem a little faster than us but we all seem to getting on.Jim has endless stories about their travels and it is good to have an international group. Pat, who started with more gear than the rest of us seems to visit a Post Office in most town shedding kit, Michael visits most garages to check tyer pressures, Gilly just pedals on and I bring up the rear. 2 punctures so far - both to Pats back tyre so I have given him my spare tyre as he sent his home a couple of days ago savei

ng weight.
We pedal on tomorrow whilst Pat rests up for a day. We are expecting another hot day.

Underway

Hi Ho

On the road and it is good to feel the journey has begun
Yesterday was traffic, busses and lorries cars all within inches giving us very little room.
It was a shakedown day, sorting pannier weights and load distribution, getting the feel of a loadef bike. For some just staying on the bike was an.acheivment - one of us came off about 6 times - nothing dented apart from pride, a brokenbar end and some very scrapped legs.
Crossed a couple of big bridges and eventually crossed in the USA. No drama at the border. Into  motel and then a chinese and into bed. Everyone survived day 1 some in better humour than others and there was a slight hint of L M F in the air.
Today  rain. Lots of rain so in a motel in Bellingham. Less traffic and more trees.
Unfortunately we heard that Gilly's older brother died unexpectedly - so phone calls to & from UK
Dist 73 miles

Big Day Tomorrow

Hi Ho
We load up at dawn tomorrow and mosey out of town and probably not a day too soon. Our area of Vancouver is not the most celubrious. A couple of nights ago we could not get back to the hostel because there had been a weapon dischage. Yesterday afternoon the door was blocked by a colapsed drunk. There is a big rough sleeping culture, at supper 2 nights ago the table next to us on the patio were accosted by a hobo with a yellow stained beared and v bad teeth - the skinhead type with a red mohecan at another table lept the rails and had a right go at him and their verbal argument could be heard as they went down the street.
However we were shown round Victoria by Jim & Marlene - what a fabulous place to live. Last night we were royally entertained by some friends of Micheal in North Vancouver - lovely place so different from the City - salmon, beautiful pink lamb, organic chicken and vegs to die for washed down with a glass or 3 of vin rouge! !
We have cycled all over Vancouver in the rain and it is time to go. We head for the border and tomorrow night we should be sleeping in the USA. Jim & Marlene are heading down the islands by ferry and meet us in 3 days time on San Juan Islands near Seatle. The forcast e is OK  maybe some showers.

Vancouver in the rain

Hi Ho.The flight was OK after a very comfortable night in the Premier Inn at T 5.
On arrival at Vancouver we picked up our bikes only to find that the plastic was all ripped and they looked a complete mess. I seemed they had a pretty rough flight . Early next morning with bikes in our hostel room I checked them out. I now think they were searched by UK customs. Everything on the bikes had been searched. Interesting as there was probably 400 or 500 folk on the flight so maybe 600 checked bags. I know there was a very dodgy looking Chinese Laundry bag held together with brown parcel tape - so which one do they search? yep - the one in the see though plastic bag that you see what it is! !
Rained all day yesterday and took an hop on hop off bus thingy to get our bearings and hope today to get on our bikes. Vancouver first impressions - OK but a lot of homeless on the streets.
Pat n Di arrived yesterday -

gradually the team assembles.
We are in a Hostel International with the great unwashed - interesting - now I know how my youngsters lived on there travels.

The Pacific West Coast - it begins

Our bikes are in plastic bags, our worldly possessions are in Chinese bags held together by parcel tape and we are off to Heathrow tomorrow. It is an adventure 3 years in the planning, we are going to cycle the Pacific Highway from Vancouver to Mexico. 2000 miles down the Pacific Coast at 35-40 miles a day plus side trips to Seattle, Yosemite (if it has not been burnt down by the current forest fires) and a few days in San Francisco. 

This is a recognised cycle route, details can be found at http://www.adventurecycling.org/ . The Adventure Cycling Association is the US equivalent to our CTC. We plan to head south from Vancouver on 4^th

September and arrive in San Diego about 7^th or 8^th November – about 65 days.  The guide book recommends starting after Labor Day (1^st Monday in September) as this is the day that the locals put their RV’s in the garage for the winter and the roads are much quieter. The weather is still good and the prevailing wind is from the north and should blow us to California.

We will be stopping at the Mexican border as the guide book says “Tijuana (just south of the border) is no place for a Gringo on a bike”!

So ‘Who’s Who’.  Gilly and I (Brits) who have many miles of cycle touring under our belts – bums as hard as steel and panniers as light as a feather (well mine are!).

Pat and Di (he Kenyan and she Brit) now living in Atlanta, this is Di’s first major tour and hopefully she will remember the golden rules of cycle touring:

1.     Always look cool.

2.    Sometimes things go wrong.

3.    If rule 2 applies always – yep always - refer to rule 1.

4.    Absolutely no whinging!!!!

Di will have a couple of weeks off in the middle of the trip as she has a previous engagement with a golf course.

Jim and Marlene (Canuks), we met them in a small village in Northern Spain, Villaviciosa, they were walking the Northern Camino to Santiago in the rain and we were cycling to France in the rain! They are native to Vancouver.

Michael (Yankee Doodle), we spent 6 weeks or so with Michael and his wife Donna in Africa. He is now the wrong side of 70 but, as in Tanzania when he joined the macho crowd to climb Kilimanjaro, he has decided it is never too late to try something new. (P.S. I stayed at the bottom with some of the ladies).

Gilly and I plan to stay in the US for about a month at the end of the trip. We will pop across the border to Tijuana with a friend of Pats (who works there) for a night or two. After a few day exploring the San Diego area we fly into Las Vegas for a week, then we fly to Los Angeles to catch the Amtrak across southern USA to New Orleans, then onto Atlanta and into the Appalachians for a few days staying with Michael and Donna at their mountain house. We should be back home on about 8^th December – just in time for the British winter.

Nous sommes ici - hurray!!

Tuesday 5th November 2012 - it is 0730 and I am watching the sun rise over the Mediterranean from the balcony of Mike & Jenny's 5th floor appartment in Le Barcarès while out of our bedroom window we can see snow covering the Pyrenees. We arrived yesterday afternoon in glorious sunshine and strong winds.
From Carcassonne we had a good ride to Narbonne - not on the Canal but on very minor roads through some typical French villages. The forecast was for rain in the afternoon but we were caught with some heavy stuff in the morning - the day then improved and we arrived in sunshine but it p....d down in the evening. The town/city surrounds a massive cathedral and the most immpressive Hotel de Ville we have seen.
0800 yesterday morning Philippe (Mike & Jenny's agent) met us in our hotel for the handing over of the keys ceremony - this was to be our last day of cycling. Mike had described me to Philippe as a British Admiral reduced to riding a bike because of the cuts - this made me laugh. We were expecting sun and wind which was what we got but thewind was gusting 45 - lkph andwith loaded bikes made for an exciting ride - Gilly found it more horrifing then exciting. We went off-piste for 12 or so k and had to cross a flooded causway with deep water on both sides and a strong gusty crosswind - interesting. However we made it in good form and we are here for a week or so.
It's been a good trip, hillier in Spain than expected,propably wetter then expected but the journey  for me  has reinforced the reasons why I like cycle touring - the people you meet and have fun with - seeing the parts of the countries others don,t see as we travel on minor roads and just the joy of traveling at your own pace on your route.
We have cycled w1181.19k  with an average cycling speed of about 18kph and cover abetween 35 and 75k per day. In Spain cos' of unexpectedly steep hills we averaged less than 10 kms per hour. A big dissapointment to me is that I have overtaken just 2 cyclists, one of them with hanging basket of fresh mushrooms fromthe woods over his handlebars.
 We have been overtaken by runners, many cyclist and a windsurfer. The bikes have been good - they are a bit sluggish now after cycling thro' mud, sand and muck - I broke my mirrow and have a broken pedal strap. Gilly had a puncture in her back wheel which is not bad for 2 bikes over some of the terrain we have journeyed.

Thats all from me. Au revoir & Adios

The Canal du Midi et al .....

Saturday 3rd November - Carcassonne. Just two more days cycling and we will be dangling our feet in the Mediterranean at Le Barcares. All good things must come to an end and this trip is drawing to a close.

We left the hotel in Valence to a haloween market - ghosts goolies and lots of smoke - all good fun and we battled our way to the Tourismo to find out about the Canal du Midi. It appeared that the canal would take us all the way to the coast. It took us 2 days to get to Toulouse - great tarmaced tow path, tree lined and hardly anyone else on it. It is a working canal with a series of locks. It follows the course of the Garonne to Toulouse and the river feeds the canal. We stopped overnight in Montech and the only accommodation was a Gité- very comfortable but the town was shut, we had been recommended a restaurant by two separate people so we waited until 1930 got on our bikes and pedalled the 2k into town to find it all shut. We got into the supermarket just as it was shutting and grabbed some food.

Toulouse , as far as cities go is great. Big river lots of cafes and a good atmosphere.   My Weather Channel app for my phone indicated gusts of 65kph winds for the following day so after our experience in Scotland last year we decided to shelter in Toulouse for an extra day - we explored the town and it was a holiday, I said to Gilly these folk don't know whats going to hit them today. We strolled down by the river and had an early lunch incase the outside cafes were going to be blown away. We basked in the sunshine all afternoon and when the flags over the Hotel de Ville rustled I said here it comes. It was calm all day  My cycling buddy from the States was a big wig for the Weather Channel Ihim on the case! a50k outside Toulouse as we exited the Haute Garrone the tow path turned into a muddy track and apparently it is like that to the coast. We are now back on the roads. We stopped at Castelnaudary (nothing to say abput it really - I suppose a bit of a dump) before arriving here. A city with a complet walled town within. Fascinating but it has turned into tourist honey pot selling junk.