104.0Kms
Oh goodness gracious! Misha, Francis, Diane, Louise, Sonia, Aunt Margret, Svetlana, Tim, Jim, Meredith, Janis, Jeremy, Rick, Maureen, & Andrea - we loved you being there at Mile 0!

Thank you all so much. Thank you also to pals the Atwells plus the Adams and Reids who were out of town sending us well wishes! We love you all! Sharing our Canada Day cake and flying kites was such fun (thx Sonia and Tim)!

Misha's welcome home sign brought tears to Y's eyes (thx little bud!). We were up early and ended up riding smartly due to a deadline of the 11am ferry to the Island. Lucky we did leave extra time, as we lost our route at one point due to a temporarily stopped train over our route, so we were led astray, and only were able to recover our route by "riding the rails" for a stretch and then re-tracing our tracks along the rail bed to the road we were needing. Whew! The train started moving, but at a pace slower than ours so we made it back across the tracks before the "mile and a half" train needed to roll through.

We still looked in good shape to arrive at the predicted 11am ferry by 10am, but then a sharp stone pierced Y's rear (dang-it) tire, so we needed to stop on the Whiterock to Tsawwassen dyke to change a rear flat (15 min delay/rest). We then were lost in a new housing development in Tsawwassen for a few minutes but were directed by locals to the new ferry route and were happily there by 10:30 - pretty close to when expected.

We rode in from Swartz Bay via Y's Papa's home in Sidney, the Lochside Trail and the Galloping Goose to downtown Victoria, via the pedestrian crowded Victoria Causeway and Douglas Street and arriving at Mile 0 pretty much at 4pm on Saturday, July 1st, Canada Day, 2017, Canada's 150th B-Day!

 

We stopped on the Blenkinsop Lake  Bridge to record 7,000Kms since St. John's Newfoundland and continued on the pleasant trail. We were met at Mile 0 by the above mentioned special people and then went ... home!

  https://ridewithgps.com/trips/15810310 

97.1Kms
We left Harrison Hot Springs a bit earlier than expected due to our ride mate (for the next two days) Rick McDougall, B's elder brother, being super eager to get going. What fun!

 

We had such a nice day, and a great and interesting ride due to Rick being with us. Thx bro! Y loved the ride as she usually doesn't get to ride so fast! We also got a few photos of ourselves that we don't usually get, as there was a third person there.

Our destination was brother Rick and wife Maureen's house and a McDougall family dinner, so speed was of the essence. It was also a perfect ride day, with a breeze at our back and a lovely downhill along the river ride. We arrived at our destination about an hour before expected (so, time for a nap before dinner).

We were happy to see nephews Sean and Matt and, niece by Matt, Kari (and pup Ellie) for a fun "Canada Day Eve" dinner. We are so excited for our final leg tomorrow into Mile 0 in Victoria.

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/15810311

108.2Kms
From Manning Park to Hope was a lot of downhill gliding, but we needed to be on constant alert due to long sections of broken asphalt shoulders. Y was able to keep a slow, steady pace, even on the 9% grades due to her parachute raincoat. It works so well that she did not need to use her bicycle brakes for the speedy 40 or so Kms downhill (except for two full stops for water).

Our break in Hope was restful and we were happy to see the nice communities we went through on our way into and out of Hope as we normally just drive past en route to somewhere else. Our Hope lunch stop was Blue Moose and it was fantastic and busy!

From Hope to Harrison Hot Springs was a great bicycle along the mighty Fraser River, so slightly downhill almost all the way. Even though there were 30K wind gusts at us from the West, the downhill made the ride flow along at close to 20Kms/hr!

We arrived at Harrison an hour and a half ahead of what we expected and were thrilled to be greeted at check-in by B's brother Rick and wife Maureen! Rick is riding the 95Kms to PoCo with us Friday, and the 115Kms to Victoria with us on Saturday, and Maureen will ride the 35Kms from Swartz Bay with us, through Sidney, the Lockside Trail and the Goose to Mile 0! We were in touch with sister Sonia about our Canada Day cake, which we ordered a couple of days ago, once we were pretty sure we would make it home on Canada Day. We also looked at a schedule of some of the Canada Day events activities at the Inner Harbour in Victoria and see that a First Nations Program starts at 3:00pm and Valdy is singing Oh Canada! at 3:50pm, pretty much when we think we will be rolling by en route to Mile 0. Then, there is more music and 10:15pm fireworks (a bit past our bedtime, but we might have energy to stay up for them)!

Tonight was a gorgeous sunset evening and we even danced to "heard it on the grapevine" in the Copper Room's famous dance floor at Harrison Hot Springs.

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/15684126

66.5Kms
We are confirmed "hillists"! We truly enjoyed our ride up from Princeton to Manning Park. It was short, but over 1,300 meters elevation gain, so, quite possibly our most significant hill ride of our entire riding experience!

 

Plus, with road construction delays (for the cars and trucks, but not us) we were once again flying along without any traffic for significant intervals. Before we left Princeton, B picked up fresh batteries for our rear flashers and Y found handfuls of Canadian flags, pins, and maple "kisses".

At a break for cold beverages, Y tried out her new hairband double-flag on a display tractor (due to too much mucking about, she dropped her ice cream in the dust - oh well, likely best that way!).

At another break for apples and pepperoni, we watched a crane load concrete barrier sections onto a flatbed, and the worker told us he would not be needing our "lunch table", the concrete barrier on which we had perched our things. B lost another inner tube to road shrapnel, and we changed it on the road shoulder and enjoyed the break. The Copper Mountain mine was visible from many angles on different sections of the highway - we had no idea that it would be so enormous! We were happy to arrive in Manning Park, which feels very close to home.

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/15661864