Instead, we bought yummy luch treats including the obligatory box of fresh chocolate chip cookies, and parked ourselves on the beach, enjoying the sun and the sea air… Nicole gave me a message… It was so wonderful… Beyond relaxing.  A wonderful way to spend an afternoon, and a great way for us to connect.

Below a couple shots from today, including our now famous feet shots   It is after all the same view we had through our own toes

It has been a long time since I had been to Bowen.  I used to tie up my boat there.  I used to visit more than 6 times a year.  We were in for a little bit of a shock when we saw the prices.  Motorcycles are always cheaper, so we had expected perhaps $15 per person. No… Not so… $26 per person!

It was a nice sunny day, and we found the beach right away.  It wasn’t sandy, but the rocks were small and not too sharp, and the water was clear.  It’s the kind of beach where if you came at high tide, there would be no beach at all!

Sadly we had not gotten ourselves organized until a little too late in the day, and by the time we got there, the sun was starting to hide behind the island.  It was getting a little cold, and so we couldn’t stay as long as we had hoped.

We did enjoy ourselves, happy to find a new beach, and a new place to relax.  As we sat on our blanket we watched two dogs, so competitive that as the owner threw a log into the water, both dogs went after it, and both dogs held on as they swam back togeter (see photos).

When it got too cold, we went to Doc Morgan’s for a nice dinner, and then back to the ferry after a walk on the docs.  A wonderful day together with my sweetie.

We enjoyed a nice breakfast, continued packing up, and left by 9:22am. The ride was uneventful, but beautiful. We stopped in Hope for lunch, and then continued home. We arrived here just before 4pm.

Our Trip:

We have had such a wonderful time traveling together and exploring a bit more of BC on our bikes…   We have learned a lot.  We have learned how to ride together.  We have learned to always be prepared for all sorts of weather – riding through the mountains the weather changes quickly, and often.  We have learned not to camp in the beginning of June – at least not in Nelson.

It was really one of the most enjoyable vacations I’ve been on – I can’t wait to do it again.  It’s such a different way to travel -with so little, and yet it is so rewarding.  Riding a motorcycle lets you experience the environment you pass through so much better than driving in a car.  You feel the air temperature, smell the scenery as you pass, and are so aware of everything around you.  I feel live I’ve not just ridden on the highways, I’ve experienced them.. felt them…

It’s nice to be home, yet I’m sad that we are not still out on our adventure… I’d rather be back in that tent… Sitting on the beach in Osoyoos. It was great to spend so much time with Nicole.

A huge thanks goes out to Michelle, Eryk, and Erin for taking care of our kids while we were away.  Clearly they were happy and well taken care of.  They’ve been keeping close to us all day while we’ve  been home.  It’s great to see them again – but it was great not to have to worry about them while we were away.  Thanks to our fantastic friends….

We got up at eight. Nicole got ready quickly, we both had breakfast, and Nicole left for Nelson to have a Sauna and a Massage. Poor Nicole had rough morning!

I relaxed and lazed about for a while before getting ready and going to meet Nicole in Nelson for Noon.

We met at the Red Fish, our favorite restaurant, and had a wonderful lunch on the patio. It was hot! I enjoyed my lunch barefoot and in shorts and a t-shirt. Such a nice change.

After lunch I managed to get us lost. Once Nicole lead the way back, we were on our way to Osoyoos.

We jad decided to go to Ososyoos because its like a little desert, and so finally, camping was to be in our future.

The drive was fantastic. I can’t say enough about the route between Nelson and Osoyoos is a bikers dream. The weather was perfect the whole way though this time, though temperature regulation is always challenging though this area. There are several climbs and descents though the mountains on this route and so what started in Nelson as 24 degrees became 27 degrees and then went as low as 15 degrees on some of the passes. Osoyoos was a wonderful 26 degrees when we arrived.

We used the GPS to find a couple of campsites, and looked at locations in both before deciding on the best spot.

We are right on the lake (across the street) and have a cute little cabana that has a fridge, a sink, and a picnic table. Its a great little shelter. Our tent is right in front of it, and our bikes on either side. Its really quite a nice set up.

We had dinner, and afterwards Nicole rode into town to pick up breakfast supplies while I finsihed setting up.

We then went for a wonderful walk along the shore, and then came back to roast marshmellows and have a drink before going to bed in our tent.

I haven’t checked but the outside temp is probably about 16 degrees. Perfect.

We were excited to go camping, and the temperature was 19 degrees – finally warm enough for us to camp.

When we got there however the temperature had dropped from town to 15 degrees at the campsite. Being right next to such a big lake must have cooled down the air enough to drop the temp so much. I was very unsure about camping. The temp would drop at least 10 degrees overnight, and we aren’t equipped to camp in 5 degree weather. After Marie, the owner of the campsite went and printed the weather forecast for us (which had highs of 19 for the next week) we decided it probably wasn’t going to get any warmer here and we packed up our tent.

It is sad to be on a trip where we wanted to camp all the time, and end up staying in motels, but there wasn’t much we could do about it. We were however happy to have experienced the Toad Rock Campsite, and most of all to have met Marie.

Marie has every detail taken care of. She is great to talk to and cares about her campers in a truly genuine way. She was great to communicate with over email, and while we were there she was bringing us fire wood and making sure everything was going well. She has a relaxed no stress way of running her campsite that we really enjoyed. I couldn’t think of a better personality pf philosophy to run a campsite than Marys. Well be back for sure, and highly recommend Toad Rock.

After leaving the campsite we decided to ride on to Ainsworth Hotsprings. There we found the Mermaid motel, which has an interesting history. The original building which is still use, and is the oldest building on the Kootenay Lake still in use. It was built in 1871 and is currently used to house workers affordably, who work for the hotsprings. Originally, it was called the welcome in, and fed passengers who came to the hotsprings on a sternwheeler.

We were greeted by the most enthusiastic, pie baking owner. And we paid for our “sleeping unit” (motel room), unloaded our bikes, and rode on to Kaslo.

Kaslo is a wonderful cute town about 25 km from Ainsworth.

A great place to visit, it has an old paddle wheeler called the S.S. Moyie. Built in 1898, It has been been restored to its original condition. We arrived just before they closed and had the opportunity to quickly go aboard and have a look around. It took a lot of photos. It was really interesting! Sorry the photos aren’t the best as we were in such a big rush

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Afterwards we found a little restaurant, and after sitting down at very fancy tables, and looking over the hugh expensive fancy menu, we ordered a lemonaid slushie. A little awkward.

After our 12 dollar slushies, we had a quick walk though town, bought various forms of sugar and fat for breakfast (yum) and then went back to our bikes.

We rode back to Ainsworth, changed, and went to the hotsprings! Oh they are nice. Like a warm bath tub. Now in my opinion, all pools should be this temperature. It was nice to relax in the warm water. There are these interesting caves, where the water apparently comes from. You can walk right into them. Its a big loop, but despite all the excitement created in the ads, there isn’t anything to do in them other than gawk at how gross the walls of the cave are, and walk though them. There isn’t even a place to sit.

After our “swim” we enjoyed a nice dinner at the hotel retaurant, and then went back to our sleepinf unit for some satalite TV.

We had a great morning, with Lunch out at the Circle Cafe. Nicole went back to the motel to do some reading for school, while I had a great walk in town. I stopped into this incredible shoe store to buy some Birkenstock shoes. Oh I had forgotten how comfortable they are – had some years ago that I loved.

Then I continued on for a nice walk down by the water. One of the hotels has a marina, and a nice pier that you can walk out on.

All this time the sun was out and the air was getting warmer and warmer. It’s amazing to me that it can be 4 degrees in the morning, and by afternoon, it can be 19! After getting back from my walk, I washed our bikes. It was exactly the sort of thing that I felt like doing. I wanted something that was a little active, so I felt like I was getting something done, but something still relaxing. The warm sun felt wonderful and the bikes really needed a wash.

Then it was time for a nap! We both had a great nap, and then went out to our favorite restaurant in town, the Red Fish.

Clouds have started to come back in, and on the way back from our after-dinner walk, we are having some rain, but it’s rain with beautiful sunshine at the same time. It’s all very pleasant, and it’s still 16 degrees.

So, tomorrow we hope for sunshine. Every forecast that we can find for the entire southern BC seems to be sunny – so we have high hopes that we’ll head off to our campsite. It’ll be great to ride the bikes again – in fact the road that leads to the campsite is quite beautiful, and we have so far only ridden it while it was raining.

We are toying with the idea of going past Toad Rock and doing right to Ainsworth Hotsprings for a little relaxing dip in the springs. We’ll see what we feel like tomorrow.

We slept well. I got up early as I often do, had a relaxing bath, and got ready. Nicole got up not too much later. We had our leftover pizza for breakfast, loaded our bikes, and off we went.

Mother nature was a little confused. We had a random offering of beautiful sunshine with clear sky, light and heavy rain at times, but always just for a few minutes, and temperatures that went from as low
as 12 degrees, and as high as 25!

Its interesting riding though the mountains – each area has its own weather.

The roads were fantastic. I have never ridden on such beautiful roads. Perfect for motorcycles! Always interesting and though breathtaking vistas. Incredible! From lush forested areas with snow on the sides
of the road, to twisty climbs up the side of a mountain.

We stopped for lunch in Osoyoos, in smitty’s. It was a nice Denny’s style lunch – the service was great, and it was really warm, so we sat on the patio.

The Road between Osoyoos and Nelson is beyond incredible. As soon as you leave town, the road climbs and twits its way high into the mountains. We stopped at a view point, where we took photos and met a group of three guys, who live in Vancouver, who also ordered their BMW (the same bike as Nicole’s) from the same dealer we did. We traded stories.

The road doesn’t disapoint at any point for the rest of the way to Nelson.

We arrived at the Toad Rock campground around 6:30pm – almost 8 hours after we left, and about 450km later. We started setting up camp after meeting Mary.

There are many other sitting areas and places to relax. Everything is clean, and Mary, the owner is very friendly and helpful.

Now if were only a little warmer. We are currently around 12 degrees, and the night is getting cooler. We are enjoying a couple drinks from the bar, and soon we’ll head to bed – ready for another adventure.

One of the things we have learned about traveling with motorcycles is that it takes a lot of extra time to get gear on the bike, put on the jackets, layers, gloves, pants, shoes, helmet, connect everything, and then go…

We spent a little bit of time making sure all of our gear was secure on the bikes

We had originally wanted to leave by 10am, but in the end we didn’t make it out until just after 1pm!

Our ride out of Vancouver was uneventful. The morning had been raining on and off, but by the time we left it had stopped, and the sun was making an appearance.

The heavier loads on our bikes didn’t turn out to make any difference to the way our bikes felt. Unfortunately by the time we got to Chilliwack, the rain returned. This time we were prepared, or at least I was. Nicole didn’t put on her Gortex pants, so when we got to the gas station in Hope, she was more than a little wet!

We stopped at a great little Diner in Hope called Darren’s Cafe, and had a nice warm lunch.

It was super windy in Hope! Nicole put on her Gortex pants, drained her boots of water, and on we went.

As we left highway 1 and went on to Highway 3 it became more and more misty and the highway rose higher in altitude. It was quite cold as we went higher up, and it wasn’t long before we saw snow at the side of the road.

The rain continued for a while, mixed with periods of sun and cloud. Eventually, the sun became more frequent than the rain and clouds. Soon we were riding though wonderful sunshine.

The roads were incredible. Almost empty, and perfect roads for riding. Wonderful windy roads in the midst of incredible mountains. It was a wonderful ride.

We decided that we would stop in Princeton for the night, and found a wonderful little motel in the middle of town. It has two rooms and a fridge, a TV with cable, and a DVD player. Its great, and only $65 night.

We had a nice warm bath to thaw, and then went for a little walk around town before going for a great dinner at a little Greek Restaurant. We shared the most amazing Pizza made with goat cheese.

Now we are just about to go to bed – after watching the rest of Finding Nemo of course!

Merritt is about 250kms from New Westminster, and takes the number 1 highway to hope, and then the number 5 Coquihalla Highway (toll highway) to Merritt.

I had remembered there being many places to stop and rest of the Coquihalla, so one of my goals for the day was to stop at a beautiful lookout and take a great photo of Nicole and I and our bikes.

We stopped for fuel and lunch in Chilliwack (White Spot – our Favorite) and then continued on. The sun was shining, barley a cloud in the sky, and the weather was pleasantly warm without being too hot. To Coquihalla was much more pleasant than I had remembered when driving it by car. Normally it’s quite a boring highway by car, but we really enjoyed the ride. Although it’s not a twisty highway by any definition, it is surrounded by beautiful landscape, and it’s an easy ride with wide lanes and often 6 lanes accross, we could go at any speed we wanted easily without slowing down traffic or feeling like we were going to slow. It was, looking back on it, also a great highway for us to go on our first long ride with our new bikes.

The toll on the highway for motorcycles is $5, half of what a car pays, For the two of us it was the same price as driving a car. It was a little bit colder on the summit but nothing uncomfortable. The day was quite windy, so we got used to adjusting for the windy conditions, and by the end of the day we hardly noticed the wind, despite it being windier on the way back then on the way there.

As it turned out there weren’t many places to stop, and most of the ones were you could stop were covered in gravel, which I avoid travel at all costs… We had no reason to stop other than to take a photo, and so we just kept going until we got to Merritt.

Merritt is a cute little town. It’s quite a bit smaller than I had expected, but it does have a Walmart, with the most wonderful friendly staf,f we would later discover. It also has a Canadian Tire, an Extra foods, and various other stores. The landscape is dry and warm. In Merritt the temperature rose to 27 degrees, probably 10 degrees warmer than in Vancouver. It has a very open feel – so unlike the dense feeling of Vancouver.

We made our way, with the help of my GPS, to a little road past the town, which carried on for about 16km. We barely saw another vehicle, and it was the most pleasant curvey road, winding its way through the hilly countryside. It was like a painting.  I think it was my favorite part of the whole ride.

Nicole’s parents live on 22 acres outside of town. their property is really wonderful. Their property lies at the bottom of a small hill.  The hill and surrounding trees make is perfectly private. There is a pleasant stream that runs through the edge of their property, and a perfect amount of clearing and space to build a house. There is no lack of trees on the rest of the property, so it will be a perfect place to build. The climate is extreamely dry – the uncovered soil is more dust than soil.

We had a great visit, if not a short one. We had a tour of the stream running behind the property, twice, by Darren, and met the neighbors as well. We are looking forward to many rides up to visit and eventually we’ll be able to stay overnight as well and enjoy a little getaway on their property.

We left quite late, close to 7pm. We had to stop off and get some more fuel in town, as well as make a stop at Walmart to find a way to mount Nicole’s Microphone closer in her helmet. By the time we did all that, and started to make our way home, the sun was setting… This, as it turns out, was not the worlds brightest bit of planning. The ride up the Coquihally was not quite as enjoyable as the way there. There was a very long section of pavement that had been prepped for paving – leaving only the grooves. It was incredibly uncomfortable and unsteady feeling to ride on, and it felt like it went on for a good 20 minutes. It required an exhausting amount of concentration.

The summit had changed from wonderfully warm to incredibly cold. The cold was almost painful coming down from the summit. I couldn’t wait to make our way back down… Most of the ride was uneventful, but the combination of the cold, and later on, darkness followed by tiredness, made the trip back not nearly as enjoyable. When we got into Chilliwack, it started to rain, and that was the final straw for us.

We made a pit-stop at the same White Spot we stopped at earlier for some warm food. We were served by the words rudest waitress – her tip was small. Apparently we were keeping her from better things to do We had even contemplated staying overnight in Chilliwack as we were tired and cold and now wet, but after eating and feeling better, we decided to make our way home after all.

When we left the restaurant the rain had stopped, and for most of the ride home it didn’t rain any more… We were tired when we got home however. We didn’t make it home until after midnight…

We learned a lot from our little adventure day. When we go on vacation next week, we have a lot more information and experience to draw from. We know we don’t want to ride 500km in one day on a regular basis. We also know we don’t want to do a lot of night time riding, and we know that we need to leave ourselves more time with the motorcycles than we would need with a car. There are more frequent stops to rest, stretch, and put fuel into our tanks and bellies.

All in all we had a wonderful day, and don’t regret anything we did. It was all part of a great adventure for the day, and next time, we’ll have even more fun having learned so much.