September 1049mi/79km
49mi/79km
2900ft/884m elevation gain
We woke up this morning and realized that the campground we were at offered showers. Although we were kicking ourselves for not realizing this last night, better later than never. They were free and the water was hot, and it felt great to get clean.
We got on the road and stopped at the first coffee shop we passed. This one had a bakery next door, so we stopped in there too for some pastries.
I had some technical difficulties today, in that I couldn’t get our planned route to load on my bike computer. We juggled between the computer and Google maps, which meant there was more stopping and checking the map than normal today.
As we’ve moved south along the island, we’ve come into a much more crowded area. The highway in particular was very busy, but even when we left the highway the surface roads were busy. For much of the day we rode on multi use trails, avoiding roads altogether, but those were busy as well. Many pedestrians and dogs, including dogs off-leash. So this was a little less relaxing, having to constantly maneuver around people, but was definitely superior to the road. We saw a lot of cyclists too, including many other bikepackers. The network of bike trails on the southern part of the island is pretty extensive.
In the late afternoon we stopped in a town called Ladysmith for some fish and chips. This town was the filming location of a show that Paul likes to watch called Resident Alien, including the restaurant we ate at. This was a cool surprise for him.
Because of how populated everything is in this area, there are no opportunities to wild camp. Additionally, there were no campgrounds nearby for us to camp at, so we made our way to a hotel for the night. On the plus side, we were able to do laundry at last, on top of taking more showers. We have a campground to aim for tomorrow night, then it’s just a short ride to Victoria from there. Although we’re only spending a week on the island, with all the trails and dirt roads, I think you could bike around for months if you wanted to.
