September 8
46mi/74km
1400ft/427m elevation gain
We got up early this morning, eager to get to town. We met a couple cyclists along the way, doing different bikepacking loops on the island. The second guy we met has done both the Western Wildlands Route and the Great Divide Mountain Biking Route, both of which traverse the western US from the Canadian to the Mexican border. We chatted with him for a bit.
Campbell River was a big town, and big towns aren’t always the best on trips like this. Things are more spread out and there’s more traffic. We rode a bit out of the way to an RV park and asked if we could shower and do laundry and they said no. So we went to the laundromat and all the washers were full and there was a waiting line. By this point we were pretty frustrated and gave up. On the bright side, we had a good lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant, got some groceries, and packed out pastries from a local bakery.
The next stretch was along highway 19A, which hugs the coast. It’s a busy road but there is a decent bike lane, and the views of the Georgia Straight are awesome. It was a sunny day in salty sea air.
We had some more frustrations in the afternoon when we tried to take a route off the highway to the Kitty Coleman Campground. First, we rode through some pretty fancy neighborhoods on the oceanfront, and came to a private road that said it was closed to thru-traffic. We asked a local if there was a way around and he told us to go ahead and it wouldn’t be a problem. That was all the permission we needed. But a little while later we followed google maps directions to a dead end, and had to turn back and get on the highway.
But these were small inconveniences. We came to the coolest campground on the beach, with an oceanfront view. We even got to charge our battery packs a bit, which we desperately needed. We stopped early because we knew we wanted to enjoy the beach for a while. We saw a bunch of Bonaparte’s Gulls and at least one Belted Kingfisher.
