On April 1, 2005 I set off across Canada on my bicycle. Or at least I'd planned to cross Canada. These pages are an account of that trip, as told through travelogs I sent to friends. I hope you enjoy the ride!

Hey Kids,

This is one soggy rider talking to you now. Last you heard I was hold up in a fancy pants hostel in Nanaimo. Well, at about six am the next morning my roommate, a polite young man from Gabriola Island, let his alarm go off. He rolled over and went back to sleep, leaving the thing beeping, while I was up for the count.

My first surprise of the day was how easy the ride out was. From all I'd heard, including from my globetrotting pals Peelee and Orla, the trip across Nanaimo would be hell. It wasn't. It was quite pleasant in fact, even though the trail closely followed the highway and at times zig zagged across it.

From there I ventured down into Lantzville and out into my next big concern, the highway along Nanoose Bay. Everyone I'd met warned me of the hill there, and the traffic. Neither were much of a concern and I blasted through, no prob.

At Nanoose I decided to climb the hill up to the naval base, where many years ago I helped organize a massive demonstration against US nuclear submarines that were moored in the bay. Didn't see any such boat this time, and the place looked a lot different without crowds of shabbily dressed protestors milling all over it.

It was upon leaving Nanoose that life got interesting. First the rain started to fall, light, then heavy. Then I felt my rear brake go loose and thought to myself, I should stop and fix that before it rips open my tire.

Then I thought, no, its raining like hell, I'll wait 'til I reach Parksville. Ten minutes later I'm gliding down a long decline, getting soaking wet, and moving too fast, so I apply the brakes.

BANG!

My rear brake goes right through and the tire explodes. Luckily, and wisely, I just happened to have a spare tire on hand, so the soggy fix-it job took about five minutes. I was even smart enough to take 30 seconds time out and tighten down the brakes.

All that done I rolled into Parksville, the red neckedness, meanest, scurrilousious, nastly little burg I've yet visited on this little adventure.

Why Will? Why did you find it so unfriendly?

Well, on day one I was rolling into town, looking for a new spare tire, along the village's cycle route. Ahead a car was coming my way, and I could hear another coming up behind. Then all of a sudden, just as the oncoming car was passing me, the one behind booted it and squeezed between us, missing me by inches, and spraying me good with the adjacent puddle.
Fortunately the oncoming driver saw what was going down and gave us an extra wide berth.

Two blocks later I noticed the fellow who'd done the dastardly deed unloading his van outside a laundromat. I rode up and looked him in the eye.

He smiled, so I said; Man, you could have slowed down and got here 20 seconds later!

He growled. "Stay off the damn road!"

"It's a cycle route" I responded.

"You F__ing cycle protestor. You ought to get life insurance!" he yelled.

Realizing I was now in a verbal joust with a total redneck moron I decided to drive away, while he wagged his finger and kept shouting something inaudible.

Then I pulled up in front of a local thrift shop. There were two benches there. I pulled Blu and BoB up to one of then, locked them down, and went in to look around. I'd been in the store all of two minutes when a shrill voice came over the establishment's PA.

"Whoever has left their bicycle locked to the bench, move it, people want to sit down!"

I went back outside to see what the issue was and found a couple, a year or five older than me, wrestling with Blu and taking a seat on the bench. As I approached them the fellow said, "You're the most inconsiderate bastard I've ever seen!"

I said to him, there's another bench right there, you could have sat there instead.

Then his girlfriend piped up, "We want to sit at this bench!"

I tried to hold my tongue, I honestly did, but I couldn't. As they continued to call me nasty names I said, "Folks, I'm sorry your lives suck so much that all you have to do is spend your time hassling other people, but really, maybe your lives suck so much because you're the type of people who feel it is necessary to hassle other people for riduculous reasons."

Unlocking Blu, I rode quickly around the block, and returned five minutes later to find the people had vacated the bench. I locked my bike to the other bench, and went back in the store, where I found absolutely nothing I needed or wanted.

That day, I'd decided to ship home the big journal book I've been using. It was just too heavy and too awkward, and it was getting destroyed in the rain. I mailed it home and went looking for a small composition book, like the one I use for poetry writing. Two different store clerks told me no such thing existed. The second one took the brunt of my disfavour. I went out to Blu, pulled out the exercise book, took it back in the store, and said: "Look, see this, according to you no such thing exists. I don't know what it is about you, and a lot of other people in this town, but you all seem to have had your stupid pills today." Then I walked out, but still needing a book I went to another store, a pharmacy.

As I walked in a young woman behind the counter looked me in the eye and gave me a big warm smile. I asked where the stationery section was and she happily pointed it out. There, I found what I'd been looking for, for four bucks!

While making the purchase I told they young woman about all the experiences I'd been having looking for such a book. She apologized and assured me that from the point on in my day, I would get to meet some nice Parksvillians.

Riding back to my camp at the lovely treed Rathtrevor Park, I stopped a while to sit on a bench at the bird sanctuary near the mouth of the Englishman River. While there a seniorly couple came along and sat themselves down beside me.

We talked about the rude Parksvillians and they apologized for them, assuring me that not all Parksvillians were villians. Then we talked a while about travelling and they told me about how they'd, just after the second world war, cycled around Europe. It was nice half hour chat with some lovely people, even if they were from Parksville!

Then I went back to my campsite, in the campground with well over 100 sites, and only three or four campers, to find some guy with a big honking truck, and a big honking trailer, had pulled up right next to my little tarp. I'd have said something like, why is it, in a campground with over 100 vacant sites, you have to set up right next to the bicycle guy, but I didn't. I simply struck my camp, found a new site where I was sure no one could get too close, and set it up again.

The next morning, yesterday, I woke up just as the rain began to fall. I had planned to leave, but the wetter it got, the less inclined I was to pack my stuff up. Then it got cold, so cold I found myself shivering. In the end, the only way I could stay warm was to pack up and roll, which I did.

Heading up Highway 4, I found myself drenched in rain, but warmer than I'd been sitting still. Within an hour I'd climbed up out of that rude little burg and was bearing down on the village of Coombs. Coombs is famous for its annual bluegrass music festival, and for its friendly folk. I was happy to be rolling in. So I looked around a bit then found a little coffee roasting shop called Karma Coffee, "good right through to your next life."

Years ago I used to hang out with some folks who operated a coffee booth at music festivals. Sometimes I'd worked as their cappuccino man. We'd had a lot of fun, and though we never really spent a lot of time together, we did have a connection and I had fond memories of them and their two baby daughters, Tillicum and Chloe.

Well, low and behold, I walked in the front door and there was the girls, now all grown up in their 20s, and dad behind the counter.

"Hey Mister," I said, while the fellow pointed at me trying to remember my name, "I got a problem with your coffee."

"Oh yeah," he said, a smile coming to his face, "What's that?"

"It's too damned good!" I exclaimed, as he rose and we gave one another a big bear hug. It was the coffee man himself, Michael, with his daughters. I'd not been in the building five minutes when I was invited home for dinner, a big roast beef dinner to celebrate Chloe's 20th birthday, cooked by Cindy, Michael's wife, and my old friend too.

On the rainiest night since this trip began, I found myself eating a three course meal, indoors, and sleeping on a big soft couch, indoors, with all my laundry cleaned and dried on the rainiest day of my trip. How Karmic is that!

So  here I am, amid mounds of coffee, while Michael and Cindy discuss business, and the girls are out making deliveries up and down the island, writing you all to let you know that despite the villanous Parksvillians, I am in Coombs enjoying myself.

Tonight I plan to set up camp at Englishman River Falls for a few days before venturing off to Cathedral Grove, to visit some protestors who are trying to keep the part of the old forest from becoming a parking lot.

Talk to you all after I've talked to them, or sooner, if something comes up. Buy those books kids, get me down the road.

Hope you're all having fun because I certainly am.
Until next time,
Will