A Cycling Adventure

Today, Ian and I rode our bikes to the ferry terminal, took the ferry to Pender Island, rode around Pender Island and back to Sidney. It was an adventure, that’s for sure.

The original idea was that Ian and I should do another ride in Victoria before we returned to Calgary. I had suggested that we ride from Dad’s out to Metchosin, but that didn’t seem to excite Ian. I thought about how he was disappointed that we wouldn’t go to Pender to see Baba and Grandpa this year and that started the germ of the idea. I suggested it to him before the Tour de Victoria (better when his legs weren’t sore…) and he was excited about it and made sure it wasn’t forgotten.

So this morning we were up a little early so that Ian and I could get onto the Goose before 8 am. We were aiming for the 10:20 sailing to Otter Bay. We took it easy and made it to Swartz Bay about 9:45. The only hang up was that we lost the Lochside Trail when we got to Sidney. I think we missed a turn, but we kept going north until we found the trail again.

We ran into some older people from Tacoma who were doing something similar to us Two of them were riding a tandem bike. The Queen of Cumberland was 30 minutes late, and then to our surprise, turned left before getting to Pender Island. It was going to Mayne Island first.

The combination of the ferry being late and then the side trip to Mayne meant we got to Pender at 12:30 instead of 11:00. We had to scale back our riding plans. We rode to the Driftwood Centre first and got some lunch.

It was about 1:00 and we had to manage our time. I wanted to ride out to Gowland Point at the southeast end of South Pender Island. But the terrain is so up-and-down it’s hard to make good progress. We got most of the way there, but had to turn around. It was 1:55, and we had to make it all the way back to Otter Bay and Ian wanted to stop at Mortimer Spit on the way back.

We made it to the terminal just in time. The Queen of Cumberland had made up its earlier tardiness, and was right on time. It was only a few hundred meters from the berth when we got to the waiting area.

The ferry ride was uneventful. We got a couple Spinnakers’ cream sodas from the vending machine (we couldn’t find them yesterday at the stores, but they were in the vending machine on the ferry!) and took it all in. Ian and I rode from Swartz Bay to Sidney, where Tammy and Miranda were waiting at the FishOChips on Resthaven.

The day had one more surprise in store: as we were getting our order, who should appear but John and Sandy (my cousins)! They had been over helping Aunty Button moving into her new place and had stopped at FishOChips as well. We caught up as much as we could over dinner. It was a great coincidence.