Flip-flop fall off fiasco - Day 10 – 43 miles

I woke at 7am slightly surprised to have made it through the night without being robbed or worse. I popped to the Seven Eleven for breakfast. One of the other customers in the shop commented to me that this year's Fall Fair had not resulted in the same carnage seen last year thanks to increased security. Walking back to my motel a couple of youths blocked the pavement in front of me. As I walked up to them, one growled at me. He seemed surprised that I didn't appear scared, he was obviously unaware of my recent run in with the bears.

I couldn't get out of Port Alberni quick enough. The ascent up the other side of the mountain I'd climbed on the way in didn't seem as bad going the other way, contrary to what I'd been told by Captain Birdseye yesterday. I flew down the other side and decided to stop off at Cathedral Grove Park. Although busy it was well worth a stop. Many of the trees at Cathedral Grove are survivors of a forest fire that swept through the area 300 years ago. The biggest trees are 800 years old and quite the biggest living things I've ever seen. I noticed the couple of hobos I'd taken the boat with yesterday were also looking around. I was pleased to see the chap was still wearing his crotchless sweatpants as predicted. I tried to take a picture of myself in front of one of the biggest trees using the self-timer on my camera. This is always awkward to set up properly and a couple of friendly tourists - noticing my fumbling efforts - offered to take my picture. They were very inquisitive about my trip and the lady was very positive about Mexico. She had spent some time in Baja California and had many good things to say about it. This was good to hear after all the scare stories I've been hearing from everybody else so far - all of whom haven't actually visited Baja.

I continued on at a good pace, eventually taking a slightly wrong turn, adding an extra 5 or so miles to my journey. I stopped for lunch just outside the city of Parksville at a deli run by an extremely aggressive sounding German lady. She scared me so I rushed my order and ended up with a disappointingly small sandwich.

After Parksville, the quiet coastal highway I've been following down the island joined up with the main highway. It was a little frightening riding along the hard shoulder of a proper motorway. Before long I reached Nanoose Creek Campground, my home for tonight. As I pulled in I was greeted by Mary-Lou and Bill. I don't think it would be unfair to say that Mary-Lou doesn't make the best of herself. She sported a somewhat unkempt female mullet. I would hazard a guess that she has never seen any of Gok Wan's television programs. I mention all this not be unkind, but to point out my own preconceptions about people who look like this. Before even speaking to her I'd assumed she was the sort of person you may see discussing inter-family sexual relationships on Jerry Springer. I could not have been more wrong. Mary-Lou was delightful. She made me feel instantly welcome and was clearly a keen supporter of cyclists. Her and Bill seemed genuinely interested in my trip and offered as much help as they could with my upcoming route. I was charged only $10 (about £6) for the night, including free showers and as much firewood as I could use.

On unpacking my bike I realised one of my flip-flops had fallen off of my rear rack during the day. This may explain some earlier confusing beeping of horns behind me. This is a pretty big loss when the only other item of footwear I have on this trip are my cycling shoes. One lost flip-flop may not sound like a lot to you but to me it represents a 25 percent net loss in terms of total shoes owned. In real terms it represents a 50% loss in usable footwear.

Bill had given me directions to a nearby town. Once camp was set up I set off in search of some new flip-flops. The town was really just a supermaket. I must admit to finding it quite fun being in a supermarket after all this time. Having a decent choice of things to eat and drink is quite liberating when you've been living on rice and spaghetti for the past 10 days. I found some veggie burgers in the frozen section. I followed my own rule of the road and bought them with the intention of cooking them on the camp-fire later.

At the checkout the lady on the till said, 'Isn't every day great?'. I agreed. With the sun shining outside and BBQ'd veggie burgers on the menu tonight, this is exactly what I'd just been thinking. It may seem unbelievable to you back in the cynical real world, but she actually meant it. She was working on a till in a supermarket and she was loving every minute of it.

Back at camp I took the opportunity to do some laundry. It was good to have a bag full of clean clothes for the first time in nearly 2 weeks. Last time I did laundry was at the hippy hostel on Denman Island. Their ecological approach to laundry meant that washes were done without hot water and using chemical free detergents. The result being that all of the clothes needed washing again properly so the saving to the environment in this case was a negative one.

The BBQ was a great success. It was missing a couple of the classic mainstays one would expect from a BBQ. These being meat and other people.

Tomorrow I'm heading for the border with an aim to entering the US the day after. As much as I've loved Canada I'm really looking forwarding to something new.