Scattered Showers - Day 7 - 17 miles

As I sit here writing by my roaring campfire on a cloudless warm night it's hard to believe the way things started out this morning. I woke – to say woke implies that I slept – at 5.50am. I had spent the night listening to the relentless patter of heavy rain on my tent. Between the hours of 8-4am I was somewhat smugly content thinking about the flawless way my stupidly expensive tent was dealing with this onslaught. It was at 4am that the dripping began. I could see the inner-tent sagging under the weight of its own dampness. Then every few seconds a drip would fall. I was unconcerned about these drips falling on me, it was my down sleeping bag I was worried about. Those of you uninterested in high-end camping equipment may not be aware of the qualities of a down-filled sleeping bag. The benefits of these sleeping bags over their cheaper synthetic brethren is that they are lighter and pack down much smaller whilst keeping you warmer. The one caveat being that, should you get the bag wet you might as well be sleeping in a bin bag for all the warmth it will give you. I cannot lie to you, the bag got a little wet at the foot end. Hopefully it should have dried out nicely by the time I get to Mexico.

After an indescribably unpleasant packing away session I jumped on the bike - already soaking wet - and high-tailed it into Port Alberni. 5 miles in 15 minutes – not bad. I hopped on the Lady Rose cargo ship and settled my soggy-self in for a 4 hour boat ride. My mood was buoyed a little by the news that the weather was set to improve upon reaching Ucluelet at noon. The captain made an announcement about the possibility of spotting bears and whales during the journey. I couldn't even see out of the steamed up windows so had little chance of spotting anything on the shore. The ride was pleasant and smooth as we made our way out of Alberni Inlet. Once out in the open ocean however, the boat began to rock quite unpleasantly. The only thing worse than feeling sick was worrying about losing my bike over the rail.

As we disembarked at Ucluelet (pronounced yew-clue-let) I noticed the weather was looking better and then a lady said to me, 'nice bike.' She was of course a fellow Long Haul Trucker owner and now a life-long friend. I headed to the nearest cafe and ordered a veggie burger. One of my lessons from the road is that if you see a veggie burger on the menu - order it. You never know when the next one will come along. As I finished the burger the rain began again so I ordered a coffee. When I'd finished the coffee the waitress came over and offered me a refill. I asked her to keep refilling it until the rain stopped. The rain did eventually stop and I got back on the bike.

My plan was to ride 25 miles to Tofino. I really wasn't in the mood to ride at all today. I found myself free-wheeling aimlessly for the first 5 miles. In addition to this I'd got myself a little spooked. I'd been building up this trip to the west coast for a couple of months, knowing it to be where most of the bears hang out. There isn't a great deal of civilisation over this side of the island, just a couple of small towns and whole lot of forest and mountains. Riding along the eerily quiet road to Tofino with thick rainforest both sides I couldn't help but wonder whether I was up to this. It was only going to get more scary the further I continued. The road I was on came to the point where it joined the highway I was riding yesterday from the east coast. There was a tourist information centre so I decided to go in – if only for someone to talk to. I thought maybe I could get one of the staff to give me a reason not to go to Tofino and head back to the relative safety of Ucluelet. On the wall I noticed some posters warning in strong terms about wolves recently spotted stalking the road I was about to take to Tofino. I asked the lady at the desk, 'where is the best place to go on a bear spotting tour, Tofino or Ucluelet?' She said that they were both equally good. Hmm, she wasn't biting. 'I'm cycling you see, it's probably a long way to Tofino isn't it?', I suggested. She said it would only take a couple of hours. She didn't know how slow I was riding today. I asked about camping at the provincial park in Tofino. She said it was full. Bingo, no further questions thank you.

Feeling like a bit of a wimp I headed back along the road I'd just ridden to Ucluelet. It somehow seemed less scary now that I knew where I was going. I found a private camp ground near the town and set up camp. I was a bit peeved on having to shell out $3 for a shower token on top of the extortionate $30 a night for my little tent. I needed a shower badly so I headed to the shower blocks. The electricity for half of Vancouver Island was out due to a problem at the hydro-electric plant so I was even more annoyed to have to take a $3 shower in the dark. Before putting my token into the machine I turned on the shower. It was hot. It appeared the token machines were electric and therefore not working during the power cut. I'd beaten the system! I enjoyed a lengthy free hot shower. It felt so deliciously wicked.

Clean and happy I took a trip into town to find someone willing to take me to see some bears. Unfortunately due to the power being out most of the shops had closed early. The one shop still open was a bike shop so I went and asked about a kick-stand for my bike. He'd had one just a few days ago and sold it. There was however a chance he'd get one in before I leave on Friday so I may still get lucky.

Cycling back from town I thought with glee again about my free shower. Then it hit me. In my post-shower jubilation I'd forgotten to pick up my unused shower token from the shower cubicle. I was sure somebody would've picked up the token now. That shower just went from being free to costing me $3. Hoisted by my own petard! I cycled as fast as I could back to the campsite and skidded up to the shower block. I ran inside. The token was still there. Victory was mine. I strutted out of the shower block, token in hand, barely able to disguise my smug laughter.

By the time I got back to camp it was dinner time so I decided to build a campfire using some wood I'd bought earlier. I didn't have any paper other than the map of Tofino I'd picked up at the tourist information place. I gladly screwed it up and used it as a basis for the fire. Unfortunately it wasn't really enough to get the massive logs I'd bought alight. I really needed an axe to make some kindling with. I tried using my Swiss-army knife but that didn't really work. I'm not going to tell you what I tried next because it goes against every fire-safety commercial I ever saw back in the 80s. It didn't work but it did create a brief and exciting display. Next I realised I did have lots of paper. The book I bought with me is thick and heavy and filled with paper. Now I wasn't going to burn the actual text of the novel as it's a good read and the only book I have. It does however contain an annoyingly lengthy foreword and introduction that I'll never read. Does anybody read those? As I tore around 100 pages from the beginning of Apsley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World I felt no disrespect to the author. In fact I felt it was very much the kind of thing that he would've done if push came to shove when trying to survive in Antarctica. I watched the foreword and introduction go up in flames without even singeing the surrounding logs. What I really needed were fire-lighters so I ran to the shop. Dusk had descended on the town and the place was filled with grazing deer. I found some fire-lighters and ran back. I finally managed to get those damp logs burning after using half a packet of fire-lighters. The fire was a bit of a disappointment in the end. It didn't really kick out enough heat to dry my flip-flops which was really my only justification for lighting it. I might not have made it to Tofino today but I did get that bloody fire lit.