Kate's Birthday - Day 27 – Rest day

I woke early, I was poised to call the bike shop about my wheel the second they opened at 9.30am. I called at 9.25am. They had a suitable wheel and were happy to work on my bike that day. I mentioned I was 25 miles away and not sure how I'd get there. He told me there was a bus that ran between the towns and it would carry bikes. This was excellent news. I'd been planning on risking the 25 mile ride on my broken wheel and hitching a ride if the worst happened.

I walked to the tourist information centre to find out where and when I could catch this bus. Public transport is not like back home. I hadn't seen a bus stop since Canada so I had no idea where one could actually catch a bus. The tourist information was closed so I went to ask at the hostel office. I spoke to the lady who runs the place. She wasn't sure about the bus but said her husband would know. He was out fishing so she gave him a call. She made the call from the other room. On returning she told me that her husband had told her the bus only runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. This was a Tuesday. She told me her husband would be back in 10 minutes and he may give me a lift in his truck. I couldn't believe this. I'd never met these people before and they were rearranging their day to help me without my even asking. Her husband returned, a jolly, rotund man named Larry. He smelt like a salmon. We talked a little about the problem with my wheel. He told me to come back in 20 minutes. He would collect his bike rack from storage and drive me to North Bend. I told him how grateful I was and that I'd pay him for his trouble. He said he didn't want anything.

We loaded my bike onto the back of Larry's truck and hit the road. I asked Larry about his fishing. I was genuinely interested as I used to be a keen fisherman in my younger days. Regretfully I had to give it up as a teenager when my morals and subsequent vegetarianism kicked in. Despite the moral difficulties I am still very interested in fishing. He told me how he'd been fishing for the salmon that are returning from the ocean to spawn at the moment. I was keen to learn about techniques used for catching salmon and their fascinating life-cycle. Larry was full of interesting information about this.

The rain was pouring down as we drove to the bike shop, I was very glad not to be facing the 25 mile journey on a broken wheel in these conditions. We found the bike shop and before I opened my mouth the owner, Moe recognised me as the person who'd called that morning about the wheel. He set about replacing the wheel and I watched with interest. It was obviously going to take a while so I told Larry he needn't wait, I would cycle home. Larry insisted he would stay until the wheel was fixed.

While we waited Larry and I looked around the shop. It was quite unusual. Moe obviously had an interest in vintage bikes, tandems and unicycles. Moe told me about a chap he'd met who'd ridden across the US on a unicycle. I was sort of impressed but at the same time thought this was a pretty dumb thing to do. A young chap rolled in to the shop on a unicycle with a massive 36 inch wheel. He was a very strange young man who I imagine loiters annoyingly around Moe's shop most days. People who ride unicycles are weird. I know because I used to ride one.

The wheel was fixed in about an hour. It cost me $95 for the wheel and the labour. This is pretty cheap for a rear wheel. It's not a bad wheel but not as good as the one it replaced. As long as it lasts another 2,000 miles I don't really care.

On the way back Larry said he'd take me the scenic route. We were having a good old natter and this was turning from what I thought would be a nightmare of a day into a fun road trip. Larry wanted to show me some salmon so we stopped of at a small creek. We walked down to the water and saw 4 salmon, each around a metre in length. They were an awesome sight, clearly very powerful fish. There was another chap down at the water and we got chatting. He told us about a salmon hatchery down the road where we could probably get a much closer look at some salmon in the hatchery's tanks. Larry and I were pretty excited by this idea so we drove over to the hatchery. Unfortunately we were a few hours late. They'd just released 6 fish that morning. One of the guys who works at the hatchery was happy to tell us all about the work they do at the hatchery. The basic idea of a hatchery is catch salmon swimming up the river toward their spawning grounds. The females are stripped of eggs and the males are 'milked'. The eggs hatch and the young are reared in the hatchery for 2 years. The young are then acclimated to the waters in a controlled area of river near the hatchery before being released. Salmon spend most of their lives at sea. Years later they use their incredible senses to return to the place they were born in order to spawn. The journey of thousands of miles to return to their place of birth in order to spawn ultimately kills the salmon. They breed then die. So by acclimating the salmon to the local water they ensure it will return to the same river to spawn in years to come. The purpose of this being to create a healthy salmon population and a fishing industry in the local area.

I enjoyed listening to the man at the hatchery talk about salmon. Larry said he could talk the hind legs off a jackass but still learnt a thing or two. On the way back from the hatchery we stopped at a river to chat to one of Larry's fishing buddies. Larry introduced me in the same way he'd been doing all day - proclaiming that I was from England - as if people should be impressed by this.

As Larry dropped me off at the hostel, I thanked him again and insisted he take some money for petrol. I was completely blown away by Larry's kindness to me as a complete stranger. He spent half his day driving me 60 miles. I had a great time with Larry, I liked to think he enjoyed himself too.

Back at the hostel I hung out with Kate, Brian and Beth. We were all in good spirits, enjoying our day off. It was great just to sit about and chat. I hadn't had a day off the bike for about 3 weeks. Brian and Beth had been to the store and bought me a present. I'd been complaining about my cold feet when wearing only flip-flops around camp in the evenings. To remedy this they'd bought me some socks with individual pockets for each toe. The perfect sock to wear in combination with a flip-flip. I was delighted with my present. It's amazing what you can get away with wearing on a trip like this.

Elon returned from the library and we began celebrating Kate's birthday with a few drinks and some party music. I noticed a couple of people outside, looking through the window. It was Nick and Callie, the young Canadian couple I'd camped with a few times back in Washington. I opened the door, delighted to see them again but rather confused how they'd found us. By coincidence they'd checked into the same hostel and noticing the bikes had come up to investigate. It was really starting to feel like a party now. Having embarked on this tour alone, knowing nobody on the west coast it seems incredible that now I regularly bump into people I know all the time. I opened some Champagne and Elon unveiled the cake he'd had specially made for Kate. It was iced with a bike wheel and decorated with Kate's own beeswax candle.

We headed out for a meal at a restaurant around the corner. It was nearly 9pm and we were all quite merry. The meal was delicious. I ate a spinach pie with lots of vegetables and a salad. The first decent meal I've had in 3 weeks. We were hurried out of the restaurant, we got the feeling 9.30pm was pretty late for Bandon on a Tuesday night.

Back at the hostel we were up until nearly midnight, well beyond our usual 8.30pm bedtime. It was a great birthday celebration between some really great new friends.