Pender and Galiano: So Much More to Discover

We don’t plan much in advance. The reasoning is somewhere in between a spirit of adventure and an unwillingness to commit in advance. Anyway, when a friend emailed around asking who’d be interested in making a reservation for camping on the May long weekend, FOUR months earlier, in January, my first thought was “there’s no way we can commit to that” and then “we’re not the kind of people that book four months in advance”, and so on. But then I started thinking that maybe we should engage with our wilder side, step out of our comfort zone… Maya suggested the location – the newish campground at Shingle Bay on Pender Island, and soon after we were committed. When the talk turned to reserving the ferry too, which would have meant committing to the start and end date of the trip, I zoned out. We figured we’d wing it. Our solution ended up being to arrive a day before the long weekend, and leave two days later. It worked.

Not owning a car encourages us to figure out ways to do trips without using a car. This time we caught the SkyTrain and then transferred to the bus which took us to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal. We found getting on and off the SkyTrain fast with two adults, two kids, two bikes, and a trailer, to be a bit stressful… Doing the same on the bus is easy as long as you get on/off at the start or end of the route. Recently we bought a cargo bike, and initially I was a bit unsure on whether it would fit on the bike racks installed on the buses in Vancouver. A few days before this trip I headed to the practice bike rack, conveniently located at the Science World SkyTrain station, to test it out, and luckily it fits!

After arriving to Pender Island on Friday, we headed straight to the campground at Shingle Bay. Neil rode the whole way, despite the many small hills. The final hill is on a gravel road, and is the steepest hill on the route – we all had to get off our bikes and push. It is followed by a steep descent on the same gravel road right to the campground and the ocean. It’s a beautiful setting, right by the water. Since it was before the long weekend, we were almost alone at the campground that night, but that was about to change.

On Saturday we rolled out of bed late and headed to the farmers market. We had memories (from a previous trip) of some wonderful caramelized onion Gruyère bread sticks, but alas, by the time we arrived they had sold out. Funnily enough, we met a family that we met on Pender Island the last time we were there, and then met another family we had met on Saturna Island on that same trip! I wouldn’t have remembered, but Maya (my wife) has a wonderful memory, which can be a curse or a blessing, depending on the context… There was a food truck at the farmers market, and I couldn’t fail to notice the accent of one of the owners. Turns out he’s an Israeli who settled down on Pender Island, who would have guessed.

After the market we went seeking a beach and found our way to Medicine Beach. This required going on the main road, which was quite busy, perhaps owing to the long weekend. In fact, we almost turned around due to the traffic and lack of shoulder. After relaxing at the beach for a good long while, we headed back to camp. Our friends had arrived, seven families in total with many kids. Together with another two families, it boiled down to a LOT of kids. I felt sorry for the two couples that showed up later, but at least outwardly they acted nonchalant about the whole situation. Two dads from our group and their kids had brought a canoe on the ferry and then paddled to the campground. This gave us a rare opportunity to do a few outings with the canoe, which was definitely a highlight.

The next day we really didn’t feel like cycling back up the hill, so we stayed put. After a lazy morning and another short canoe outing, we hiked over to Roe Lake with two other families, making a loop back to camp. On the way back down to the beach, Neil suddenly decided that his new shoes weren’t comfortable. Never mind that he had done a longer hike with them previously… After investigating, he indeed seemed to have a hot spot on his foot, and of course I hadn’t brought our first aid kit on our short little outing. Neil hiked a short way with one shoe off, just with a sock, but that didn’t work too well. I managed to convince him to put the shoe back on and readjusted it a bit, and that was good enough to get us back to camp. Luckily he could slip back into his gumboots there, and given the rain that was about to come, the change was appropriate.

On the third day, Monday, our friends all had to leave, but we still had another two days planned. After studying the oh-so-confusing ferry timetable, we concluded that the best connection was to Galiano Island. Since we’ve been to Dionisio Point a few times, we decided to camp at Montague Harbour this time. We arrived to Galiano in the pouring rain, and cycled up a hill to a store where we took shelter and ate a whole tub of yoghurt. There was some talk of heading home, but reason prevailed and we kept going. The campground was almost deserted. Luckily they had a nice covered but open shelter, with a wood stove that amazingly was on, despite no one being there. We set up our tent near the shelter, while it rained on and off, and went to bed hoping for a drier day…

We woke up to a delightfully dry day which gave us a chance to explore the beach. Since it was low tide, there was lots to see – starfish, crabs, and so on. Although it was dry, the wind kept us on our toes. Back at camp we packed up really quick and headed back to the ferry terminal, and then the bus. This time we cycled home along the Arbutus Greenway instead of catching the SkyTrain, which probably took us about the same amount of time and was nicer and less stressful. Despite travelling to two islands we had already visited multiple times, we saw mostly new terrain, I bet there’s still so much more to discover!

Notes:

• A tip for cycling trips to the Gulf Islands – you can now reserve your ferry spot for you and your bike for free. You do have to call BC Ferries though, unlike reservations for cars. You can even use your Experience card (which gives worthwhile discounts), in which case you don’t pay in advance. Either way, you can change the date/time of your reservation for free.
• To fit a Bike Friday Haul a Day on the TransLink bus racks, one does need to shorten the frame, and turn the handlebars backwards. It’s not necessary to remove the fender – just set the bike rack’s top arm such that it grabs your fender as close as possible to the frame.