Galiano & Salt Spring Islands: A Birthday Bike Trip

The Gulf Islands are truly magical. So, when we had the opportunity to take a few days off around my birthday, I knew it would be an awesome place to spend my birthday. Combining this with biking, one of my favourite things in the whole world and with my favourite people, guaranteed me a great birthday.

However, the ferry schedule was tricky and our time was limited. We also hadn’t reserved any camp sites, so we wanted to avoid the weekend. I had to scratch my head a few times before coming up with a plan. We spent Saturday at the Folk Fest in Vancouver and on Sunday we headed out on our trip. Leaving was easy, since we started riding from home. We rode to Bridgeport Station and from there caught the bike bus to the ferry terminal – a service that was luckily renewed this summer. It brought us straight to the ferry terminal and from there there was a direct ferry to Galiano Island.

When we started biking on Galiano, Neil’s first reaction was – why is it so empty there. It’s the Gulf Islands, we explained. It’s generally quiet and relaxed, plus it was the end of the weekend. Unfortunately, that impression would change once we hit Salt Spring Island a couple of days later. We only biked to Montague Harbour, where we set up camp in the first come first serve area. No need to book a site months in advance as it turned out.

The next morning was my birthday and the kids had cards that they had made in advance and yummy chocolate as a gift. I woke up in a beautiful campground on a sunny day by the beach, so I really couldn’t ask for more.

That day we biked over to the far end of Galiano. We remembered again how hilly the Gulf Islands are… But we made good timing and soon enough we found ourselves on a secluded beach with no one else around. Our kids never seems to tire of the beach, so we moved on to another beach before setting camp. There were a lot of cool rock formations, many tide pools and even seals. The only other campers were four guys with their bikes as well.

The following day was a really long and hilly day. We had to cross all of Galiano Island in order to get back to the ferry. We caught the ferry in the late afternoon and poor Neil got stung by a wasp just before we got on the ferry.

Then once on Salt Spring Island a sign “Salt Spring on Wheels” welcomed us. But Salt Spring didn’t prove itself to be bike friendly at all. In fact the beginning of it was some of the worst we ever cycled, especially around the main town of Ganges.

After we stocked up at the supermarket and passed the giant hill we found some quieter roads. Only around 8pm and after 53 long kms we finally made it to the campground at Ruckle Park. We chose a nice site because we planned to stay two nights. In the morning we also put up our hammock and finally had time to relax a bit.

The next day we mostly explored around the campground. It’s been a good few years since we were last there. We were surprised how dry and yellow the grass was. In the afternoon we walked to a little cove near the campground where we’ve never been before and had a nice swim.

Thursday was the day we headed out and back to Vancouver. We chose to take the ferry through Victoria, so the ride to the ferry terminal was shorter and less hilly. The ferry terminal was busy and one of the workers told me that there were mechanical issues on one of the ferries which was causing delays. Once he realized we were biking he added that we wouldn’t have any problem getting on though.

We switched ferries in Victoria to head back to Vancouver. Since it was a Thursday there was no Bike Bus so we decided to ride all the way back home. We biked to the shuttle spot which takes cyclists through the George Massey Tunnel. At some point along the way we also bought lots of blueberries. Kai was keen to bike on his own quite a bit and the blueberries helped – for motivation.

It was a long ride home and we only arrived back late in the evening, but we felt very proud, accomplished, and happy about another successful bike trip straight from our home and back to it.