- Camping, Carfree, Cycling & Cycle Touring, Gulf Islands and Sunshine Coast, Trip Reports, Trips with Kids
Saturna Island: The Long Way There
This trip was very loosely planned. Our friends asked if we would like to bike to Saturna Island on the May long weekend and we happily agreed. We were there with them two years ago so we knew more or less what to expect. May long weekend on Saturna What we did not expect was that the way there would take forever and be so stressful. We decided to make it into a car-free trip, but unfortunately the awesome TransLink Bike Bus only runs in the summer months. We strongly believe that this service should start on May long weekend at the latest. Waiting for a long time for the…
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. Getting ready to roll! 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…
Saturna Island: A Hilly Little Island
The weather over the spring wasn’t ideal to say the least… We got more rainy days than sun and it just felt like the seasons forgot to change. So we were all surprised that for the weekend we had planned to go to Saturna the forecast showed nothing but sun. That was more like it. Heading to Vancouver Island We met another friend and his two boys in Tsawwassen and we all rode together a few kilometers till the ferry terminal. Although we were there with plenty of time, the ferry crew decided to let us wait till they boarded all the cars and only then let us on. Not cool. In Victoria…
Porpoise Bay: A Rainy Weekend on the Sunshine Coast
At the beginning of June it was time for the annual camping trip to Porpoise Bay from Kai’s outdoor preschool. Although at first there was a lot of enthusiasm around this trip among the families, closer to the weekend many started to drop out. The reason of course – the rain! I am still not sure what’s the reason for the name “The Sunshine Coast” but on that weekend the name definitely didn’t make sense. Not so sunny on “The Sunshine Coast” We left on Friday afternoon after school, rushing to the ferry terminal. It was one of those rare times that there was a glitch with our Modo booking, and the car we reserved…
Porpoise Bay: Car Camping by Bike
This camping trip was organized months in advance. Well, two months, to be exact, so that everyone would be able to book a campsite at the ever popular Porpoise Bay Campground near Sechelt, on the Sunshine Coast. The families who were part of this trip are all from the outdoor preschool Kai was going to start in September. Since we’re good friends with a few of them we were invited as well. We liked the idea of spending a few days by the beach with friendly campers. After thinking about it we realized that biking to the campground shouldn’t be too complicated, and would make the trip more interesting. It also…
Discovery Islands: It’s a Wild World (Video)
This summer we’ve done a lot of local trips around our province of British Columbia, Canada. At the end of summer we set off on an eleven day biking trip. It was a loop starting in Comox on Vancouver Island, and on to Quadra and Cortes Islands (AKA the Discovery Islands) and down the Sunshine Coast from Lund to Powell River and back on the ferry to Comox. This trip was a natural continuation of a bike trip we did three years ago further south. If there is one thing this year has taught us, it is that it’s a crazy world. But it’s also wild and beautiful and there…
- Cycling & Cycle Touring, Gulf Islands and Sunshine Coast, Trip Reports, Trips with Kids, Vancouver Island
Discovery Islands Loop: Minimum Planning For the Win
Trust that things will work out, and they will. I’m an insatiable optimist, and that’s really my belief, but Maya and I sometimes disagree on this… Surely, COVID changes things? or does it? Could we still head out on an 11 day cycling trip with our two kids, without knowing where we would stay every night? Would Warm Showers hosts agree to host us, despite these difficult times…? I really believe that not booking accommodation in advance, and in general staying flexible and not planning too much, opens up our trips to new opportunities that present themselves. As you’ll see, this is exactly how it played out. Our trip started…
Tetrahedron: A Trail of Blueberries and a Blanket of Stars
As the Labour Day long weekend was approaching there was a feeling in the air that summer was coming to an end. Although the days were still warm and sunny we could feel that there might be a shift soon. The forecast for the weekend was generally good especially towards the end of it. I was absolutely exhausted since we had just finished a very busy season of Kids on Wheels and all I wanted to do was to catch up on some sleep. But since September is always a gamble with the weather in this area we decided to do a two day trip leaving on the Monday of…
Sidney Island: Another World
Bus, SkyTrain, bus, ferry, bus, ferry. That bewildering series of six transportation modes was how we got to Sidney Island from Vancouver using public transportation. It took only five hours… Since we knew it would be a bit of an ordeal, we decided to go for two days. It helped to adopt a mindset that the journey is worthwhile, not just the destination. Still it was a bit tiring. Neil fell asleep on the bus to Sidney, and after we got off continued sleeping on the sidewalk, to the amusement of passerby. With difficulty we finally managed to wake him, with promises of a visit to the Sidney Bakery. One…
- British Columbia (and nearby), Cycling & Cycle Touring, Gulf Islands and Sunshine Coast, Trip Reports, Trips with Kids
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…
