But musing only goes so far, and there is no exercise in it. Same with planning the next trip - no exercise. What we basically need is to keep pedaling.
There is a circle route around our house that amounts to about 20 km, and can be used to try to stay in cycling shape when we are not out on a tour. But the route has two drawbacks. Firstly, after spinning around it ten or twenty times, we dread the boredom of doing it yet again. And secondly, it passes the quite good Drumroaster Cafe. If we stop there, we not only risk going bankrupt, but the lovely raspberry scones and cinnamon brioches automatically cancel any weight loss benefits of the ride.
When we have circled around home enough times, we begin to fly off the handle, so to speak, heading straight out to the north and the south. In the north, sorry to say, is the Willow Street Cafe, in Chemainus. This place tempts us with muffins and cinnamon buns, plus soups and wraps. Significantly, it is a halfway point to Nanaimo, and it makes a great meetup point with Sue and Jim Price, cyclists known on Cycleblaze particularly for their tour in Cuba.
Vancouver Island, and the small islands to the east - in the Salish Sea are surprisingly hilly. I guess it's not all that surprising, because of course the land has to poke up above the sea, to qualify as land. There are of course valleys and flat spots, but you do have to choose the routes carefully, for maximum comfort (but minimum training effect). As shown in the graph above, our route to the Willow Street Cafe is indeed a bit lumpy, though not crazy.
Another one - slightly fancier. Houses here are generally made from wood, often with asphalt tile roofs. It's so different from the stone walls and clay tile roofs we often see in Europe.
Looking for a flatter way back, we swung closer to the water, and past the Catalyst pulp mill. We used to be able to smell the sulphur fumes from this, but the emissions have since been largely scrubbed. A former premier of the province used to call sulphur the smell of money.
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Laurie MarczakYes W.A. C. "Wacky" Bennett. But looking up "the smell of money" also produces references from pig processing to marijuana sales, so maybe Bennett did not invent the idea. Reply to this comment 3 months ago
As for going south, 15 km from our house is a ferry that crosses the "Finlayson Arm" of the Salish Sea, and brings us in 20 minutes to the Saanich Peninsula. From there, north, is the ferry to Vancouver and also the airport, but to the south is the provincial capital, Victoria. We head down to Victoria, where we can visit family or see if there is anything left at Mountain Equipment that we have not bought yet. A big treat down there is also the Fisherman's Wharf. This has many very scenic float homes, and also food outlets, like Barb's Fish and Chips. By the time we drag ourselves back up to the ferry and on to home, the ride will have been about 80 km, which is a worthy outing. The map below shows 83 km, but it is cheating by including the ferry ride!
Fisherman's Wharf also affords a bit of a chance to practice with the new camera. Scott predicted what we would find the Cackling Goose once back in Canada, but these seems to be boring old Canada Geese. The raccoon was fishing right by all the tourists.
Even with slightly hilly rides in our vicinity, we still need other ways to stay in shape. Fortunately our small farm supplies some quite good opportunities. One of these is in keeping up the supply of firewood for the coming winter. Fortunately, trees are blown down at our place at just about the rate that is needed for the woodstoves, so we never have to go out and actively cut a tree down.
This last winter a couple of really big trees decided to fall. This is a mixed blessing, because big trees need a bit of a big saw to slice them up, and then they become big and heavy lumps of wood, which can be a challenge to split.
This one was at least 100 feet long, with typically about a 2 foot diameter.
It was a workout for me, and also the saw. I am proud of this saw, which I rebuilt by carefully watching Youtube videos. After this photo, I had to go with a longer bar - it was quite a tree! For this selfie I did not have on my helmet, ear phones, or gloves, but yes, these are essential for this kind of work.
Laurie Marczak*very* relieved to see the list of some safety precautions I was about to launch into a “Steve, a known idiot…” story/tirade! Reply to this comment 3 months ago
Despite all this lumberjacking for me, and woodstacking for Dodie, we are still quite low on strength and energy. But 4000 km or so around Europe ought to wake us up!
