Day 1: Cobble Hill to Lake Cowichan village

October 12, 2021

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Stephane PetitI would have like to do this road but I would not had the chance to meet you. Take care.
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2 years ago

There is something strangely satisfying about a tour that starts of from your own front door. Maybe it's just that you don't have to travel to some stressful airport before you can get riding. Maybe it's just a more "natural" experience. But this morning we had just that - pedaling out as we have done hundreds of times for spins around home. But this time we were not aiming to return anytime exactly soon. We have only done that twice before in all of recorded history!

We got our neighbour to record the momentous event:

The first adventure of the trip happened when I paused to chat with the neighbour for a moment, and Dodie went on ahead - mumbling something about checking out her mirror. But when I got to the top of the driveway - no Dodie. There are two ways to go from that position - our old customary way and our slightly newer smarter way. I stood puzzling about which she might have chosen, but I could not see her either way. I puzzled long enough that now here she came back up the road. "I told you I was going to check my mirror!" she exclaimed. "But yeah, almost to Nanaimo?", I thought. With the mirror hopefully now in absolutely perfect tune, we now set out on the actual adventure.

Our first encounter with anything "World Class" was the crossing of the Trans Canada Highway. This road, or route, is 7476km long. It starts in Victoria at "Mile Zero" and continues to St. John's, Newfoundland. I know that "Mile Zero" must be World Class because my visiting brother explicitly asked to go there last week, for a photo with our daughter Joni.

Perversely, the other end, in St.John's, seems to be known as "Mile One". The use of "miles" for these designations admittedly stems from completion of the route before metrification, but also "Kilometers" are just not very poetic.

We cross the famous Trans Canada Highway

Looking down the Trans Canada, we see that no one is currently interested in going to "Canada"

Our next major landmark was the village of "Cobble Hill". Cobble Hill is the "city" in our home address, but even among villages this is not World Class. It has maybe five businesses. Among these is not a bakery. Without a bakery you are not in contention for anything. According to me!

The biggest, oldest business in Cobble Hill

Six kilometers further on our route is the village of Shawnigan Lake. That has "Oma's Bakery" and a pizza restaurant. Now we're talking!

We veered off 1 km before Oma's, to proceed over the north end of the actual Shawnigan Lake. Oma's could be the last vestige of "civilisation" before the Old Towne Bakery in Ladysmith - 100 kms and two days away! At this point we are heading into the wilder environment that many in other countries associate with Canada.

The lake, with a boathouse belonging to a local private school.

At the far side of Shawnigan Lake runs the track of the E&N railroad - now defunct, as explained in an earlier page. What a waste!

The E&N not rail trail. A very short trail to Shawnigan Lake village can be seen on the side. Lacking the rights to use the rail bed, many short trails exist just to one side.

The road by Shawnigan Lake is quite rough, and seems to feature a lot of pickup trucks. Also present are logging trucks. We will soon be penetrating into the realm of the temperate rain forest, but of course the loggers have been there before us, and they are hauling it away as fast as they can.

One good thing along this road are many signs supporting the health care workers. These mainly got put out last year. This year the big activity seems to be to disparage these brave workers.

Our next encounter with World Class greatness is the Trans Canada Trail, now renamed The Great Trail (TGT). TGT can often seem like a tangled or meandering mess, but it claims to have 28,000 km, and also reaches St. John's. On this tour we will be following TGT, except when we are not!

The trail begins for us. Behind us, it also heads South to Victoria.

Our real entry into the "wilderness" begins with crossing the Kinsol Trestle. This is claimed to be one of the longest and highest trestles in the world. It was completed in 1920 as part of a rail line built to haul the amazing old growth trees out of the interior of the Island. This dubious mission ended in 1979, and the trestle fell into disrepair. It was going to be removed, but a grass roots protest resulted in a preservation project. With about $8 million, the trestle was restored and reopened. Since 2011 it has formed a key part of the Cowichan Valley Trail, our route to Lake Cowichan.

The Kinsol Trestle. It was named for a short lived copper and silver operation in the area: King Solomon's Mine.

Our gateway to the green heart of the Island.

The trestle crosses the Koksilah River. This is pretty much wilderness territory already,

Displays nearby show the trestle when it was in use for trains:

Once over the trestle and with all walking tourists safely out of sight, the trail begins to show its true nature - very bumpy, or with gravel that grabs your tires and slows you down.

Non tourist part of the trail begins shortly after the famous trestle. Later the path will also narrow to a single track, get deep gravel, and fallen trees.

When we started out, the temperature was 8. That's fine, because as we had written when we cycled down the coast, to California one December, we can operate fine at 6. The Andersons replied then that they are ok with 2. But all this changes a bit if there is rain too. So the next step was for the temperature to drop marginally, to 7, and for rain to start.

Which colour is the rain bag - yeah, yellow. And better find the blue "I'm freezing" bag too.

Fully outfitted now to continue into the wilderness. There's down and wool under that fancy yellow stuff!

I must admit that the forest along the trail, which is not old growth, did not seem to radiate to me the solemn and powerful life force that I have felt among the really old trees. This area is still too close to the east side of the Island, and those trees have long ago been trucked off.

They are looking for any remaining trees!

Normally trees fall in the winter storms, but trail maintenance can not be so bad that the several we encountered across the path have been there a long time. Though fully loaded we are so amazingly strong! that we can lift the bikes over such trees:

No problem! (That person in yellow is not a logger, eh, just Dodie!)

There are a few other trestles along the route, crossing smaller streams. But here at 66 Mile Trestle we finally cross the Cowichan River.

The Cowichan River is a key to our approach and feeling about this area. While we may not quite see the venerable old trees here, they do surround Lake Cowichan, which lies in the middle of this south end of the Island. Those trees are part of the Lake Cowichan watershed, and the Cowichan River drains the lake, reaching the salt water at Cowichan Bay, near our house. If we believed in things "holy", then the Cowichan River would be carrying holy water.

Skutz Falls on the Cowichan River. The river is popular for rafting, but can be very dangerous.

The bumpy and grippy trail took a toll on Dodie's e-assist, and about 6 km before the end it gave up. This left Dodie pedaling "au naturel". As soon as we could we popped off the trail and into the suburbs of Lake Cowichan, with its smooth roads. The misty mountains behind betray that this is still not "civilisation".

Like "Mile 0" in Victoria, Lake Cowichan boasts the western terminus of the Trans Canada Trail. Spotting it on this sign, I zoomed over for a look.

Here it is - the end of the impossibly long Trans Canada Trail!

Just beside, you can see some of the attractions of Lake Cowichan "old town". In this case, A&W!

We made it! The cougar, though, does not look all that pleased.

Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 52 km (32 miles)

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Tricia GrahamCertainly looks world class to me.
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3 years ago

Bob KoreisYou photo of the dormant rail line dredged up a memory. A few years back my wife and I were up on the island with our bikes. On our day from Duncan to Yellow Point we decided to just take the most direct route, up HWY1. Not particularly scenic, but it did the job.Something we noticed was a rail line running below us. We both thought it would make a fine rail to trail conversion. At the end of the day I saw a comment in a local paper advocating for that. So I was wondering, have there been any moves to do a conversion? Assuming you know which rail line I'm talking about.
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3 years ago

Sue PriceYikes! That trail does get pretty rough at the end. Hope Dodie's bike is ok!
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3 years ago

Jacquie GaudetTo Bob KoreisThat's the E&N (Esquimalt and Nanaimo) Railway, though it used to run further north, as far as Courtney. There's been a movement to convert it to a rail trail for decades, but there's also a movement to bring back the passenger service. More info in this article: https://thediscourse.ca/nanaimo/vancouver-island-rail-history-how-did-we-get-here

There's a very nice paved trail beside the rails in the Victoria area. Currently the E&N Rail Trail runs 12km from Esquimalt to connect to the Galloping Goose Regional Trail, with a further 5 km planned.
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3 years ago