Last year there was no question about it. Most cycle tourers were prudently hiding under their mattresses at home while the COVID predator stalked the airlines, hotels, campgrounds, restaurants, and groceries. But then came the miraculous development of the vaccines, and a light opened at the end of the tunnel. We peeped cautiously from our mattresses, but only to find that our usually trusted public health services were botching the vaccine rollout. And this was not only in BC and Canada, but pretty much world wide. Who would think that societies that daily produce, for example, breakfast, for most of their citizens could not find and jab them once, within 6-8 months! Then came the Vaccine Passport foul up, in which regions and countries could not organize or agree on standardized proof that they had actually managed to vaccinate someone.

We watched all this from our mattress, including the new Delta Variant monster out in the street. But slowly we became aware of other cyclists who had crept out from under cover, and were beginning to fly in to Paris or Munich or etc.  There was of course the Andersons, heading for Rome, and Kevin and Sunyoung, doing Paris to Bordeaux, and the Fenwicks to Croatia, and Suzanne Gibson and Janos, swanning around their bit of Bavaria and Austria, etc. We waited for them all to keel over, but they seemed ok!

What's more, some cyclists - old friends or new Warm Showers - turned up at our door. We put on masks and fed them outside, but thought - if they can do it, maybe so can we.

These developments and thoughts came to us too late in the season to do anything dramatic. Our bikes are stashed in Leipzig. Blasting over there for a standard 90 day tour would have us cycling when it is too cold to be fun (for us, anyway). We could use the train to get to the sun, and then back north to friends in Leipzig or Munich to stash the bikes, but that's too many days of train riding to be fun.

So are we still stuck? Not quite. We have a two part strategy. In part one we will pedal out from home for a brief circuit in our local territory. We will try to convince ourselves and you that there is something world class out there, nearby. But while we are creating a distraction this way, Fairfield Bike Shop in Victoria and Grin Technologies in Vancouver will be cooking up yet another set of ebikes for us! This will be our Bike Fridays tricked out with airplane legal batteries. If these work out, we will throw them in a plane and head for Malaga, Spain. From there we propose to circumnavigate the whole Iberian peninsula, including a nostalgic return to the Camino  de Santiago. 

But first, these timid deer will try a dash north from here, to Parksville and the mystical Cathedral Grove. Read on to see the route and what we will claim is so world class about it.