I left Duncan after a wonderful breakfast with Isaac and family and biked as fast as I could to catch the ferry at Departure Bay in Naniamo. It was a ‘time trail’ style of ride because I miscalculated the ferry time and distance.
The great thing was that we all met on the parking lot at the ferry. Colleen and Sonja were in the car and managed to get on that ferry, even though it was booked when they checked on line. Julia, Ugo and Olivier were also at the ferry, and I had a chance to meet Ugo’s Mom and her partner Janvier before they left for Victoria. They had all come from Tofino in the morning, so we had a chance to eat ice cream and generally celebrated getting together for this last leg of the tour.
We had a great trip on the ferry in the sun, with Olivier exploring and even got a presentation from Parks Canada on the grey whales.
Sonja and I biked from Horseshoe Bay to the UBC campus in Vancouver – it was up and down the hills and we saw a great sundown from the Lion’s Gate bridge. After about 35 kms of riding, including a detour in Stanley Park, we arrived at Julia, Ugo and Olivier’s house. Ugo organized a champagne welcome and we all celebrated the end of the Change the Cycle Tour!
There are just so many people to thank and so many wonderful stories, voices and memories from this tour.
The next few days will be dedicated to organizing the Rally to officially mark the end of the tour – lots more information about that is on the Rally section of this website. If you are in Vancouver, or know people who want to come, we are meeting here at the UBC Fountain at 12:00 noon on August 10th and biking to Crab Park on the lower east side and arriving at the Women’s Memorial Stone at 2:00 pm.