Canada Day 2 - Langley to Hope

Pancakes, bacon, maple syrup and love are my send off.  Everyone, including me is excited although - unlike everyone else, I am somewhat daunted.  I ride into Langley to Mountain Equipment Co-op to get a bear scarer (useful for UK motorists?) and stove fuel and to see if the lovely mechanic will cut the lock off my bike frame.  I stupidly locked it there and then brought the wrong key with me.

(c) Tan-Ya

The shop doesn't open for an hour when I arrive and I almost leave to cope or find a hardware store for help but then remember the gas and return to chill out, sit in the sun and banter with the local lonely cyclist (on first name terms with the staff when they arrive). 

90 minutes later and I leave with fuel, an air horn and knees liberated from being knocked by a lock.

I've plotted a route through the burbs.  I have to stop after 1 hour for lunch.  Ignoring the chain restaurants I find a cafe that's only been open 7 weeks and I am their first international customer. 

A delicious salad and properly served tea.  Canada is looking up.

As factories and offices give way to farm holdings and acreages, my options are done.  One last jaunt through Chilliwack's highlands and then into town, briefly crossing highway 1, onto highway 7 and the start of the Hope Road.

There's a headwind all the way which I can just about cope with but dread meeting it on the way back.  It's interrupted by the whistle and rumble of a Canada Pacific train and my thoughts focus on counting the containers its pulling.  238. 

That haunting whistle brings back so many memories and before I know it I am at the campsite at hope.  There's space and I am clean.  I bike into town for dinner.  My new lock keeps the bike safe and it's a successful day.  There's just that haunting wail of trains that keeps me awake late and then the light wakes me up early and it's time to hit the road.