Vancouver - Valemount

On Sunday 29th. I left Vancouver by Burnaby to the east in the general direction of the city called Hope, definitively not the nicest part if town. I saw a hamradioshop in that district with some vhf and microwaves on top of the roof. Further down the broad freeway with nice shoulders I was overtaken by a Calgarian couple cycling their way to Newfoundland. Rain started to fall in the afternoon and I skipped some expensive campground to end up at a desolated one that was partially flouded.. I placed my tent under a bigger one but it was flouded in the morning by the river extending her width.. I was able to dry everything later that morning thanks to a 2kW heather in the washingroom. I think I used more electricity than 5 dollars.. For the remaining of that day I cycled for Hope, on better weather. It came as I approached it.. Did some shopping and ate some expensive pizza and stopped in Boston Bar were I put my tent at a remote place for RV-people, they allowed me to stay on the premise of a turned down building with water-hookup and room for an antenna. I once again was active on 40 meters in the streetcorner on 7177 kc. The valley were I was going trough is the Fraservalley, quite narrow and steep. The Canadian Pacific railroad goes through here and does that in almost every route up here. The Fraser has also some nice tunnels on its stretch, people warned me they were dangerous but it you're used to the Norwegian ones the inestimable over here are a childsplay. Still I switched on the ledlights and , as always, wore the fluovestje jacket. In one of the longer tunnels there was some traffic catching up on me. One car stopped just after the tunnel and the driver stepped out, should he be angry on me because I was on his road ?.. Nope, he congratulated me with the good lights I have on the bicycle. So, they are edeluxe light with a Son dynamo. The drivers name was Peter and let me try one of his favours of his drinks, Mona Vie. Very good as a matter of fact, he wanted to be active on the European market next year. It surely makes a lot of noise and they are about 1,2 km long. Leaving for Lytton the other day it was raining again. Some crazy guy was 'controlling' the city but a real officer showed me a place to setup the tent. A former landingstrip just north of the town. A helicopter and its owner that lived in his next-door RV were parked up there. Was bugged by some really nasty muskitoes over there. Cash creek the other day was the entrance to a different kind and style of landscape. It was clearly visible that this should be dessert-style hills but they weren't because of all of the recent rain. It had green plants and hushed almost everywhere ! The following day a young French guy Lionel kept up with me, he had been touring the North American continent since October last year. He was cycling to Calgary to fly back home again next week. In Kamloops I was warmly welcomed by Jim and Ann, we previously met on a campground in California. The tentpoles my brother-in-law send over to him just arrived in the mail  that day.. I had a nice meal over their place and slept very well on a clean bed ! In the morning I cycled to the downtown area of Kamloops and as the sun was shining , end up in the public parc next-to the river for an hour. Cycling back north in the valley towards Valemount I used a ferry to cross the North Thompson river. In the evening a lady - grandma Alice - invited me in her summerhouse in the back of her yard. It had running cold water and I hung up the 40.mtr dipole again. Alice sels hamburgers and stuff in the center of Barrière in her wagon so don't stop at the mainroad for the A&W but continue for the centre.. In Vavenby I slept next-to a baseball field. The very little town was empty as everybody was watching the hockeygame that was on that night between Boston and Vancouver.. As I was peddling up north again the road got steeper above 700 mtr. ASL and the hilltops were covered with snow. I ended up in Blue River were I was invited to have a dinner at Laura's place with three friends of her, I slept in the garden next to a lake of one of the friends that are into the gold-digging of this generation. On the stretch in between Vancouver and Valemount I tried every repeater on my path, like 30 of them but on none of them I got an answer after they opened up.. Are they al deaf here of is the hobby in a really fast decline into .ca ? The signals and location/coverage of the repeaters was excellent ..

Arriving in Valemount after a very sunny day and seeing a rather big brown bear 5 meters next to me of the road .. people gave me some tips on where to find a good spot. But, al of a sudden Lionel was standing in front of me again ! He had found a place to sleep trought warmshowers and asked him if I could camp with him also, it turned out that it was no problem. I met Tom who was a carpenter over here and enjoyed dinner with all of us. Tomorrow I head out into Alberta and into the Jasper National Parc. It will be a great route and many glaciers will be visible. Right now I'm at a height of 800 mtr. ASL in the valley and it will go up to a 1450 level into the Parc where many bears live and no trucks above 4,5 ton are allowed..

Port Angeles - Vancouver

After arriving in Port Angeles on tuesday 24th May, I could pay a visit to James, WF7W or take last the ferry of the day in 30 minutes and go to Canada. I chose for the latter and took the ferry. After arriving in the nice port of Victoria I had to go through the Canadian customs as a `foot passenger`. Even with a bicycle.. The customguy was quite relaxed as he asked me : 'so tell me, what brings you here ?'.. I started telling my previous expierences and soon he told me to stop and placed a stamp in my passport 'Valid for 6 months' so I'll stick around some time longer. Hopefully the next 5 bordercontrols will also have a happy ending.

In Victoria I could go and search for a place to set up the tent again but two day ago Andy, VE7VAW had a QSO with me on 2 meter and invited me to come over. We kept contact by radio and phone and some 10 minutes after clearing customs he bicycled into town to come and 'pick' me up. We cycled to his home in the more residential area near Victoria passing some nice markers nexto the coast as there was the 0-km marker of the TransCanadian Highway 1. Yes, it's kilometers and kg all over again.. Andy proposed to use his guestroom and join for dinner the evening. He is married to Nelly, who was born into PA-land.. She still spoke Dutch so it really was nice to speak it again but now face to face. We saw on TV how the icehockey-team of Vancouver - the 'canucks' won the West coast conference.
The other day Andy took me on the bicycle for a trip through town ; we saw the downtown area, the floatplanes landing in the harbour and met with two friend of Andy to discuss the route to follow after visiting Vancouver. It will depend on the weather .. Afterwards we headed to a shoppingmall to search for a new Canadian SIM-card that was compatible with my EU-HTC phone. To keep a long story short ; in Vancouver I found out that only Rogers Wireless was compatible but only with Edge, sortlike in the US with ATT and T-Mobile.  My Canadian number is +1 778 6689074 and it costs me 0.25 dollar for receiving incoming international calls but no datalimit ;-) Rogers has no coverage North of Lake Superior and in some National Parks.

Back at his house we had a loveley dinner with the family with witloof - inderdaad - and nicely done meat, soup and dessert. One of the more (the most) decent meals I had in a long while.
I was able to listen and talk on 40 meters with the HF-set of Andy and the local BEARS-group had a meeting that evening and a test of their communication where we could go to but there was no time enough to do it all in a orderly fashion.

In the morning I took of again and drove with Andy to the meeting place just North of town where Nelson VE7FTL would go to. He is a local bicycle mobile HAM and proposed to join me and show me how to ride the stretch to Sidney where I would take the - bigger - ferry to Vancouver.
He used a Slim Jim on the back of his foldable bike and a small portable VHF transmitter. We had some coffee on the way and did some talking about the hobby. Nelson is a cartoonist - more work of him is on http://www.nelsondewey.com/
We said goodbye some 15 minutes before the boat set sail to Vancouver, rain was pooring down. I reached Vancouver at 7 o`clock in evening and saw two orcas during the boattrip ! There is snow on the mountains surrounding Vancouver at about 1 km up..
There was bicycle transport in a tunnel just before Vancouver where three other bikers joined me in the little bus. It was for free.
Cycling was quite easy in the city of Vancouver since it had some seperate bicyclelanes.

I booked for 4 nights into the local Downtown Youthhostel but only used 3 since I'm ready to leave on sundaymorning the 29th. May.
Nice hostel just out of the citycentre. Lots of young people around and some other bikers, talked with Polish, Canadian, French, US, Turkish, Swedish and German boys/girls. I did my third shaving in more than a month now and I'm really getting grey now..

I did some sightseeing in the city on foot and on bicycle.
You can see the route of the trip on the APRS-page.
The city-center is very crowded and modern/clean looking but rather expesive. I bought some Cannondale legwarmers (extendible cyclepants) since it is still snowing on my route up North and a longer USB cable for the HTC.
I went out on fridaynight to take in some calories in the local Irish pub and had some Guiness's before I went to the cinema.
Here the movie 'Hanna' was shown, vy nice movie and very recomendable watch the trailer here .
The filmmusic was written by The Chemical Brothers.
The movie will not be released before 6 Juli in .be
The city center of Vancouver at midnight looked and felt very different than during rushour ;-)

I had some 3 QSO's on 2 meter in Vancouver - a city of some 3 million inhabitants and more than 20 repeaters in an area of 10 miles wide.. I called on al of them and only 3 came back during 3 days .. not too much activity if you asked me. I'm ready all the way to go up to Kamloops and thereafter I decide if I go on to Jasper or divert directly to Banff. Right now the flux is going up to 101 again so ..

I'll try to do 40 meters here in the evening from 04 to 05 UTC on 7177 kc if all goes well and 20 meters 14306 if flux is above 120 from 05 to 06 UTC.

Raymond - Port Angeles

I had a nice meal at Tatchers and Vince's place in Raymond ; a BBQ-ed porcsteak and a good shower. I slept in the tent in his yard. His mother gave me a selfmade nicely coloured hat that will keep my head warm way up north into Canada. It will be giving me good luck on my journey, she said. I believe her, thank you ma'm, you've got a very generous son. I talked in the evening on the 7177 net with his TS440 and a wireloop antenna. He is active as a races member and already helped people that way. Watched some tv on the very big screen in his livingroom in the evening. He helped me soldering some electrical stuff that came loose during the journey. I charged my batteries and had a nice breakfast ; a real sandwich with roastbeef and vegetables and a layer of sauce in-between. Said goodbye to them in the morning and drove into the city of Raymond where I stumbled upon Marc. He was cycling from Seattle to Miami over the westcoast. He's a French citizen and.. has almost the same bicycle as I do. A Koga signature but a 26-model where I have a 28. He's retired and also enjoys cycling around. He also keeps a blog on http://www.marc-hummel.fr/

Godspeed Marc !

I continued north to Aberdeen and Hoquiam. Both cities sunk away into the recession, Aberdeen had a great role as a port for exporting cedar-wood out of the Olympic National Park. In Hoquiam I met an 84 year old man that had a radioroom in his oldstylegarage. He fixes remote controlled devices that sound a horn when chopping down trees. He also was into cb-radio and the carbussines some decades ago. He has a radiolab that dates back to ... I don't know but it shurely is not from after 1970.. He didn't allow taking a picture of him, kind of camerashy.

Driving upto Humptulips in the National Parc, I was looking for a place to pitch up my tent for the night. When entering the town I asked a man in his garden if he knew a nice place to tent. He replied ; next to my crick. Well, it seems that he had a watercreek on his premise where it was very nice to pitch up the tent. I was some 300 meters away from his house. While setting up , his three young  grandchildren that were there on a visit, al sons btw.., came over to me and gave me two burgers and a gatorade bottle. They were doing a BBQ and had some 'leftovers'. They even offered me three dollars that I kindly refused ;-)

In the evening I had a nice conversation with Mr. Anderson - who had Norwegian ancestors - and was offered some freshly baked cookies and roasted meatsticks to enjoy on the way. Seems that he has family all-over the place and he worked into the town as a dockworker during the early years after WW2. His wife then had some rather popular ancestors in Tombstone .. In the morning I received an oakmeal breakfast and some hot coffee that woke me up. Going up strong again I ended up in Kalaloch where I camped in the Statepark thats located just next-to the Pacific Ocean. Great views and said goodbye to the great Pacific for this trip.. I met a rather of-the-world-guy in his 50's over there that was cycling because of psychological reasons.. He drove a Peugeot cycle dating from the 70's. We had some beers and clifbars while listening to my 817. In the morning he was already gone at 8 o'clock. The crows stole some bread from me.. Cycled trough the vampiretown of Forks where the Twilight saga movies were filmed. I saw that movie once but remind that I felt asleep while watching it..The town really thrives on the tourists coming over there to explore the Twilight-town. There's a filmposter , or more , in -every- shop, bizar. Weatherwise it's still around 60-65 F and clouded with from time to time a rainshower ... The wind is still's blowing from the north / northwest .. I saw the lots of snowpeaked mountains in the Olympic National Parc / rainforest and new also the 7965 feet high mount Olympus.

I slept in between Fairholm and Sappho on a public and free campground in the woods. Had some nice contacts on 40 meter, had a really high hanging dipole there. The place was being cleaned in the morning by 7 inmates wearing orange shirts, being guarded by only one officer. On the borders of Lake Cresent I met Mitch, who was walking the 300 mile stretch around the Olympus peninsula for charity. From Port Angeles I will take the ferry over street of Juan de Fuca into Victoria, BC Canada.

Lincoln City - Raymond

When crossing over to Washington State on Wednesday in Astoria I had to cross the bridge over the Columbia river, that was one of the worst cyclebridges I had and surely deserves a place in my personal top 20. I saw Mount St. Helens in the east some 150 miles away from me ! I met NA7Q on the bridge in Astoria, Mike, very nice young ham.

Here I saw the first real big containervessels since San Francisco.
Today I topped the 1000-milemarker, that some 1600 kilometers .. everything a ok !

I met a real Alaskan guy on a bicycle onroute who was wearing a helmet with a HD-camera on. He explained that it was easier to make photos as he was driving..
I also met Ben from Winnipeg along with another three friends of him, he invited me over to come at his place when I`ll cycle up to Winnipeg, very nice from him.
Monday I passed trough the nice city of Pacific City. A little bit like Knokke but smaller. Canon Beach was more like Knokke.
In Canon Beach I saw the antenna of Doug N7HH and he invited me to see his radioroom. He`s a very bussy man as he runs a hotel/motel and is active in some groups as there is the local emergency hamradio group.
The next day there was an exercise for a Tsunami alert as placed on billboards along the road. In the morning there was a small Cesna plane that flew over announcing that it was also stating that it was a Tsunami test. I stayed in the local Cape Lookout State Park, one of the nicer parks but sparsely populated at this time of year.

I stayed also south of Canon Beach, there was a state park but they closed the camping area because the trees were falling on the RV`s so ... I asked a man if he knew a good place to stay for the night and he showed me the garden of a nextdoor house that he kept an eye on while they went away, it was a beautiful evening and great beaches and photo`s.

A girl in a coffeshop in Tillamook thought the capital of Belgium was Brugge, explained her that it was definitively something else ;-]
In Raymond I asked on the local repeatersystem for a good place to set up the tent since there were no good places around like a state park and Thatcher KE7JMC invited me to set up my tent in his garden for the night, perfect !
On the HF it wasn`t much of a nice period lately.. flux went down to 80 from 110 ..
On the radio I kept contact on the local net on 7177 in the evening qround 21-22 local  and 7145 around 0800 local in the morning.
Hopefully I get into Vancouver by next weekend !

Coos Bay - Lincoln City

Almost out of Oregon by now. It surely went by rather quickly.

North of Coos Bay are some nice beaches and inlets with cols that go up to some 500 feet. Saturday was very sunny and sunday rather strange. First sun al over and later on the day rain like it was never going to stop.

Florence and Newport are dull mediocre countytowns with the same shops all-over again. The nicer places can be found in-between. Slept into the dune-area near Yachats and placed an GP-antenna for 20 almost on the beach. Great ears but no ON-catch this time, DL and YL were ok.

Met a lady walking on the beach that was born in Fynn and raised in Ahus DK. She's some kind of a 'strandjutter' and gave me a little pink stone that's very shiny and stuff. She lived here for more than 55 years and by age she's .. some 5 years older than the oldest bakery-woman in Willebroek..

Again met some really interesting cyclers al going South to San Francisco or San Diego. Alex, Ken, Kirsten and friend and a young guy from Portland that was wearing the national crossjersey from .be from Sven Nys, he said.. I forgot his name, quite a strange one but he was really into veldcross and knew much about it.

I'm always happy when the weekend is over, way too much traffic on the roads and too many people into shops and restos. I got a flat tire on sunday, it really was leaking air very slowly. There was a little piece of metal in the outertire that perforated the innertire. Fixed it on a statecampground where I stood next to a girl from London, UK doing the opposite trip as i'm doing upto Vancouver. This campsite had T-Mobile datacoverage, a real miracle..

Prognoses for sunny days in the next 3 days are non-existant.