We knew we had really arrived as travellers when a couple from the San Francisco area, who were travelling in a car came over to ask if they could borrow a cork screw. From the people on the bikes - ha ha!!! Pretty awesome.
Climb nowhere as bad as we imagined, but I can tell you, you can't find out everything on the internet. Having carefully planned this trip based on the internet descriptions of the Olympic Discovery biking trail, when we got off the ferry and got a real map, we discovered that the railroad that we were supposed to be following was really for mountain bikes only. We assumed that this mean that it would be rough on the road bikes (with tree roots, holes etc) and decided not to take our bikes and luggage over it - didn't need them falling to bits just yet!
But another group that we met on the ferry did take that route, and got into camp about 3 hours after us. They said it was rougher and they ended up taking the wrong turn at the end and climbed up 500 feet. Oh well, they are about half our age, they will survive.
No rain!! No wind!!! and about half an hour of sun - yee hah!
The ride was around the beautiful Lake Crescent. It is a glacier lake and has turquoise colours (when the sun is out). It is quite long and before we got to it, we rode past Lake Sutherland. Lake Sutherland is covered in houses. On the edge of a National Park. Of course - we should have known. So then we wondered whether Lake Crescent and the supposed wilderness type experience we were heading for would have houses all along the lake.
Thank goodness no. There were a lot of houses/lodging which were serviced by ferries across the lake in the early 20th Century, but when the road was put around the Lake, most of them vanished. There are few properties at the top of the lake by Fairholme - which exists of a few houses, a very basic National Park campground ($12 for the night and no showers, only loos and a firepit and a table) and a very basic general store.
We had decided not to stock up on food in Port Angeles as we figured that the 'food' and 'shop' signs meant that we could buy something when we arrived. We were wrong. So tonight, I feel like a totally ordained wilderness bike tourist. We had our rehydrated food. Quite a contrast to the fantastic Italian food that we had in Victoria last night. Also some salsa and chips that the 'general store' did have in stock. Assumed at the very minimum we could get milk to have with our moosli tomorrow. Nup. So it is trail bars, and trail mix. Thank goodness we brought some trail bars from home (the US ones are far too sweet for us) and that we stocked up on trail mix (but sadly there appears to be only nuts and seeds and raisins left, all the gummy bears and chocolate peanuts in our home made trail mix seem to go first...).
One of the reasons that Lake Crescent hasn't been built up over the years is that the Indians believed that Mount Storm King was angry at the two tribes for killing each other and he send down a landslide that cut off Lake Sutherland from Lake Crescent. The modern day geological surveys confirm that it was most likely a landslide that cut the two lakes off (and the ability for the salmon to spawn up into Lake Crescent.) So, did the Indians know this from long ago ancestral tales, or did they have some other way of knowing? In the meantime, they were superstitious about the lake and afraid of the spirits, so did not venture up to it. Given how misty (cloudy) this lake is at the moment (8 pm), it is easy to see how they would think that the spirits of the dark brooding lake were a bad omen.
The Olympic National Forest is a rainforest and there are a lot of logging trucks on the road. I couldn't work out where they were logging, thinking that this was a National PARK, but no, if I read properly it is a National Forest, and they are logging in small spots everything within the forest. This is a photo of the tree that we camped under (and no caterpillars!)
It is now Saturday evening and we are in Forks. Population 3152. It is 22 degrees C and the sun is shining. However, we are tired and as there is nothing (I mean nothing other than going fishing) to do in Forks, we are catching up on our washing and reading our books - and one of us is currently sleeping...).
Lake Crescent when we left this morning (pretty impressive iphone photo methinks.)
Before posting this I thought that I would go on and find out more history about Forks. As we were walking around, Peter commented, the economy is just like Turangi, reliant on tourism (Fishing) and forestry, it is only different because it doesn't have the prison services.) Then looking up on Wikipedia, I discovered that 'For many years the city's economy was fuelled by the local timber industry. With recent declines in the industry, the town has had to rely on the two nearby correctional facilities.)' Hmmphh. At least Turangi is an awful lot prettier and newer and has a lovely river running through it instead of around it.
We are finding the riding harder than in the last two years. We are trying to work out why. Is it the extra 3 - 8kg we are carrying? Is it the fact that we are both now a year older? This year is the first year in the last three that we actually did riding before we came away, so expected to be adapted more. I checked back on our distances last year in my notebook - we were doing between 20 and 50km more a day. But then, we were absolutely exhausted at the end of the trip!
We have worked out that it takes between 5 and 7 days to get our bodies used to riding every day, and we are only doing around 40 - 50km a day and the being exhausted. Must be a combination of the weight and the old age!
Forks - the hub of the Twilight books, vampires and werewolves. It's been a long time since either of us have been to such an old (as in back in the 1950's) and male orientated town. It revolves around forestry and fishing. It does make for some interesting people watching, and the 'outfitters', which was were the supermarket is, was fascinating. It was stocked with pretty much everything you could want with rows and rows of fishing flies and lures.
Sadly the forecast is still for rain/showers for the next 4 days, hopefully we can finesse it and not get too wet and cold.
Some other photos that I found that tell an interesting story:
My entree at dinner in Vancouver (breaded eggplant, capsicum and zucchini) versus
Our yummy (really not) rehydrated fettucine chicken carbonara in camp last night.
The clouds over the land that we were headed to on the ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles. Our bikes are the two on the left with the red and yellow panniers.
On San Juan Islands there were 'bicyclists turnouts'. This was the first one we stopped at (and the best) sponsored by Rotary. There were bike racks (that both the bikes are resting in, cut in the logs) and tables to sit down out. I was trying out one of the new apps Pro HDR, hence the words in the photo.
Had to take this photo, late one night in Las Vegas - a Moneyworks slot machine. It ate my money very quickly...
The next door neighbours 'garden' from Dave and Kays place in Anacortes. A lot of people 'winter' in Arizona and come up to Anacortes for the summer. They don't want the hassle of doing gardens, so the gardens are gravel. There was no grass and the odd plant planted everywhere. Note the gravel from the top of the purple flower out to the road - where others would normally have grass. We rode past one yard (I can't call it a garden) that was entirely grey gravel and red scoria, with two steel poles sticking up (not sure what they were for. Those people hadn't even planted any plants.