Galiano

I took my bike yesterday to Galiano Island, just off the coast of Vancouver in the southern Gulf Islands / Coast Salish Sea.

interesting things that happened along the way:
- The new Canada Line skytrain has a station called Templeton, where I planned to dismount. Except Templeton is a station literally in the middle of nowhere. The access road is a rough gravel road. Note to self: do not expect stations to be connected to anything in this crazy world of ours. I imagine big box stores will go here
- Bike on bus – no problems. I had worried about that.
- On the bus ride, I passed a pumpkin patch at the ferry dock. I’ve never seen a pumpkin patch before! did you know pumpkins are orange from the start? who knew!
- Get to ferry and realise I have left the key to my bike lock in Vancouver. doh!
- Get to Galiano and immediately find the bike shop – there is one. The owner is super awesome and gives me a lock to keep for FREE.
- Bike south on the main route and hit the Bluffs first. The hills were a little steeper than I had imagined, and I had to sweat. They were totally, totally worth it: my pics do not demonstrate how incredible this park is. There is a fire ban throughout the Gulf Islands, but even with the browning grass, everything feels so lush and cool and really inspiring forest-like.
- Riding down the bluffs is a little scary on a road bike, not going to lie: my tires are not meant for the roughness and incredible drop in altitude going down the west Bluff Road was intended for. I make it out alive and my hair is dry from the breeze.
- Pass an awesome Italian yard. Just sayin’. They had beautiful flowers.
- On the first beach I found a sea lion (i’ve been calling them seals, but I think they’re actually sea lions) popping his head up numerous times right by me. They gather on a small rocky island in this intense channel between the islands, where the currents and eddies make the most interesting water patterns.
- I skipped hiking Mount Galiano, mostly because it’s 300+ meters and I wanted to do other things.
- Farmers had vegetables, fresh and organic, sitting at the side of the road unstaffed with a cash box. local food ++.
- Riding across Montague Road to the marina was a challenge. Google Maps made the altitude look easy, but in reality I couldn’t make it up the hill without walking a good couple hundred meters.
- Marina almost spoiled the island for me, for it was full of boats and things. The provincial park there is gorgeous though; looks like one of the nicest campgrounds I’ve ever seen. The shell beach – the sand is almost entirely ground-up shells – was spectacular.
- Somewhere near here there lays my peanut butter and honey sandwich, which fell out of my bag at some point and I lost it. I was sad
- Riding back up the hill was intense. I walked a good 15 minutes with my bike, which actually wasn’t that long but felt like death this time. It’s 8 km from the marina back to the ferry and I was actually 1km west of there, so 9 km later I was pretty tired.
- In total, pushing pretty hard, the biking took 4 hours or so. Probably could be done in a shorter amount of time but for a first-timer constantly looking at the map so as to not get too lost it took a while. About 30 km I figure from start-to-end.
- At the ferry dock ate a Falafel sandwich (Gotta love hippies who have fresh falafel in a burger place) and the biggest. icecream. cone. ever. – 1 scoop, but she actually put three. It was peanut butter / chocolate. delicious.

Awesome awesome adventure day!