First major road closure

Cool truck at the supermarket I went to for our breakfast stuff - cue the ZZ Top.

The Centennial Trail 

Road closure - not sure what was going on but there was a huge chasm where the road should be! 

Luckily there was a way around involving heaving the tandem up here.

'Standing' in line for the drive-through espresso shack.  These seem to have sprung up all over the place.


Our motel last night was on a fairly major cross road junction. To get to the direction we wanted, we had to cross three lanes to get to the left turn lane.  You might have thought that at 07:00 in the morning it would be quiet but the traffic seemed to run all night! Anyhow, much to my relief, after a couple of traffic light cycles there was a gap long enough for us to cross the straight-on and right turn lanes and sit behind a truck going our way.  Soon we were back on quiet residential roads.

The next challenge came in the form of a very old and rickety metal bridge.  The signed cycleway was exceedingly narrow and with a low (below saddle height) barrier protecting a big drop down to, initially the railway and, a little bit further on, the river.  I'd have thought nothing of it on a solo bike but we must have walked about a quarter of a mile to get across it.

Soon after that we were on the Centennial Trail cycleway, which was very nice, even in light mizzle. When we were spat off the end of the trail, the road we emerged onto seemed uncannily quiet. Before long we were seeing signs about ‘9’ being closed northbound, and soon after that I realised we were on ‘9’ heading north. When we reached the start of the diversion route (maybe 20km extra, but also along a major road) we decided to try our luck that we could get through on a bike. The very nice ‘flag’ lady at the closure couldn't have been more helpful and, after calling ahead, told us of a way around. It was a bit of a struggle but way better than a diversion down a major road.

After that it has been mainly plain sailing – mostly quiet roads with the odd busier section. 118km has brought us to a quite nice motel in Bellingham.

Canada tomorrow - we have filled out a mountain of forms - hopefully we haven't missed anything!

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