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Sunday August 4         Cycling Day 26

  Fort St John ( BC) to Swan Lake (Alb)

Distance:  (Km) 113

Time:  5:15

Average Speed: (Km/ hr). 21.4

Ascent:  (m). 1054

Heart Rate: (beats / min). 112

Cumulative Distance:   (km) 2936

Cumulative Ascent :  (m). 24,442

Punctures so far : 0

Morning Call this morning from Ed at 6:15 gave me the opportunity for a shower and a phone call back to Ireland.

Today we are starting on a new section so a change in personnel. Murray (Ottawa) has left us here and we are joined by Judith ( Peter McC’s wife) and Kevin McAleer (Ottawa). Also Walker has left us for 6 days to attend to some business back home in Vancouver but he’ll join us again next Rest Day.

Forecast for today was good and favourable according to yr.no. And it was spot-on i.e. a west wind to help us as we headed south-eastwards and mid 20s temp in the early afternoon. Other riders had forecasts from other sources giving us rain. So all calm on the road as we hit out just before 8 on relatively quiet roads in comparison with last Friday.

After the town of Taylor we crossed over the large Peace River on a grated bridge and straight into Big  Bam-- a 6km climb at 5% but a 400 metre piece in the middle at 10% accounting for a 300 metre lift over that stretch. Once I saw the communications mast off to my right, I knew that this was a true top -  always a good indicator.

The bridge over the Kiskatinwa River caused me to stop and admire the view below.

Today we have moved from boreal forestry to agriculture. It made the day more interesting (and shorter) to be viewing the grain, meadows,granola(rapeseed)  and horses as I cycled along. I sensed a different scent in the air - the scent of tilled earth and crops. Refreshing. Grain seems to be at an early stage - the cereal experts will inform me further.

Names on roads seem to have changed and become more numerical. No longer have we imaginative ones like Buckinghorse Road and the like and now it’s just Road 198. But last Friday I came across a small community on the north side of Fort St John who have been imaginative with their unimaginative name. They’re located on Road 101 but they have dubbed their area WONOWON. I like it.

After 72 km I came to the city of Dawson Creek passing by its Country Club as I cycled in. Dawson Creek is now regarded as Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway as explained in a previous post. (Fort Nelson was the original one). Accordingly this is the end of the Alaska Highway for us. I celebrated at the sign in the Railway Park ....just read ‘leaving’ instead of ‘entering’.

 The original Mile 0 post erected at this roundabout was knocked down by a car in 1946, so it was moved to a safer location in the centre of the city — shades of the Maid of Erin! I visited this historic spot also. We have been on this road since Whitehorse, almost 1000 km. Incredible.

Naturally shops and businesses trade on the city’s unique position in their marketing.

With a fair amount of traffic on the highway I wasn’t expecting to encounter much wildlife. The only instance was a dead coyote in the centre of the road on one of the climbs.

Just after 90 km I came on a long straight stretch of road — it turned out to be 12 km in length. But with fields and crops on both sides the heartbreak was absent. Just a matter of being patient and ploughing on. Always possible to distract yourself.

Our campsite tonight is by Swan Lake. After pulling off the highway we had another 10 km on inferior roads to get around to the far side of the lake. On this road we depended on TDA orange flagging tape for navigation. Unfortunately some Canadian utilities also use an orange tape (different material) resulting in Peter and I turning off at a ‘foreign’ orange tape and ended up in a farm yard. Not likely to be our campsite. Herself was out pronto to apprehend these strangers in her yard.

Our campsite is on a Disc Golf course — camping on a lawn. I picked my spot just by the tilled vegetable patch complete with a nifty rotovator. But very little produce in evidence.

Swan Lake is  busy holiday area and this is a holiday weekend in BC also (British Columbia Day). Boats and jet skis are up  and down all evening. Its waters are renowned for fishing with 4–6 lb trout caught here regularly.

Instead of a shower (not available) I dropped down to the boat-launch and just hopped in. It wasn’t crystal clear but it refreshed after the initial shock. With temperatures of 23 at that stage I dried off in no time just sitting and watching boats come and go.

As we came down the dirt road to the camp we entered Alberta for a short while and people’s watches automatically switched to Mountain Time i.e just 7 hours behind Ireland. It could cause a bit of confusion with the timetabling on the camps whiteboard. Tomorrow we’ll have the ceremonial crossing of the border into Alberta.

Bit of sad news:  Dougy, our lunch mascot was stolen in Dawson Creek today. I’d ask people to keep an eye out for him, especially those with dash-cam. Small, green, cute and likely to cause excitement in hungry cyclists.

A very handy 113 km today in favourable terrain and conditions. And arriving in camp at 2pm gave me a half-day’s rest.

Thank God for the health and thank God for the energy.