Adventures In Bicycle Touring

So last weekend I decided to go camping on Salt Spring Island; this would be my first ever experience at bicycle touring. I'd like to do more touring in the future, especially through Europe, so a brief weekend trip to a nearby island seemed like a good place to start and get some idea of what touring is like.

I had been planning this trip for some time and in the weeks leading up to it I started shopping for camping equipment. I wasn't interested in staying at expensive hotels or B&B's. I wanted to keep this trip cheap and similar to what touring would be like when there aren't hotels and B&B's every few kilometers. I wanted to do it totally on my own.

When I started shopping for equipment I had two main requirements: it had to be light, and it had to be small. Panniers, even really large ones, don't have a lot of room so you have to be fairly critical about what you absolutely need to bring. My sleeping bag and shelter alone used up 2/3rds of one of my panniers. The sleeping bag and shelter were also the most difficult to choose.

I'm no fan of winter, so that was enough for me to decide that I'll never be camping outside of summer. With this in mind I looked for the smallest sleeping bag I could find that still had a decent temperature rating since even summer nights can get quite cool. I settled on the MEC Caravan +10C bag which weighs in at 1kg. Anything lighter had a minimum temperature rating that I considered to be too high for the climate around here and I would likely be cold. I figured it can't get colder than 10 degrees that often in the summer.

So now I needed a shelter.

I scrutinized every tent MEC had to offer. None of their tents were light or small enough. Every tent seemed to weigh at least a couple kilograms and then there's the tent poles taking up precious space. To top it all off all of these big heavy monstrosities cost a fortune. I was now contemplating that a few nights at a B&B might not be so bad. Then a friend of mine who is also interested in getting into bicycle touring showed me something he had discovered, the Hennessy Hammock.

This was the most brilliant idea for a shelter I had ever seen. Not only was it inexpensive but it was also light and small. The model I bought, the Expedition Asym, weighs in at 1.2kg and packs up in almost the same amount of space as my sleeping bag. Since it suspends you in the air you don't need a mattress/foam pad like you would in a tent sleeping on the cold, hard, ground; and to set it up all you need are trees! I was sold.

The last "big" item was cookware. I decided it would probably be handy to have a couple pots for any meals that required cooking. I settled on the GSI Outdoors Extreme Cookset (small) as the physical size, capacity of the pots, and the weight made it seem like a cookset that could handle a decent sized meal for one person.

I picked up a few other small things that are crucial to a camping trip such as matches with a water tight container, a flashlight, a small first aid kit, some cutlery, and a map of where I was going. Pretty basic stuff you need on any camping trip which luckily takes up almost no space. I also purchased a grill that could stand over a fire pit to sit pots on but unfortunately didn't arrive in the mail before I left for my trip. Otherwise I packed a few books for entertainment, a change of clothes, my bike clothes and shoes, a towel, toothbrush, etc.

I packed on the Thursday night planning to take the bus to Tsawwassen to catch the ferry early Friday morning. Everything fit pretty well in my two panniers and weighed in at around 30lbs. I paid little attention to this as I thought to myself "once they're on the bike they'll be so much easier to carry". Not exactly.

The bus and ferry trip, although quite pleasant because of the beautiful scenery and sunshine, was uneventful (except for getting sun burned while napping on the outside deck most of the trip). Bringing your bicycle onto the ferry is quite easy as you simply walk it on and park it up against the side of the ship at the other end before they load the cars. The ferry I returned on even had a bicycle rack.

Once I arrived on the island at the Long Harbour terminal I departed the ferry and headed for Ganges. I was surprised at how small a town Ganges was. I didn't stay in town long though and continued through to explore the island. I bicycled across the island to the other ferry terminal, a good 20km or so of rolling hills. After looking at my map and figuring out where I was I decided to head back to Ganges to get groceries for dinner and find a campsite since it was getting to be pretty late in the afternoon and I wasn't sure how busy or difficult to find campgrounds would be. The tourist information center was very helpful and gave me a list of all campgrounds on the island. I decided to spend Friday night at the Ganges Campgrounds which was just a kilometer or two outside of town. They were almost empty so I had my pick of spots. I setup camp, had dinner, and decided the next day I would head north.

I followed the north End Road all the way from Ganges, around the northern end of the island, through Vesuvius Bay and back to Ganges. The scenery was quite beautiful, consisting of many farms with mountainous terrain in the background. It was very quiet too; I encountered few cars on the road and rarely saw other people. Although I passed a cyclist I met on the ferry coming the opposite way. The entire road consists of rolling hills very much like the ride out to Horseshoe Bay. I don't think I encountered a single flat stretch of road on the entire island. I was always going up a hill or coming down one only to go up the next one. This combined with the extra weight I was carrying proved to be quite exhausting (I almost missed having a triple crankset on my bike, almost :p), so much so that once I returned to Ganges I bought some more water and headed straight for my second campgrounds, Mowhinna Creek.

I setup camp for my final night and decided to head to Ruckle Park the next day before catching the ferry home. I ended up cancelling my plans though as on my way out to the park, which is on the Southern end of the island, I was just so exhausted that I decided to go to the ferry instead.

So overall I had a great trip seeing the majority of the island and learning just how difficult it is to have to carry all of your equipment with you, everywhere you go, all the time. I'm so glad I didn't have any trouble with my bike. The shelter I bought worked perfectly; unfortunately this trip I didn't end up using my cooking gear. I think I'll need to figure out how to cut back on weight though, as this trip I brought some things that I didn't end up using at all.

Now to decide which island to do next.