RRRRRAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Left Gosling Lake and headed back to the trail network. Managed to not run into the doe and fawn on the road by the lake where the eagle was still lurking, then parked at what yesterday`s helpful local had said was the real main carpark, near Lost Lake. Hit the trails, and were straight back into some of the sweetest singletrack we`ve ridden. Miles and miles of the stuff, with enough variation (rocky bits and forest bits and streams and bluffs with views, and, and, and...) that we were in no danger of becoming bored.

Oh, and a bear.

A BEAR!

Flew round a corner and stopped. Fast. The bear (which was HUGE!) was rampaging its way away from me, across the stream and up the hill on the other side. I got the feeling I`d given it a hell of a fright. It certainly gave me one. I recall telling Janine just how glad I was that we were on the western side of the stream on a trail heading south, and the bear (which was HUGE!) was safely on the east bank, and moving away northeast. Imagine my sense of calm and wellbeing when the trail crossed the stream and carved back northwards. I`m told the stop-start manner in which I rode for the next half hour was not just incredibly infuriating, but also outright dangerous, as the places I stopped tended to be on corners and at the crests of hills.

There were lots of black and yellow centipedes in the woods, and an eagle did a close-range flyover as we ate lunch on the shores of Lost Lake, but the calibre of the trails and the bear encounter* really made the morning.

Spent the afternoon driving south, stopping for photo ops every so often. The rain had washed most of the grime off the van by the time we reached the giant gnome at Nanoose, and we made it to the ferry terminal at Nanaimo with plenty of time spare for soup (for Janine) and pizza (for me) before setting sail back to North Vancouver.

Managed to lose the van on the ferry, which was funny for a while but not for quite as long as it took to relocate it. Not that we`re hopeless or anything.

Uselessness aside, the trip was, overall, fairly successful. We both survived, as did our marriage, and we tweaked and refined our systems for packing and camping. Figured out a few more things we needed, and learned valuable lessons about riding in unknown areas (get a proper map), photo opportunities (take them the first chance you get - you may not pass that way again), and camping (the ground is hard. Be very tired when you try to sleep on it. And don`t leave stuff against the inside of the tent wall. Unless you want it damp).

Route has been mapped - see it at http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=106918118566348842533.000486e90f8b05261a941&z=7

Next stop, USA...

* = It was HUGE!