78.0 Over and out.

Eleven months might be up, but our card for the USA National Parks is still valid and the USA was just across the border. So we took another ferry, this one built in the 1950's, from Vancouver Island to Port Angeles - nowhere near Los of the same name, but the gateway to the Olympic National Park. And this has nothing to do with the Olympics either.

Olympic National Park would otherwise have been difficult to get to. It has the usual mountains, rivers, lakes and waterfalls. It also has a rainforest - a temperate one as opposed to a tropical one; a forest like the ones that would have one time covered parts of Ireland and Scotland. It is basically untouched, so lots of moss and lots of rotting dead trees. Because it is a rainforest it is damp, very damp and is therefore not a fire hazard.

We also managed a hike elsewhere in the National Park - shorter than the one we did in Waterton Lakes National Park, so we weren't  puffed out afterwards. Highlight of this was coming almost literally (<10m) face to face with a mountain lion. Mountain lion sounds better than cougar. Having watched us watching it for a while, it got bored and walked off. We weren't sure whether hymn singing would have helped in this instance.

The end is very close now but we managed to squeeze another little ferry in on the way back to Vancouver. This ferry left from Port Townsend which was the port where the prospectors left trying to get to Canada for the Dawson City gold rush. One way or another we seem to have followed a lot of their trail.

Vancouver, for us, is all about getting the bike ready and our packing to return home by plane. We have accumulated a few things on the trip and, as our packing is tight, and we don't want to wear all our motorcycle gear on a nine and a half hour flight in a small seat, some stuff has to go back with the bike. But not stuff that could go mouldy as the bike could take a while, a long while, to get home. With the bike handed over to the freight agent, we still managed to see a bit of Vancouver but it all felt a bit weird. So might Blackheath...

Some numbers:

56,230km or 34,940 miles ridden in the Americas. If you count the 60 miles or so of us taking the bike to Motofreight in the UK, that will top the 35,000 miles for the trip.

8 falls from the motorcycle. Three in Argentina (two on gravel, one on sand), three in Costa Rica (two on gravel, one in a pothole), one for Paul on his own trying to park the bike in Mexico and one in the USA on a gravel and potholed carpark. And it fell over once due to us unloading it wrongly whilst poorly parked on an incline in Chile.

Visits to Harley-Davidson in Santiago, Medellin, Bogota, Tucson, Seattle, Bozeman (twice), Calgary (twice) and Anchorage. Not forgetting visits to other motorcycle shops: Gonzalo in Montevideo, Bernardo in Montevideo and Salvador in Punta Arenas.

New tyres to set off with, but replaced tyres twice en-route and desperately need new ones now. New rear chain to set off with but replaced twice en-route. Two new fuel pumps and two new batteries. One set of new front brake pads and a new clutch assembly. Some dents in the panniers...

Over 7,350 photos kept - many, many more taken and then deleted. How will we ever make photobooks...

78 blog posts.

344 nights we haven't slept in our own bed.

207 different accommodations of all levels of comfort and style. 

16 different countries. Plus an afternoon in Brazil.

35 border crossings with our little Brazil excursion.

Lost one anorak, a Panama hat, two pairs of sunglasses, a cardigan, two buffs and a small rucksack. Replaced, wore out and broke a few more items too.

An incalculable number of memories.

And all this on an inherently unstable vehicle.

77.0 Decisions made

Whilst the motorcycle is not perfect, we are counting on it getting us to Vancouver from where we will all return; one of us a lot more slowly than the other two. The tread on the rear tyre is almost non-existent. Thank you Alaska and Yukon. But first there is more to see and do here in Southern Canada. When we crossed over from the USA into Canada we were dissuaded from visiting Waterton Lakes National Park by an impending rainstorm - so we fled east. So now was the time to visit. What was interesting was the opportunity, which we took, to lodge in the centre of the National Park at reasonable cost. We were able to do a short hike directly from our accommodation. After nearly a year on the road our fitness was clearly not what it was; either that or our hike was substantially longer than we thought it was (11km, 500m up and then back down, 4.5hrs). We know, not an impressive score.

When we were in the USA it was possible to see something spectacular almost every day. In Canada it seems more a question of taking a number of days to get somewhere. And during those days there are forests and forests and not much else. It made us think of those companies who promote their environmental credentials via carbon offsetting, ie planting trees. Clearly planting is better than not planting. And a few nice trees in an English village certainly adds character. But as far as carbon offsetting is concerned, there are zillions and zillions of trees here in Canada and an extra few thousand isn't going to change things that much, especially when you see the amount destroyed by forest fires. As there is not much to draw our attention, the odd signboard in the forest is like a magnet. It was interesting to read that the forests were 'harvested' and that there were approximately 90 years between harvests.

We have been autumnal for a while now on our travels but for the first time the pumpkins are now on display. All sizes, shapes and colours. However no sign of pumpkin pie - but you can get a pumpkin spice (which must just be cinnamon/nutmeg?) flavoured coffee.

Rather than head straight to Vancouver and home we heard that there was a scenic road, the Sea to Sky Road, or the Sky to Sea Road, as it would be in our case, that ran down through the Whistler ski resort, the rock climbing mecca of 'Skwxwú7mesh' and then down to the coast. So we headed that way. Unknown to us we had to take a road that had been partially washed away two years ago in order to get there. It had 22 construction sites on its length and we were especially careful, not wanting to slip and injure ourselves at this stage of the trip. After the 22 there was a 23rd where we had to wait for a pilot car. Whilst waiting, we watched the trains go by, over 2.5km in length. We stayed in Squamish, which is at the head of a Canadian fjord equivalent, and goes under the First Nation name of 'Skwxwú7mesh'. We haven't worked out how to pronounce a word that has the number '7' as a letter in the middle of it. We can imagine what the typesetters were saying to themselves when they prepared the road signs.

We are suckers for putting the bike on a ferry. Even the Woolwich. So we took the ferry to Vancouver Island for a spot of whale watching, whales permitting. Despite Vancouver being a very big city and in British Columbia, the Provincial Capital is actually Victoria on Vancouver Island. The city harbour was bustling with water taxis, tourist boats, seaplanes, tugs and barges as well as yachts and fishing boats. In some respects it reminded us of Istanbul as far as the busyness of the water was concerned. Victoria has a very impressive Legislature Building of the same standing as the Natural History building in South Kensington. It also has a statue of Queen Victoria in front of it. Quite near a tree. Maybe the tree has grown over the last 100 years or so, but the statue and tree are clearly fighting for the same space and poor old Victoria is currently in the shade.

Our cold and wet whale watching trip was very successful. Cold and wet despite Victoria having the most temperate climate in Canada. We were able to see a number of pods of orcas, a couple of humpback whales, sealions, harbour seals and even a sea otter eating its sea urchin. We ate our own seafood later; fish and chips with the cheapest available fish, salmon. It was quite a way to celebrate our eleven months on the road.

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76.0 Beecham's Remedies for Bikes

Canada is huge, really huge. So we have a long way to go to find a way back home. We are currently homing in on two West Coast options for returning - but first we need to get a flu remedy for the bike which is available in Calgary. This will mean that, all being well, we will have to retrace a bit more of our route. However, the plus point is that we will then be riding down through the Icefields Parkway/Jasper National Park, which was closed on the way up due to the catastrophic fire in Jasper itself. The fire damaged or wiped out a third of the town's buildings.

The road from the Skagway Canadian border to Calgary still represents over 1,400 pretty deserted miles. Deserted as far as a lack of coffee shops, petrol and accommodation is concerned. But we were given the 'opportunity' (no room at any other inns) to stay at a Lodge that had two seaplanes for taking people fishing in even more remote locations. Unfortunately we had to rush... But we did justify our stay on the basis that it would very shortly be our wedding anniversary - number 38. And there were the Northern Lights - albeit from the night before we arrived.

The bike survived a 0°C night outside at a motel next to a bridge (with a deck made of steel grating) in the middle of nowhere. There was a First Nation Community Centre just before we arrived, which we visited in the forlorn hope of coffee and warmth. Unfortunately we were too late (in the year) for the tour of the Centre. In the morning when we left our motel the motorcycle seat was still frosted/icy at 08.00. The ride felt endless that day but we found an excellent coffee and cake stop in the sports hall of a/the town on the way - 300km for a coffee. We were not the only ones warming up there, as we met Zach, a young American biker who, literally, was thawing out as he had been camping the night before. 

We then had issues we had been dreading. Our overnight stop was at Fort Nelson, a place that for some reason consisted almost entirely of under-occupied large motels. The overnight temperature was not too bad. Weather wise there was just a spot of rain as could be seen from the puddles in the carpark in the morning. Nothing we have not experienced recently. However we spend a long time in that car park that morning as the motorcycle didn't want to start. We had been experiencing some starting issues previously but, with the amount of riding we are doing every day, we had thought that that would charge the bike's battery. The bike had the flu. 

We tried to console ourselves with the fact that we were in a motel car park and not at the side of the road somewhere/nowhere. In Canada, most cars seem to have an electric lead hanging out of the front grille. Nothing to do with EVs, but possibly something to do with thawing things out without using the car battery when it gets cold. The motel had a series of electric points outside where cars could plug into. We borrowed an extension lead from the motel, and, with the aid of our travel plug, Paul plugged in our UK battery charger. Unfortunately it was for a different sort of battery, the one we dumped in Montevideo, and after a couple of hours not much happened.

The maintenance man at the Boston Pizza establishment across the way came over to see what was happening and chatted with Paul. He mentioned that the warehouse behind the hotel, that looked like a steel fabricator, was a hardware shop like B&Q. Paul investigated and bought a different charger and after another couple of hours the engine started. We left at 14.00 after a few gymnastics involving petrol and fuel bladders. It was then a 400km ride without turning the engine off,  just in case...

We have since been able to stop at places with external electric points. Our luck will run out... The lack of photos has nothing to do with the bike's cold - just not that much to photograph! 

Our journey to Calgary involved eight stopovers. Some days felt quite long. We looked forward to our evening meal as it was highly unlikely we would find coffee stops enroute. However there wasn't always a restaurant open where we stopped, or one we could be bothered going to, so we did put up with a grill-your-own vege burger in a pub and supermarket rotisserie chicken a couple of times. We have so far managed to avoid the Golden Arches or its equivalents though the Tim Horton's in Canada, when you can find one, serves palatable croissants and coffee.

There seem to be small oil fields dotted about hiding behind the pine trees on our way through Northern Alberta. Occasionally we see gas being flared off. Most of the route en-route to Calgary was 'deserted'. Desolate would not be the right word to describe the very deserted pine forests. However the last few days from Hinton down the Icefields Parkway to Lake Louise and onwards to Canmore were pretty magnificent. We had already ridden the Lake Louise to Canmore section but not the most Northern section due to the fire. We did not want to gawp at people's misfortune in Jasper, let alone take photos of it,  but from the highway we could see still standing brick and stone fireplaces and chimneys, sole remains of people's houses and holiday chalets, amongst charred ruins and blackened tree trunks.

The reason for the choice of route was to be able to ride the Icefields Parkway past the Columbia Icefield Glacier and others, a 'must' from what we had been told by a number of people. It didn't disappoint. What was really interesting was seeing the tourist 'buses' that took you out onto the Glacier and also looking at the photos showing how the glacier had receded.

After staying once again with our friends, Elle and Jeremy, in Canmore we were able to get to Calgary where the bike could get its cold remedy (battery, chain, sprockets and cush drive). It also needs a new rear tyre as the Alaskan and Yukon type of road surfacing have not been kind to it. But that will have to wait. 

Still on the road and heading towards the coast now - apparently it's still the last vestiges of summer there and we intend to profit!