Simon and Ron E. departed from Selkirk Station at 7 am lit by a waning moon and the brilliant planet Jupiter. (Confirmed after observing 3 of its moons with binoculars.) It is pretty cold at that time of the morning in October - frost on the wooden trestles at Selkirk, Swan and Blenkinsop. We were joined by Gary at McKenzie. The 3 of us made good time enjoying the deserted bike path through the foggy fields of Saanich and the eventual arrival of daylight with a bit of warmth. We arrived at Swartz Bay at about 8:45, where we met up with 4 other riders.
The intrepid 7 debarked at Otter Bay on Pender Island after a 40 minute crossing to be greeted by Lester, a Pender Island resident and organic gardener. Lester led us the few K to his home and gave us an interesting tour of his greenhouse, apple orchard and gardens where he raises most of his families food - apples, potatoes, peppers, beans, tomatoes, asparagus, blueberries... He raises his own mason bees to do the pollinating and powers the whole system with solar power. We ate huge apples right off his trees.
Bidding farewell to Lester, we headed east and south on little travelled narrow winding roads. After a short visit to histori Hope Bay and a stop for supplies at the Driftwood mall we crossed over onto South Pender Island by a single lane, wooden bridge. Soon after the group split up with one person investigating the marine campground and park another group heading to Poet's cove and a thrid group retiring to Mortimer Spilt for lunch in the sun.
We all met back at the Port Browning Pub for refreshments and then returrned to Otter Bay to catch the 5:10 pm ferry back to Swartz Bay.
Pender Island, though hillier than Saltspring or Galiano still has a lot of secrets to be explored in the future.
This will be the last long ride of the season. See you in the summer of 2012 for many more Gulf Island adventures! In future we will do a lot more overnight camping so that we can spend more time at our destiniations and not have to travel there and back all in one day!
Click for route information from Rob E's amazing GPS Device. Click for fullsized images:
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Pictures from Alex:
Pictures from Simon:
3 panoramas. Click for fullsized images.
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