As per usual, my sleep had been interrupted and short – I always get nervous before the first day - but I felt OK, and was looking forward to meeting up with the guides and crew for this trip.
Up for hours before the kick-off time of 8:30am, I alternated between making sure everything was OK with the bike, my suitcases, and the Olympics (MORE freekin' volleyball!)
Wandered down into the lobby at just before 8:30, parked all my gear outside, and I think I was the only person waiting for pickup at this place (honestly, I can't remember!).
What I do remember is a familiar silver van pulling up outside the joint, and even more eerily, a familiar face peering at me from out of it! I know that face!!! It is Steve, a member of the previous years Glacier Tour that I did! And exiting the van is his wife Amy! Wow – what a great moment!
Steve and Amy are the tandem terrors, and wonderful parents of a great kid whom I got to room with in 2007 – Jacob! Sadly, Jacob is not on this tour – but then again, he'd probably heard that I was coming, and decided to stay away! It is a great moment, and one that cements this tour as memorable before it begins. We are to share many great little moments along the way...
Here are they and myself immortalised digitally later on that first day:
I really do think the the world of these two – they are the type of people you meet occasionally in your life who become immediate favourites – it's a 'sympatico' thing. Amy is just such a fun person, and Steve is an absolute rock and straight-up guy. I was SO happy...
Anyway, things are organised, I get to meet Mark the head guide (who immediately unimpresses me with his headmaster routine, but then as the tour progresses, so converts me with his personality, strength, and organisational ability), Stevie the bombshell lady guide (I immediately wish I was 18 years younger, but she proves adept by managing to charm old farts like me as well), and Wilder the other male guide (who is pretty much undescribable and a treasure because you can't describe him! - the word unique was invented for him), and we are off on...A FREEKIN' VAN RIDE!
This is one thing that drives me NUTS about tours – at some point, one must van up to get to strategic points. I literally go insane, and the robot Len has to take over in order to project a human appearance and maintain the charade, whilst real Len goes mentally ballistic and chews off his own lips! I really don't remember any of these van trips because I literally disconnect.
I DO remember that we get to a place called the Red Lion Inn at Eugene, to pick up the remaining guests (including roomate Robb – more on this great man later),and then DRIVE some more to some place where the tour starts with lunch. I vaguely recall that at one point we go past large bodies of water (I believe they are called dams), and that at one point it showers briefly, which discussion centres on re: a bad omen etc.
BUT, we arrive at a place called Greenwater Park, where we are liberated from van hell, and robot Len gets a pic cracking a bicep before he is put back into stasis for the next van trip (pic of Robot Len below):
After lunch, we have an out-and-back ride which seems to have a very fish-oriented theme: we pass fisheries, ride on fish-named roads such as Fish Hatchery Rd, cross fish-ladened rivers like the Salmon River, which is positively teeming with fish (well, this is an assumption – I didn't stop to verify this), and so forth.
It is a lovely ride, and because the Perth winter has been so bleak and wet that I haven't been able to ride for 4 weeks, I immediately formulate a plan to do every optional ride on each day that is available. The optional ride on this day involves an 8 mile ride up (it is indeed UP) a rather battered tarmac which ends in...a gravel road! There is nothing to see, it just mutates from semi-acceptable 'road' to dirt. This road is poetically named “Rd 2147”! Presumably it's the 2147th road like this in the region. Here is a pic:
Still, it's a nice little climb, punctuated by yawning chasms in the road (which are cracks), and massive boulders astride the road (which are avalanches). I pass two tour-mates, Greg and Elliot, going to the dirt road from whence I have come some two miles ago, and charmingly inform them they have two miles to go, neglecting to mention that they will see...A DIRT ROAD! I am a certifiable bastard!
Post-climb of wrecked-road, I continue on the original path, and come across Wilder, our enigmatic tour guide, lounging on a bridge above a river. He points me up the road, saying “it goes up there – when you hit the gravel, turn back”. WOW – two roads which end in gravel in one day: such treasure's abundancy has me giddy with joy! Below is the river over which he lorded:
The journey up to, and back from, the second gravel prize is nice: wooded and cool, uphill one way and (amazingly) downhill the other. I pass various tour members already making their way back from the glittering gravel end-point (I hold my tongue regarding the double pleasure I've enjoyed this day), and, reaching Valhalla , I gaze wondrously at its gravelly treasures before reluctantly making my way back along the road and beyond, to where the fabled “Blackberry Bushes” await.
Head Guide Mark has informed us that at some point on the journey towards our night's resting destination, there are blackberry bushes (well, I think they were blackberries, but I could be wrong – Oregon seems to have more names for berries than Eskimos have words for 'snow') of such mythic abundance and taste that legends have spawned re: their magical properties. It is said in these parts that a giant creature, part fish and part-gravel road, upon consumption of said berries, re-incarnated as a self reliant bicycle, and can be seen on a moonlit nights careening endlessly up and down roads which end in dirt!
Well, the bushes did exist, the berries were lovely, and they certainly attracted the attention of our group. I arrived at said bushes to find a group of my tour mates genuflecting at the foot of them and muttering some weird incantations before plunging in and plucking the ripe fruit from amidst the cruel thorns. I myself did plunge also, and emerged with a fistful of fruit which I stuffed into my gob – very nice! Post-tour pics suggested that this may have been a reckless act on my part – below is a pic of Elliot and Greg looking like two pissed-off bears that have just noticed some interloper has scored some of their precious fruit!:
Having survived the wrathe, a bunch of us continued the quest to our night's digs. Along this path was a little hill – a little bastard of a hill that ground upwards ever steeper until my weak arse decided I couldn't 39 by 23 gear up it anymore. For the first and last time of the tours, I got off and walked the remaining 100 metres to its top. Mythical berries indeed! Where was your abundance of powers now, foul fruits! I remain ashamed to this day!
After 67kms of riding, the night's digs was a gorgeous little B&B called 'Westfir Lodge'. Wonderfully, the magical beer cooler had appeared, and I decided to wash away the foul poison of 'berries' with the know powers of beer!
Westfir is a gorgeous house with rooms full of memorabilia and amazing furniture, lovely owners, and vicious corgis! Well, there were several corgis who lounged at what were clearly their customary locations under various pieces of furniture, and their very specific expressions suggested they did NOT wish to be disturbed whilst at these designated locales. Being a vehement anti-royalist, I am aware that the Queen of England employs corgis as attack dogs of vicious temperament, so I wasn't taking any chances!
Later, after a lovely meal, my roomate Robb and I took a little waltz around the streets surrounding Westfir and within minutes we were...back at Westfir! OK, so it's not that large a place (wherever it is) but that's not its fault.
Robb had been at pains earlier in the evening to feel like he needed to apologise for the size of the beds at Westfir: my glimpse of them seemed to confirm they were normal single beds. As we retired to our room for the night, it became more apparent why he was concerned: they appeared to be built for a person of height around 170 cm – I am 185 cm.
Still, with the fatigue built from climbing roads-to-gravel, and consuming less-than-mythical berries, I seemed to fall asleep alright.
Only the next day's adventures would test this...!
