Qualicum Beach friends, Pam and Brian, arrived last Friday, and so we met them for coffee after the Saturday market, and scheduled a walk for Sunday. We took them on a walk up the Maitai River to the campground, then had lunch at the Suter Art Gallery cafe. My motto is fast becoming "no lunch, no walk", but Marlene seems to view it more as "no walk, no lunch". Oh well, as long as I get lunch I am happy.
On Thursday we rented bikes for a ride to Richmond, which is about 15 Km away. We had seen bikes for rent beside the river for $60 per day, but decided to visit a local bike shop, which we found wanted $45 per day per bike. The math really does not work - you can rent a $15,000 car for $42 per day, but you have to pay $45 per day to rent a $500 bicycle. Who do you think is making more money?
Being unwilling to pay $45 per day, we decided to try the $25 per day deal at the local backpackers hostel. The guy was very friendly and told us that as well as a trail to Richmond, there is now a trail from Richmond to Rabbit Island. He provided us with a map, lock and helmets and off we went, thinking that we had got a much better deal.
Our first stop was at that bike shop that we had visited about half an hour earlier, to put air in the tyres (not to be confused with tires). This should probably have been our first clue as to the condition of the bikes.
The trail from Nelson to Richmond is a paved shared use trail that primarily follows the route of the old railway reserve, so it was a safe and relatively easy ride - I will blog another day about Nelson and the railway, as it is an interesting story.
We both ran into problems as soon as we tried to change gears - either it would slip to a different gear or would not change at all. I ended up manually putting the chain on the most appropriate front and back sprocket on both bikes and we rode without gears. It reminded me of the bike I rode growing up, which by design had no gears. We also found that the front brake worked really well, but the rear brake did very little - thankfully we not planning on doing any racing, or we might have been flying over the handlebars when trying to stop. I guess you do get what you pay for!!
But it was a beautiful day, and the ride was otherwise uneventful. We stopped for lunch in Richmond, and then decided to take the trail to Rabbit Island. This trail was gravel and wound around the edge of the estuary with lots of bridges and sections of boardwalk.
Being marshy there were lots of wading birds, but the only creatures that would stay still long enough for a photo were these 3 steers, who didn't seem to care that we stopped to take their photo.
We found that the trail had not been completed all the way to Rabbit Island, so ended up riding on gravel beside the road which was not a lot of fun, so we turned around and headed back towards Richmond and home, and got some nice views of the hills along the way.
By now we were in the heat of the day and found ourselves facing a head wind as we biked north, so were both happy to stop for a drink in Stoke, which would not have otherwise justified a visit.
They say "if it doesn't kill you, it'll make you stronger", so we must now be a lot stronger as the ride up Beatson Road darn near killed us, with no gears. We ended up walking part of it. But then we were over the hump and could almost coast all the way back to Nelson.
When the guy at the hostel asked how the bikes were, I told him that we had a little trouble with the gears, but otherwise they were great....after all, I wanted my damage deposit back and did not want him to think that we had broken anything. I wonder how many previous renters have done the same thing?
After walking back up the hill to our apartment we were both happy to veg for the evening. Needless to say we both slept very well....exhaustion will do that.
Last night we went to see an English movie, "The Sweeney", at the local movie theatre (mindless violence) and then to a Thai restaurant (the #2 rated restaurant in Nelson according to Trip Advisor)for dinner. We agreed that we preferred Chokdee where we ate last week - food had more flavour and much better value for money.
Today being Saturday we are off to the market and then coffee with Pam and Brian.
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