Day 4 – To Ucluelet
N48° 55.313’ W125° 32.584’
Today, the trip gets underway in earnest. Victoria to Ucluelet – 312 kms, and about 5 hours or so of riding. For the most part, the trip is straightforward: north out of Victoria, west to Highway 1, follow that through Nanaimo to Qualicum Beach, and head west over the island on Highway 4 until you run out of land. Hang a left, and you’re in Ucluelet. Of course, the details are always slightly more involved.
Getting set to take off from the Empress.
We had a bit of a slow start this morning. I had my only meeting of the trip over breakfast, leaving Mom to her own devices. After breakfast, we managed to find a card reader for Mom’s camera. Sure, they solved the whole Toshiba/Blu-Ray HD-DVD battle, but can they find a common camera format? Heck, no. 40 bucks later and I have a super-whizz-bang, 54-into-1 card reader. It’ll read XD, SD, CF, MS, SM, MMC and MiniSD. I don’t even know what half of those formats are! However, as a result, Mom is now a contributing photographer to this site.
If she hadn’t already just moved, Mom might just be tempted to call this home…
Since we arrived at the hotel, Mom has been quite taken with her room. If you ever want anything out of her, simply mention ‘suite’ and ‘harbour view’ and she’s putty in your hands. While waiting for me, she spent part of the morning lounging in the window of her room, watching the sea plans come in and out, gazing at the people wandering by and reading a book while she enjoyed a cup of tea. True to form, she even managed to make a new friend. An ugly friend, but that would just be judgmental, so I’m not going to go there.
Any animal, any time. Not someone I’d befriend, but judge not lest ye be judged.
We were finally on the road at about 11:30. Up the Malahat, iPod merrily bopping away, we wended our way up the island towards Nanaimo. Traffic was relatively light once we were out of Victoria itself, and stupidity was kept to a reasonable level. We picked up a bit more traffic as we bypassed Nanaimo, but once the speed limit got upped to 110 km/h we just rocketed through to the turn-off at Qualicum Beach. The ride to Highway 4 actually felt like the longest stretch. This, of course, is probably because it was the longest stretch. We both decided that about 2 hours straight is about our limit; right around the time we were completing our 3rd hour of riding.
We stopped to fill up with gas in Port Alberni, and Wolfgang started yelling at me to check his oil. Gas prices are definitely at an interesting place right now – super premium ran at $1.54/litre this morning. Filling up the other day just before I got to the airport, I put almost $40 in the tank. Of a motorcycle. This was a very new experience… cars I can see putting 40 bucks in, motorcycles not so much. As it turns out, the oil is now at the bottom of the sight glass, so topping it up will be in order. One of the tasks for lunch.
The infamous J&L Drive-In. Definitely worth going all the way back for.
Lunch, however, was an experience unto itself. Avid readers of this site will recall the recommendation of Princess JWo from the Empress to try out the J&L drive-in in Port Alberni. Breton and I were tragically not able to partake of such culinary extravagance over the Easter long weekend. Driving up once again, I was afraid that the tragedy was to repeat itself. But no, one lonely car was parked in the drive-in. They’re open! And so, we got to check out a drive in restaurant. On a motorcycle.
While I topped up the oil, Mom ordered lunch. And they do not mess around. Less than ten minutes later and we had burgers, fries, a root beer for her and a vanilla milk shake for me. Discretion being the better part of valour, we didn’t try to hang the tray on Wolfgang’s windshield. It does work pretty well on the panniers, though. The burgers at the J&L well and truly do rock, and they have some of the best fries that I have tasted. The fact that it all comes on a vintage tray and tacky cardboard boats for the fries is just an added bonus. One final note is that the vanilla shakes are pretty damned awesome as well. At least, what I had of mine. Mom looked in, saw it was all white, and assumed it was an empty cup. So in an inexplicable (not really) bout of organization, she promptly whisked it and the rest of the detritus into the garbage can. Ribbing her about it later, her response was to hit me and then ask how long it was going to take before I let that one go. Just for the record, Mom, I’m done now. Won’t mention it again.
This may not precisely have been what they designed the trays for, but it works!
From Port Alberni, it was off on Highway 4 towards Ucluelet. Leaving town, we had an RV, a logging truck and several cars ahead of us. Through some bizarre product of divine intervention, though, they all turned off the highway within the first 5 kilometres. After that, we didn’t run into a single car moving in our direction until about 15km outside of Ucluelet. We got to ride the highway as fast as we wanted, we got to stop where we wanted and every RV that we encountered was heading in the other direction. I have no idea what happened to earn this little piece of riding nirvana. In fact, I really wish I did, because if I did know I’d do it all the time! But as far as rides go, that one pretty much tops the list of exceptional rides.
The scenery along Highway 4 is truly spectacular…
Mom had a great time, too. Apparently she had a couple of ‘woo hoo!’ moments as we headed downhill into a couple of turns that had concrete barriers along the side and not much beyond them, but she completely failed to mention those until after we got to Ucluelet. And apparently that may actually be attributable to some as-yet-unresolved control issues. But apart from that, she thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Which was pretty impressive, because there weren’t many curves that we did at less than 60 kms an hour, and just when you were done one curve you were pretty much heading into the next one.
…and the roads are a motorcyclist’s dream!
Overall, the verdict is that motorcycling and Mom seem to go together extremely well. She’s a great passenger, and she’s having an awesome time. We got through a fairly full riding day, and she still had a big smile on her face when we were done. Actually, I think it was a little bigger. And the icing on the cake is that on Thursday we get to do it all again the other way as we head to Nanaimo to catch a ferry.
You would think that Mom had been doing this for awhile.
For now, we’re checked into the Terrace Beach Resort, enjoying a glass of bubbly and listening to the sounds of the surf as it rolls in below the balcony. Potatoes are on the barbecue, steaks are marinating and we’ve got some tomato and zucchini to grill up. The sun is just beginning to set over the ocean, and Mom’s curled up on the sofa with a good book. The next steps could be challenging, though. Coming here was the incentive Mom needed to be willing to leave the Empress. I have no idea what it’s going to take to get here to leave Ucluelet.
And apparently, she’s now been doing it long enough to channel ‘too cool to be photographed.’
Especially now that she’s discovered ‘Lighthouse’ on TV. Channel 60 still has the live feed of the Ucluelet lighthouse, also available at a web site near you. Apparently, Breton has very good company. And now that we’re all the way into June, there’s a much larger cast on the show. Lots of people wandering across the screen or climbing up the steps to check out the lighthouse door. It’s not dark enough to know if the flashing buoy is still out there, but Breton’s going to be thrilled to know that the show is still on the air and seems to be popular enough that this season probably won’t be cancelled. And, in late breaking news, Channel 25 has a web cam of the Ucluelet harbour! How’s that for gripping television? Can’t imagine how he overlooked that at the Easter weekend, but overall the channel lineup is looking like it’s got some really powerful offerings planned. TV just doesn’t get much better than this.
It’s Lighthouse, Breton’s favourite show, back on the air!