Day 1 — Friday, June 20

June 19th-20th

We left Brett’s at about 6pm for Victoria. The Students’ Union Executive came over to wish us well and help us pack before we left. We drove all night and reached the Ferry at 9:00am. The ferry was uneventful except for the obscene amounts of tourists. We freshened up in the ferry, and left for dinner at Château Victoria around 10:30 am. At this point, most of us hadn’t slept more than 6 hours in 2 nights.

We arrived at the Chateau around 11:30am. We were pretty pumped to see the Alumni in Victoria who were coming out. Approximately 10 Alumni came out to have lunch with us and wish us well. Having those Alumni there definitely gave us the added push needed before we began the trip. We went to Beacon Hill, the mile zero marker, around 2:00pm. We found a place to dip our tires thanks to Kyle Robinson, a current student and resident of Victoria. We took ridiculous amounts of photos in the water and at the zero mile marker sign. We had three Alumni stay with us until we completely got underway, which was very cool and inspriring. We even had an Alumnis ride with us through the city until we were a couple kilometers into the Lockside Trail. She was the first UofL student to receive a Masters in math. Coincidently, she had also been a faculty member of SAIT in the past, and lived in my hometown of Camrose for one year of University. I know Prosser would like that.

It took us a few hours to make it to the Ferry from the mile 0 marker. It was approximately 30 kilometers from the mile zero marker. When we got there, we couldn’t find Allan. It took us around an hour to find him so we could enter the terminal. I thought I’d be a nice guy and ride Brett’s tandem bike onto the Ferry. Bikers have a different location to get onto the ferry, so that’s where I went. The attendant directed me onto the Ferry with explicit instructions to “hurry up.” After about a 30 minute search, I realized my team wasn’t on the Ferry. I had no money, no cell phone, and no pockets. The only thing I had with me was a massive tandem bike and attractive biking attire. After the hour and a half Ferry ride, we landed in Twassan (don’t know the spelling). After having a half hour conversation about the trip with a tour group of elderly people, I phoned my parents collect since I found out you can’t phone cell phones colelct. I told them to phone the group to tell them were I was. I then phoned my parents back, and it was clear that I accidentally caught the early Ferry. The attendant read my ticket wrong. We eventually met up, and it made for an interesting first story of the trip.

We rode our bike until we reached Surrey. It took us awhile to navigate, but we eventually made it to a hotel because it was too late find a campground. The other guys weren’t too keen on the hotel. It was a little sketchy, and you probably could rent it per hour, but I didn’t mind it at all-it was a warm bed. Besides a couple yelling matches outside, a pair in the dumpster, some guy who said he was going to turn the world upside because of something to do with his cat, the night was uneventful. I grew up watching To Serve and Protect, the Canadian knock-off of cops. I knew we were safe in Surrey!☺