Mr. Williams has allotted four days for a trip to the PCH’s Mile Zero in Lund, British Columbia, but thanks to poor planning and careless abandon, he and his mysterious riding partner may never get there
It happened like this: Several months ago, I read a book that had been gifted to me by my darling wife, Janiebelle. I’m still recovering from the strain. In Adventures in Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nude Potluck and Other Stories From Desolation Sound by Canadian Grant Lawrence, the author mentions “Mile Zero,” which is the start of the Pacific Coast Highway. You know PCH: the mighty road that slithers and twists down the west coast of the Americas; where Ponch and that other guy rode those big Kawasaki’s on CHiPs; the route featured in so many movies and TV shows and commercials and books that you can just picture yourself riding down it, with the surf crashing to your right, majestic views of bluffs and beach houses, your long blond hair flowing out from under your helmet or, if you’re a woman, maybe you wear it up under your helmet – I don’t know. Anyway, that highway. And it starts right here in British Columbia, in a little town called Lund, on the Sunshine Coast.
The PCH, or Highway 101, as it’s sometimes referred to, is actually 15,202 km long and runs from Lund right on down to Quellon, Porto Monte, Chile, which is actually near the southern end of South America. Well now, that was news to me.
Never Boring
After careful consideration, research (I’m famous for my research) and checking with my wife, I immediately fired off a telegram to Editor Roberts requesting permission to mount an
expedition to explore the PCH from Mile Zero, all the way down to the Canadian border, a distance of more than 200 km! Everyone and their dog has written about it south of the border, and with the U.S. dollar exchange rates, and I had a dentist appointment coming up . . . it just didn’t make sense to do the entire 15,202 km route. Editor Roberts’ enthusiastic response was something like, “Okay, but it better not be boring.” Another adventure was afoot!
Now, some of you may remember my groundbreaking piece on moto-camping in a previous issue. My riding buddy, Fx, certainly did. I’d really taken things to the limit on that one, and when I told Fx what I was planning, and that I was planning to do it solo, I think she was concerned. You see, she’s some sort of Scottish outdoor commando with 30-odd years of experience, kind of like my version of the Stig, for you Top Gear viewers. She’d read my camping piece [April 2015] and, well, I think she felt both pity and alarm that I would go out on my own again, so she cleared her schedule and offered to join me. Now we were really getting somewhere!
Fortunately, we had recently serviced Fx’s big Bandit, which had included adding several kilograms of slightly post-war washers to repair a break in the front right of the fairing, but Fx was able to pack her left pannier in such a way as to achieve level flight.
Hatcheting a Plan
We allowed ourselves four days to make this trip, what with photography, talking with locals and all. Fx had the idea that rather than just ride up to Mile Zero and then ride back down from it again, we’d plan a sneak attack by taking the ferry to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, ride up the island coast to Comox, hop back on a ferry to Powell River on the mainland, and we’d land just below Lund. They’d never see us coming, and we could ride the highway in the correct direction: south from Mile Zero. And it almost happened that way.
Since my last trip, I’d invested in some nice aluminum Givi panniers, which are both larger and more robust than the stock plastic Suzuki boxes for the mighty V-Strom 1000. This allowed me to make a critical decision. You see, my grandfathers’ pre-WWII hatchet used on my previous adventure was in pretty rough shape. For example, someone had cut down the handle, no doubt to enable it to fit in a tool box or something, and the electrical tape binding the crack in the handle was a bit worn and the head was loose. Otherwise, it was looking pretty good. But knowing that every outdoor he-man needs a reliable hatchet on a trip like this, the decision was made to upgrade to newer hatchet technology. So, off I went to the massive emporium of crap, under my workbench. This fishing expedition produced a real prize: my father’s much newer circa 1970s hatchet. This one had a full handle and some sort of illegible sticker on it. Hatchet technology had really come a long way in those post-war years. A little tune-up with the files and she was fine as frog’s hair.
Packing done, we met early the next morning for the ride to Horseshoe Bay and the ferry to Nanaimo. The great thing about taking BC Ferries on a motorbike is that no matter how late you arrive, you are directed to the head of the line. First on, and first off! All those car and truck drivers who waited 45 minutes to board just loved us.
There’s No “Right Bike”
Another thing I love about bike travel is the people you meet, and not just other bikers; a lot of people will sidle up to a loaded travel bike, stare wistfully for a bit, maybe suck on their teeth or purse their lips, scratch some part of their body, do a little snort through their nose and then maybe say something like, “So, how big is that?” But there are usually a few riders on the ferry, on all styles of bikes, and it’s great to shoot the breeze, compare notes and whatnot. On the way to Nanaimo, we met one young man who was riding from Quebec City to Tofino on the west side of Vancouver Island and back in three weeks, camping all the way. On a 250 dirtbike! He did admit that the seat got a little uncomfortable, but then he’d just stand on the pegs for a while. Don’t ever think that you don’t have the right bike for an adventure. Disembarking in Nanaimo, we decided we’d take the scenic Highway 19A rather than the “just give ’er” Hwy 19 to go north to Comox. Well, 19A isn’t so scenic until you are well out of town.
Then, it earns its designation with plenty of scenic water views and small towns – too bad about the low speed limits though. We arrived at our next ferry point in Comox a little past lunchtime. There, we were to take the ferry back to the mainland, and we’d practically be in Lund. Free or Really Cheap We looked at the clear blue sky and discussed how we’d allowed ourselves four days to make this trip. We gazed up scenic Hwy 19A that faded north into the distance of unknown adventures. And off we rode, north on scenic highway 19A instead of going to the ferry. The road continued to be scenic. Finally, truth in advertising! And it was well worth a change in plan, but at some point we’d have to stop, and neither of us had been up this way before or done any research, because we weren’t supposed to be here – according to our real plan. However, Fx, being the outdoor ninja that she is, had brought along a rather thick book titled Camp Free (or really cheap) in B.C., field-tested and written by Kathy and Craig Copeland: an absolutely brilliant book that even covers philosophies and strategies for camping wild, but has great reviews and directions to free (or really cheap) campsites. North of Duncan Bay, we weren’t seeing a lot of civilization.
Fx studied her book quite intently, while I gazed at flowers and clouds and wondered where all the bears were at this time of day. Finally, she rose to her full height, which must be something over five feet, and declared that our first wild camp would be on McCreight Lake. I followed her lead to the turnoff, at which time we discovered, to our dismay, that the road to McCreight was dirt and gravel and off-road-like. Shocking, considering we were in the middle of nowhere just more than halfway up the coast of Vancouver Island. I had never seen Fx perplexed before in an outdoor situation, but for some reason, she had never taken her Bandit 1250 off-roading. Well, she may be the queen of the outdoors, but I am the duke of doing stupid things with others’ bikes. I scouted ahead on the V-Strom and found that the site was only a few kilometres in through mixed gravel and potholes, and after a sharp downward left covered in rocks and ruts, you were practically there. I rode back to Fx and told her it was all good and no problem on a big, fully loaded touring bike – no problem at all. To pay her back for sharing all her outdoor expertise with me, I lied to her about how easy it would be, and then coached her for the ride into the site.
Like a Bandit
Being the trouper that she is, she covered the four or five kilometres in under an hour and hardly swore at me at all. But it was worth it. It was a brilliant campsite in the trees with a path down to the lake and only one other couple camping anywhere to be seen; we had a very peaceful night and were up early the next morning to continue on north. We got the Bandit facing back up the road and loaded up, then Fx dirt-tracked her way outta there and back onto 19 toward the end of the pavement at Port Hardy. Much scenery ensued. It really is lovely up there, with very few inhabitants outside the few towns, plenty of trees and a lot of water views. The road cuts inland for about 400 km before Port McNeill, but then picks up the coast again soon after. Those 400 km are some fine riding and reminded me of Ontario’s Highway 7 as it makes its way through the Canadian Shield.
Continuing north, we finally hit the end of the (paved) road at Port Hardy, another lovely little Vancouver Island community on the water. We had been taking a little walk around and seeing the sights when a couple of details about our route and intended timeline became apparent. First, Fx was not keen to take off on an unknown dirt road, many kilometres long, to try to reach the very northern tip of the island. I fully supported her decision; if we met a bear, she could out-run me. Second, we’d used up two days of our allotted four, and now we were near the northern tip of the island, nowhere near where we were supposed to be, and so far had done nothing to do with the supposed purpose of the trip, which was for me to write a story about Mile Zero, in Lund, which was probably a day away. So really, the story hadn’t even begun. Next Time . . . Tune in next time, when we actually make it to Lund, I meet Santa Claus, save a grandmother from possible death – or at least certain inconvenience – and attempt to repair my damaged bike by beating it with my dad’s hatchet because I’m 450 km from the nearest dealership and the thing took a nap on the pavement, without my permission. And then there’s the whole Mile Zero thing.
