Day 101 - Deep Bay - Parksville

I made some breakfast and went through the packing routine for the final time, grateful that I wouldn’t be living out of the panniers for a few days. It was an easy ride to finish along the coast past holiday parks and guest houses. I rode into the tree-lined streets of Parksville, their leaves beginning to display the rusty tones of autumn. It dawned on me that I had been out here the whole summer and that the reality of life back in the UK was beginning to draw-in with the evenings. 

I met my parents and finished my last ride in the car park of a Quality Foods on the edge of town. It was a fittingly mundane and understated place to end. For all the soaring mountains, gigantic skies and enchanting wildlife a trip like this has an equal amount of mundane - sitting on the forecourt of a gas station or supermarket eating pre-packaged food whilst people go about their daily lives, perhaps giving a second glance to this grubby, dishevelled figure who will briefly inhabit their town before disappearing off towards the next. 

It was genuinely a joy to see some familiar faces after all this time and I was incredibly grateful to them for making such a long journey to be here with me as I finished. We got the bike unloaded and packed safely into their hire car before stocking up on supplies for our next few days together exploring the rest of Vancouver Island. 

I spent the next two weeks enjoying some time off the bike, first in Tofino and Victoria and then a final few days in Vancouver. People in bars or restaurants were fascinated and amazed when I explained the journey I’d taken to get there, which I initially felt hard to understand. I’d become so accustomed to just getting up and riding every day that it took a little while to realise that was not, in fact, the norm. But in time I was able to look back and reflect with a greater sense of pride that I’d been able to ride solo across a huge swathe of a continent. The last few weeks had undoubtedly been a challenge with sickness, poor weather and compounding fatigue but it had been an incredible experience. I’d met some amazingly generous people and been fortunate to experience some breathtaking landscapes, all through the simple tool of a bike. I best start planning the next big adventure.