Day 115 – Harrison Hot Springs to Vancouver

We had a wonderful rest at Harrison Hot Springs. We had expected rain over night and during the day as per the forecast, but it was cloudy and dry when we woke up. The town was also very quiet, and even though we had camped right ‘downtown’, we slept very well. We had a good hearty breakfast of fried oatmeal, and packed up our tent to make our way towards Vancouver. We decided to stop at ‘The Source’ of the Hot Springs, which was a 5 min bike ride up a back road.

The water coming out of the ground was so hot that it was in a concrete structure so people would not burn themselves. There was a run off where the water was cooler where you could feel the warm water.

We made good progress as we headed down highway 7. The traffic was light and the shoulder was pretty descent. It was a very peaceful ride through the country side. We made it to Mission for lunch, where we ate inside at Subway. It was cloudy the whole day but we never had the rain that was forecasted.

We stopped at the tourist office in Mission to get advice about cycling into Vancouver, and the lady highlighted a map for us. We were hoping to get the Vancouver cycling map, but they were hard to come by. Luckily we had a copy on our netbook from when we had downloaded it back in Kelowna.

In Port Hammond we crossed the new toll bride across the Fraser River. It was a beautiful bridge and they had signs for cyclists. Best of all there was no toll for us!

We followed a brand new bike path from the bridge. We then tried to follow the highlighted route from the tourist office but found out she must have mistaken a non-cycling road for a cycling road. At this point we had to get the netbook out to get things sorted out. We eventually managed to get on a recommended cycling route towards downtown Surrey. The area was very multi-cultural, and it was neat to see the differences.

At this point it was starting to get dark. We had a long cycling day as we had to bike 140km before reaching our destination. Even though it was getting dark, the bike paths and bike lanes, the street lights, and our lights on our bikes made it okay.

We crossed our final bridge across Annacis Island, and made it to Richmond. It was great to have the whole route marked for cyclists. By the time we reached Alastair and Nancy’s, it was 8PM and quite dark. By far the latest we have cycled and the first time we cycled at night. We had a tremendous welcome and they had an amazing stew waiting for us. We had finally reached the West Coast!

Click here for today’s photos

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