Some days have past since my last post. I did a couple of bike trips on the local logging roads. They are not really beautiful, but they are good for coming around in the area and have some training. On one trip I went quite far into to woods, the big logging roads become smaller and smaller and finally became small trails for quads, cross motorbikes and stuff like that. On one stage the road was blocked, the bridge over the river has been removed. I spotted some motor cross bikers, they knew a way over the river. I followed them and came to a river crossing. Nice! I went through it, but it was deeper then expected. No problem, it is sunny, so it will try fast. Better to have that experience now then at a time, where you can't get warm clothes afterwords. I kept on going, some parts where really rocky, to much for my little mountain bike. After a while a noticed, I am off the track … once again. I ended up on a little hill with a nice view to the ocean, or, to be exact, to the Juan de Fuca straight. On those trails where many puddles, but after a while there have been more and more situations, where I couldn't go around the puddles. It was cloudy and I was in a forest, so no warming sun. But I didn't want to go back … so again: wet feet and shoes. My goal on that day was a little lake named Boulders Lake. I was only 5 km away from it, so I kept on going (But that was a bad idea, I was short on time and it started to rain). 200 meters away from the lake I couldn't drive any further, I needed to walk the last meters. But the with trees covered hill was quite hard to climb and on the top I could find snow. 50 Meters in front of it I needed to surrender and go back. I still had to go back in less then one hour within 20-25km. Luckily I knew a main logging road going back. That road was better to drive, but a lot of sand a rain was coming up from my tires … a hard day, a nice trip, I couldn't get to the lake, but I have seen some really nice overgrown trails.

When I am not on a hike or a bike trip around the area, I stay at my aunts home. She has two sea kayaks, so we went out for a little ride. It is really nice to go into the water (which is freezing cold) and see the ground really clear. A lot of sand, mussels and seaweed has been underneath me.
It is nice to have the ocean nearby, eagles are flying around, sea lions, seals and otters are swimming right in front of the house. Even a bear I have seen and today a orca (therefore I used the 150-500mm Sigma lens, oh yeah! But it is not as sharp and good as I expected)! That is nearly everything you can see here. Only cougars (and wolfs) are on my list and around here. In fact, Vancouver Island has one of the highest cougar population in the world. They probably see you very often, but they are really shy and good hunter, so you nearly never see them, even if they are nearby. On the mainland I could find some grizzlies and mooses.

Happily my bike trailer arrived these days, now I can try to get all of my belongings on that small thing. It will be quite hard to carry all of my stuff around, but that's what I expected. The last weeks I kept spending my time for researches for routes and the result is something like a raw plan. More about that soon.