The reason for our two week riding holiday in western USA and Canada actually began 100 years ago on the 1st July 1916 in Picardy, north eastern France. At 7:30 in the morning, the battle of the Somme commenced after a week of intense bombardment of the well-prepared German lines just east of Albert, with around 600,000 Empire soldiers going over the top. It became infamous as the worst day in the history of the British army because at the end of that first day, approximately 60,000 men of the British Empire were killed or wounded or missing. My grandfather was fortunately not one of them, but with over 70% casualties in his 15th Battalion (Leeds Pals) of the West Yorkshire Regiment on that first day, and survival in front line duty for the remainder of the war, it seems that all his descendants won the existence lottery.
It had been our plan to attend the 100th anniversary for a very long time, and we were fortunate to obtain tickets to the commemoration service on 1st July 2016 at the huge Thiepval Memorial to the 73,000 missing Empire soldiers with no known grave. A who’s who of the British was in attendance for the service, as is fitting for such a major event that changed the course of history and affected so many lives.
After several very emotional days on the Somme, with visits to sites well known to Australians such as Pozieres and Mouquet Farm, we were back to England to continue the UK tourism experience that had commenced in Edinburgh in late June.
We did an England tour mainly around Bath and London, before resuming the circumnavigation with a two day stop-over in Iceland. A few years ago we’d seriously considered a motorcycle tour up there, however Chile won out in the end. Around Reykjavik the scenery is fantastic but the tourists were absolutely swarming and the tourist infrastructure is under serious pressure in summer, although I suspect that once out into the northern parts and away from the cruise ships it would be very spectacular. The 19 hour days mean that even late risers could put some serious kilometres on the road on a riding holiday.
After two and half weeks of travel with the only exposure to motorcycles being a visit to the Barbour motorcycle clothing shop in London to each get a new riding shirt (besides a failed attempt at hiring bikes in Edinburgh), we finally arrived in Vancouver to start the real holiday. After a jet-lagged dinner on the Vancouver waterfront of seafood chowder, which would come back to haunt me in the early hours, we spent the remainder of the evening trying to focus enough to get our riding and non-riding gear separated. Up early but not necessarily bright after significant time was spent expelling whatever dodgy ingredient was contained in the chowder, it was off to Cycle BC to pick up the hire bikes. The taxi ride provided some key knowledge deficiencies – why were some green traffic lights flashing and others not? What are the rules at 4-way stop sign intersections? It also gave us a taste of an infrastructure design that would confuse us later; roads in North America are often divided into East and West, and have the same numbers in both directions starting from a midpoint.
The atmosphere at Cycle BC was busy, with other patrons deciding that Monday morning was the best time to pick up their conveyance, with everything from bicycles to fully kitted 1200GS’s getting ready to head out. It is always fun getting that first look at the holiday home, with Cindy inevitably choosing a 700GS, and me going for an 800GS as the closest thing to my Triumph Tiger, both complete with crash bars and luggage. Cindy’s bike was 2016 and only just past its first service, while mine was a 2013 model and had nearly 60,000km on the clock. Cycle BC also provided the jackets, wet weather gear, helmets, Sena helmet communicators, and a Garmin Zumo 550 GPS, so all we really needed was a positive attitude. And pants. The induction process was very short, we both claimed thousands of kilometres on BMW GS bikes so Cycle BC saw no reason to labour the point, and in no time at all we were sacrificing our future on the altar of Garmin to get us to the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal to get out to Vancouver Island.
In hindsight, the plan for riding day one was a bit ambitious and highlighted a common sense deficiency; it is unlikely that a ferry will be there revving its engines just waiting for you to show up, and ferries are not manufactured by the same company that built the Millennium Falcon so lack hyperdrive and won’t arrive 2 seconds after leaving. A reasonable ferry ride typically adds at least two hours onto the riding day, and sometimes longer. As a result the trip to the west side of Vancouver Island was abandoned, with Cindy desperate to get to downtown Duncan as early as possible for the planned overnight.
After seeing Duncan in the harsh light of day, Cindy preferred a night at a nice waterfront hotel in Cowichan Bay a bit further south and admittedly it was closer to the next day’s ferry from Victoria BC into the USA. Cowichan Bay is a small but pleasant town, and a meal at the pub watching a seal frolic amongst the yachts was a neat ending to day one. We fortunately arrived nice and early into Victoria the next morning, as the border crossing over to Port Angeles created about two hours of inspection and queuing and stamping of passports, while immigration officials really didn’t care if the ferry left without passengers.
Not since our crossing into Argentina from Chile last year has immigration taken so long, with US and Canadian citizens whisked through while Australians and other potential troublemakers were left corralled in a self-conscious and increasingly paranoid crowd outside the office. Finally our passports were stamped, and we re-joined the growing group of motorcyclists lined up and waiting. One advantage of travelling by motorcycle on ferries is that it gives all the gathered riders a chance to compare bikes/plans/accessories and get information. Stories, maps and advice on the best roads to travel in the USA were swapped with Cindy handing out Australian flag stickers in payment.
Now finally the reason for the article title, up to this point in the holiday in Scotland, France, England, Iceland, and the two nights in Canada there had not been a single evening when a boutique brewery selection wasn’t available during aperitifs or dinner, so the theme of my trip had become a different India Pale Ale every day. This is just a small variation on the last trip to Chile when it was a different Pisco Sour every day, and all our other trips when alcohol coincidentally works its way into the theme. I did not believe the theme could last long in the USA.
Having crossed the invisible border somewhere on the water and disembarked in Port Angeles, the riding plan was simply to find an ATM and get to the only booked accommodation of the planned two weeks, in Seattle. Unfortunately ATM’s are like petrol stations, toilets, and all other services where the availability is both inversely proportional to the urgency of the need and always the other side of a busy highway, so no luck there. Naturally we were blessed with credit cards to pay for the lunch in Port Gamble village, with no mention made to the waitress that it would be tipless to avoid possible pre-contamination of the chosen seafood chowder and a repeat of the night in Vancouver.
After lunch it was a quick trip to Kingston, where the third ferry of the trip was revving its engines and waiting for us to show up to take us to the suburbs 15km north of the Seattle city. We disembarked, and with an address considered close enough to the hotel in Aurora Avenue in the GPS, we headed off. The street name of Aurora Avenue created a mental picture of a quiet, tree-lined street in a suburb with wealthy young families frolicking on neatly mown front lawns, so the reality that it was a raging three lane 50mph freeway with a concrete divider for 10km that prevented access to the hotel on the other side of the road was unexpected. As we were nearing peak hour, the slow movement of the traffic luckily allowed some re-programming of the GPS accompanied by some voice commands to release tension, but having missed the first opportunity to U-turn and having to go right into the city to get into reverse, it was a couple of sweaty riders that eventually got to the hotel an hour after having first sighted it.
Fortunately the Staybridge Suites as recommended on www.bike-stay.com are a self-contained oasis in the light industrial landscape of Aurora Avenue, with free services including laundry, food, and a scheduled shuttle bus to the city. Maximum points were awarded for the free boutique IPA on offer at the happy hour drinks and dinner, I was off to a good start. Our only excursion outside on the arrival day was to Altrider next door in the hope that Cindy could find a pair of waterproof pants to replace the pair she thought she had picked up at Cycle BC but turned out to be a jacket. Altrider don’t do clothing but we had fun looking at the adventure riding gear, of particular interest were the RotoPax lockable fuel containers. The next day was our first official rest day, we had put in two solid days of riding and sitting on ferries so it was well deserved. Rather than just rest and laundry, we did break the rest day rule and rode out to the Boeing factory to see the largest building in the world and the Boeing jets assembly lines currently producing 747s, 777’s, and Dreamliners. There are 35,000 employees at the factory and surrounding areas so the car parks must also be close to the biggest in the world. The tour was excellent and very well organised, with a very strict rule of no cameras or telephones repeated twenty times before we were allowed onto the tour bus. Fortunately the Seattle Triumph and KTM dealer was located on the return road to the hotel, so the Cindy waterproof pants issue was resolved while I got to compare US and Australian prices for new bikes with the conclusion that they are quite similar. The evening’s entertainment was a trip into the city which included a meal at a boutique brewery pub with at least four IPAs on tap, before a wander around looking at the major sights and the Space Needle.
Day three arrived with intense anticipation; finally the real riding was upon us with civilisation to be left floundering in our wake. The GPS was waterboarded until it agreed to take us to Highway 2 to the north east rather than straight east to our planned overnight destination of Ellensburg. The Washington back roads discovery route from Cashmere to Ellensburg was memorised. Our laundry was done. All was ready.
All went well in the morning and Highway 2 was a treat through Gold Bar and the picturesque mountains. We stopped for coffee at Stephens Pass (where the Harry and the Hendersons Bigfoot movie was filmed in the 1980’s) in the shadow of a spectacular abrupt peak swirling with cloud, which made a perfect backdrop to a spectacular cappuccino swirling with milk froth. The stop was our first exposure to the drive-thru coffee concept popular in the US, somewhat challenging to motorcycle riders, with an email sent through to BMW to suggest their engineers get cracking on solving the problem of where to put a 16oz cup and how to get cup to lip at 100km/h. The coffee lady mentioned that Leavenworth a bit further up the road was a good place to stop, but didn’t elaborate. When we arrived to find a full-costume Bavarian village it seemed odd that they hadn’t changed the town name to Leavenoberdorf am Wenatchee to warn people, it looked that authentic.
Tragically we were too early for lunch or to stop for the night, so a walk along the river and around the town was the only option available. Regretfully moving on to Cashmere where it was no longer too early for a romantic lunch adjacent to a homeless man’s dwelling on the Wenatchee River bank, we mentally prepared for the section of the Washington back country discovery route (WABDR) to Ellensburg. Loaded with food, water and other off-road essentials, we headed south along a pleasant dirt road which became increasingly steep and sandy as it climbed into the mountains. As it always seems to do on our off-road trips, the temperature decided to jump up about 20°C just to make it slightly less pleasant. After about 50km we stopped at a 5-way intersection which I couldn’t recall from the maps, and the GPS suddenly seemed to have an anxiety attack and decided it didn’t want to go any further.
Fortunately a National Forest ranger showed up while we were rehydrating, unfortunately she had no idea where the road we were looking for was. She mentioned that there are lots of signs on National Forestry trials which are all numbered, but some of the more culturally nuanced local individuals regularly express their emotion toward the signs with firearms. She did however know which of the five roads headed toward the nearest town of Wenatchee, because she had just come from there. So with dreams of continuing on the WABDR shattered, off we went down a road that was comparable with the Duck Creek Rd except with loose big rocks, in other words pretty nasty, but we made it into the town without major incident thanks to the sure-footedness of the BMWs. A bit of a loop back was then required through Cashmere to Highway 97 and onto Ellensburg for the night.
Those familiar with USA towns will nod sagely when I mention that finding accommodation near a town centre can often be a bit of a challenge. The town planning rules apparently dictate that all reasonably priced chain motels and fast food restaurants and service stations must be strung along a main road strip at least 1.5km away from anything with local flavour. Ellensburg was a challenge to even find the town centre due to a large number of main roads, eventually we stopped at a fast food restaurant on the strip to get McWifi, which solved the immediate problem of where on earth we were. Then a random cruise about the town eventually led to a budget motel close enough to the centre, and most importantly within walking distance of a likely looking establishment called Iron Horse Brewery. The wifi password of drinkbeer inspired confidence that we were in the right place. An excellent dinner of bone marrow and a selection of tapas-like edibles washed down with a superb IPA kept the record intact, and provided a good accompaniment to the total silence as exploits of the 360km day were posted onto Facebook by Cindy, while I checked spam emails and pretended that they were cries for help from work colleagues that only I could resolve.
Day five had been officially classified as a “commute” day as we were out of the first mountain range and onto the plains, so it had looked pretty flat and boring from 10km up on Google Earth. We’d decided on an early start with transit on a boring highway to breakfast in Yakima to the south of Ellensburg, when discovery of one of the scenic road gems of the state occurred. Canyon Road is one of those original USA roads which follow the rivers and terrain, it was later paralleled with a brand new interstate highway which speeds up the travel time but misses the awesome riding and viewing. Geologists should be heavily sedated before travelling Canyon Road to avoid over-stimulation by the spectacular rock formations carved by the Yakima River.
The Yakima breakfast stop provided an opportunity to hoover up a kilo of corned beef and hash browns while checking the day’s route and marking it on a Washington state map, as the GPS was still grounded after its disgraceful performance on the WABDR. After yet another failed guess of how much petrol to pre-pay for at the servo, we progressed nearly due east along the quiet Highway 24 to Hanford Reach national monument. We had no idea what the Hanford Reach national monument was, however one of those forbidding un-signed security check-points on a side road not on the map gave an inkling. We crossed the Columbia River and reached a lookout with a sign board, which described the fact that the old building in the distance was the Hanford nuclear reactor that had produced the plutonium for the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki on the 9th August 1945.
We continued east along rural roads through irrigated farmland with only minor experiences of getting lost until we reached the small town of Kahlotus, slightly too late for coffee and slightly too early for lunch, but we had both to average it out.
Some light reading in the Kahlotus shop explained why we had been riding through what appeared to be river valleys carved through the rock, but with no rivers. During the melting of the last ice age, huge floods beyond anything imaginable had actually cut new channels which are today’s Snake River and Columbia River which forms the border between Washington and Oregon states. A quick and random detour via Palouse Falls highlighted one of the attractions of riding in the USA, here in the middle of nowhere with only a handful of tourists and little fanfare was a spectacular waterfall and canyon, the Gullfoss waterfall in Iceland had a lot more water but with about 10,000 tourists and traffic jams which tends to make the experience a little less special.
After crossing the Snake River and passing through the town of Starbuck which is probably the only town in Washington without a Starbucks, we hit Highway 12 for the run out of Washington across the Idaho state border into our planned overnight destination in Lewiston. Our feelings of being in a rural backwater were somewhat dispelled by some little kid at the very friendly service station (which allowed us to fill up then pay) in Pomeroy telling us that his parents were at that moment on a safari in the NT shooting crocodiles and buffalo.
We were now following in Lewis and Clark’s 1806 footsteps as they marched back from the Pacific having crossed the continent from east to west in 1805, and every place suddenly seemed to have Lewis, Clark, or Lewis and Clark in the title. Never Clark and Lewis, that would be just weird. The town of Clarkston on the Washington side of the Snake and Clearwater River junction did appear to be first socio-economically, an observation that did not crystallise until we had checked into a budget motel in Lewiston and read the notice in the information folder that the hotel would co-operate fully with the authorities in relation to drug offences on the premises.
To intense riding group relief, a natty little restaurant and bar up the road kept the IPA in the USA record intact for one more day. After a long walk with longing looks back across the river at the now affluent town of Clarkston where we assumed they probably don’t even bother having a police force, it was back to our budget motel to fully co-operate with everyone. Our route planning for the next day didn’t need a GPS or even a map; it was all Highway 12 across Idaho to Missoula, Montana. But then, Cindy discovered a road nearby called the Old Spiral Highway……
End of Part One
travellingbennetts 