Reality Bites.... and bears can too

Everything was going so well. Sunshine wonderful roads and astonishing scenery, How different it was all going to be on our journey west to the coast. It started well enough. A quick exist from the Prince George camp site (It might be worth noting here that mosquitoes are the national bird of Canada and did we just get eaten alive by them. ) Anyway I digress. Off we set in OK conditions , not sure where we would stop but Prince Rupert on the west coast was our target for a two day ride.

At the 200 mile point the weather came in and it rained and rained. This is not too bad on a bike, but when mixed with cold it can be very upsetting.

It got cold, and instead of being sensible and stopping we pressed on and by the time we got to Prince Rupert I had uncontrollable shakes and felt really very very cold. Sandra too was feeling it and as soon as we found any motel we stayed. 300 miles in the cold and rain is not recommended and we will not do that again........ until the next time.

Prince Rupert is quite a place - calm, clean and really nice to chill out in which we did for a day or two. The woman in the information center was really helpful. We where planning on taking a ferry up to Alaska but the timing meant we would have to hang around PR for a few more days so we decided to ride on, which we are very glad we did.

We backed tracked east for about 100 miles to the Stewart Cassiar highway 37 and headed north then east again to Stewart. What a wonderful road and a joy to ride. An even more fabulous glacier which was just stunning. We met three more BMW riders from San Fransisco and chatted for a while.

As we said goodbye we set off on the last 15 miles to Stewart. Then, out of the blue as we pulled out of a corner I noticed something on the road, it was massive and brown. It took me a few seconds to realise this was a full grown adult grizzly bear about 70 meters in front of us in the road. I slowed down and stopped. Although I had read a bit on bears and what to do if you encounter one, I had no idea what to do when on a bike. I just swore a lot and waited to see what would happen next. Sandra had no idea why we had stopped until I stopped swearing and said ?my god a bloody big bear?

Fortunately for us the grizzly looked at us and plodded off to the left of the road into the forest.

What a sight he was. It's so unusual to see something so big living in the wild, well it is if you live in Southampton.

We made it to Stewart and was advised not to camp due to the bear issues so we are in a very quaint and old fashioned Hotel called the Ripply Creek Inn...... very nice indeed.

Today its back to the Highway and north to meet the Alaska Highway in a day or two.