6th July 2016 - Victoria BC - Kms to date: 2754

Kms today: 405

We left Astoria bright and early because we had to be in Port Angeles by 4.20pm to catch the 5.20pm ferry to Victoria BC a journey of approx 390kms. We took the Megler bridge out of Astoria across the mouth of the Columbia river to Washington state. The bridge is like a mecccano set gone wrong and is 6kms long!! We headed north on Hwy 101 and stopped in South Bend for breakfast in a diner straight out of Happy Days. The town of South Bend is another example of small town USA in decline ....  a shambles. The breakfast was very good and not too big. We headed on up the highway which met the coast near Forks before turning east to Port Angeles. On the way we had lunch at a hotel right on the beach. There were problems in the kitchen so we had to wait a while for our meal but we had made good time so it was no problem. We met a german in the car park who works for BMW in the design department. He asked me if I liked the R1200 GS I was riding and told me it was by far the most popular bike BMW makes. We arrived in Port Angeles in plenty of time so did a short walking tour of the waterfront. We met a man fishing for crabs off the pier. He had caught quite a few and pretty big ones at that. The ferry took 1hr 20mins to get to Victoria. It was flat calm which was good as they did not provide tie-downs for the bikes. We arrived about 6.45pm and Mabel found the Dyer Hilton OK. Brian and Thelma were there to welcome us. We parked our bikes in their garage, got out of our riding gear and had a couple of cold beers before sitting down to a beautiful shepherds pie dinner courtesy of Thelma. We had good chinwag with the Dyers before hitting the sack at 11pm. Their townhouse looks out over the straits of Juan de Fuca towards Washington state. Magnificent views!!!

STOP PRESS: Alan has managed to clobber all the photos from 6th to 12th July. Is he ever a popular guy!!!!