The desert night sky filled with a bright spray of stars had faded with the dawn. In a shelter made only of the shear fabric of the tent inner, the glow of the sun rising behind the surrounding hills shone through without much impediment. Cathy, much better at shutting out the light, continued to sleep. Awake before 5am and without much inclination to try chasing sleep I thought it was a good time to get up and walk across the road to the hall and the totem pole of the Ashcroft Indian Band.
The night’s camping had been in the campgrounds that formed part of the Nl’Akapxm Eagle Motorplex. On the dry hills in the distance to the north were the empty ticket stands, car park, spectator area and a ¼ mile drag strip. Like the landscape, save a few trailer homes dotted along the side road to Ashcroft from the Highway, the Motorplex was an empty and desolate place.
In front of the community hall stood tall communication devices of cultures ancient and new. A totem pole with carved figures and eagle wings outstretched sheltered the satellite dishes nestled under its arms. Across the gravel driveway alone and solitary sat a small church made as if from kitset, a scale model of church for a larger congregation.
Later, the sun had risen into a sky unshared with clouds, and as had become custom over the last few days of the car tour around southern British Columbia, we were on the road before 8am. The sign of the campground had said the maintenance crew would collect the $10 fee. No one was to be seen. Perhaps it was value for money. The male facilities reminded me of a mix of the final scene of The Blair Witch Project, The Shining and a slaughterhouse, minus blood or a body but foreboding doom. Cathy said the Men’s were good compared to the Women’s. It was The Birds in there.
The road following the Fraser River to the Pacific dipped, curved and wound around the water coursing through this dry land. Apparently this region wasn’t always such a dust bowl. It produced the 2nd most tomatoes for canning in Canada – in the 1950s. These days, looking around, it was easiest to believe that this dry region was the northernmost expression of a dry desert corridor whose other end lay in Mexico.
Throughout the journey we had seen an amazing variation of petrol prices, from a high of 96.9 cents/litre (US$0.72) near the US border at a place called Grand Forks down to 75.9 cents/litre (US$0.57) barely 300km to the east. Though not quite as exact a science of price selection as Cathy’s cousin’s theory that petrol prices are cheapest Thursdays, we filled up when we saw a petrol station offering unleaded under 80 cents.
My stint behind the wheel now normalised to driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road after four days and over 1,000kms worth of my half of the driving ended at a rest stop beside a large calm clear lake. Impressing my girlfriend with further acts of Neanderthal prowess by throwing rocks, we traded places as water and snack food provider. We played leap-frog with the massive houses on wheels from New York commonly called Winnebagos a total of four times before losing them in the horde heading for Vancouver on Highway 1.
As a big little slice of BC, I was impressed. As a taster of the road ahead I was less comfortable. There are some big distances ahead and some big hills to boot (otherwise known as the Canadian Rockies). It’ll be a challenge to be up in the climbs not long after leaving Vancouver as I’m not yet conditioned to being back in the bike on a lengthy daily basis. Well, the good thing about cycle touring, as I say to people who assume I must be fit to ride a bike around the world, the more you ride the fitter you become. I’ve not ridden the bicycle much (if at all) since leaving Australia and it’ll be two months and over 7,000km until the Atlantic Coast so by the end I ought to be able to call myself fit again.
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