Banff and Jasper National parks all the way to Nelson

I'm in Nelson now, a groovy little village at Kootenay lake. Very touristy and a lot of hippy kinda kids. Don't now why that is, perhaps it's because of the art school. Funny to see hippykids with a laptop entering their dad's SUV.

It rains a lot lately. Yesterday it was dry and i wanted to go. But my ipod crashed ;-( .
Music is a priority for me so i decide to try to fix it first. As it turned out, it was the database that was corrupted for some unknown reason. Luckily all music files were still there. After some research i found the Winamp ipod plugin ml_ipod which has a databse cleanup feature. It worked great. Took me half a day all together though. I was really happy i got my music back and donated eur.10,- to the programmer. It made my day. :o)

Because of the heavy rains the day and nght before the tent got messed up and required cleaning. After that i browsed around town. Lazy day. as so many. I love it. Doing nothing comes naturally to me ;-).

As most days i end up spending the evening with nice people. This time a nice couple in an old motorhome from Vancouver. Free dinner and beers and some real scotch whisky! We talked about Canadians, their politics and music. I had a good time. Note: Canadians are afraid that Bush is after their water. I met quite a lot of Canadians mentioning this a the major threat to Canada in the not so far away future.

Oh , and the day before i spend the evening with a Hongarian father and son, enyoing some real Tjech beer. For some reason traveling solo is less alone than at home in your daily routine. Awkward.

Anyway, back to the route of the past weeks.
From Vancouver the route went to Whistler, Lillooet, 100 mile house, Clearwater, Jasper, Banff, Revelstoke, Nakusp, Kaslo and finally Nelson. For some reason it's difficult to go south ;-)

This area of BC, Jasper and Banff and Kootenay national parks, are very, very touristy and therefore fairly expensive. But it's fun, the scenery is great, nice people, reasonable weather although the last couple of days were bad. Even the roads are a bit challenging around here.
But i miss 30hp to make it entertaining, did i mention this earlier?

But not very adventurous. No major breakdowns etc. Bike is good, although it uses more oil than any bmw i ever owned. That's a bit concerning.

There are a few highlights i want to share and remember.

On my way to Whistler i met a fellow traveler. He just returned from a 14 month world trip on a brand new f800gs. He had no major problems in the 35000km he put on it.

We had a chat, went for lunch and he paid for it. Nice guy, i forgot his name though. And he did not had a website to learn from his experience. I left him my emailadress, it would be nice to hear from him. He was just in the 'returning phase' trying to settle back in to normal live and i wonder how that is.

I spend a few days at a free campsite just outside a nice small village called Lillooet. It was 37 degrees celcius....in the shadow. Way too hot to ride. And the campsite was free!

Experiment late night
photography.
The orange color of the trees is light reflecting from campfire.

I like it, but i haven't seen it on a large vivid screen yet.




Yet again, as it usually happens, another biker appears. Scott bought a brand new KLR after 30 years without a bike. He loved every mile on it. There's was no money left for a decent luggage system so he had to improvise with Curver boxes and lots of bungees. Funny, but it worked.. sort of.

We made the heat bearable with some cold beers.

Leaving Lilooet, a picture from the road out of town. It's Highway 99 and basically every mile on this road is worth riding.

For some strange reason the lush forestry turns into something like mexico, dry and desert like. Beautifull and weird because it's not like the rest of BC at all.


Canyon just outside Lilooet.








Campsite at Japer national park. Funny, wildlife crossing the campsite. No bears, but elk. Funny: on the background you see a couple. They turned out their parents were Dutch (as many people around here).

One of them even had a typically Dutch landscape tattooed above her ankle. (I should have taken a picture).



Me, somewhere halfway Jasper and Banff on the icefields parkway.
Beautiful ride, although the fact that you have to pay to take this road.

In alaska scenery is free, and campsites way cheaper. But i does cost you quite a bit to get there though... ;-)



Campsite Banff national park. Here i met Save, a filmmaker from Tjech. Moved to Canada ages ago. He prepared a dr650r for a three week trip to Prudhoe bay, Alaska. He researched a lot and prepared for everything. As a result he needed three hours to pack up. He was seven days on the road now. Good guy though, being a filmmaker he continuously made pictures and video. He took a video of me explaining what i did and will do. I hope i'll see this one day.

Packin'up! His packing ritual sort of reflected his chaotic personality ;-)







He made wonderful sourdough pancakes for breakfast though!
Jummy, with maple sirop or sugar.






On the same campsite Petra en Wim turned up. A Dutch couple travelling with peddlebike for two ears now. Their webite is easy: http://www.wimenpeetzerereet.nl/.
From rotjeknor ;o)














In revelstoke i got company from a father and son. because of a truck (or car) accident the highway they needed was closed for the night. The son turned out to be a Deken. They invited me to have breakfast with them and we spend a few hours talking about Holland, faith etc. He was kind enough to request his Lord for my safety and protection on my travels. For some reason - i have to soulsearch this- i was deeply touched and i hardly kept my eyes dry. Amazing. Honest, kind and good people. And when they left i got a bunch of really delicious sausages!

That's it for now. Weater still cold and rainy here in Nelson, i just have to wait it out i guess.

-happy trails.