From Brisbane to BC

This morning we woke up in a comfy, warm bed after a long 10 hour sleep. The sun is shining outside in Vancouver and we have four breakfast cereal options laid out on the kitchen table for us.  We are definitely on holiday.

Our Brisbane to LA leg was great - baby-free, good food and lots of movies.  We had been prepped to expect a challenge on arrival to LA airport.  Apart from having to go through customs and navigate huge queues, we were worried we would have to collect and cary all our luggage as finding a trolley wouldn't be easy.  As you can imagine the idea of lugging around a 23kg bike box plus an awkwardly wrapped 16kg canvas bag made me feel quite anxious.

Maybe it was because we were one of the first arrivals for the day, but we were so pleasantly surprised.  There were lots of free trolleys at both airports!  And our bike boxes looked completely intact :)

Our arrival to Vancouver 18 hours later went without a hitch and we found ourselves in a little corner of the airport, unpacking and assembling our bikes.  It wasn't as streamlined as we would have hoped but given we were hungry and tired we did a good job and were relatively kind to each other.

The ride from the airport to our hosts apartment took us about 1.5 hours, over bridges, along the highway (in a designated bike lane), and around the most beautiful streets of Vancouver.  There were plenty of cyclists over taking us, or stopping to help us find our ways, and strangers pulling over to make sure we were okay as we stopped to find out what the sound was coming from Neil's front wheel.

Our first Warm Showers experience staying with Gili, Maya and their toddler Neil has been amazing. Gili so kindly made us a delicious meal of wild rice, rainbow trout, mango salad and greens, Maya had bought us some pastry treats, and we were given plenty of advice for this trip and future tours (for e.g. it is actually really fun to take a seven month old on a five month cycle trip through South Korea and Japan).  We slept so well despite Neil and his chesty cough, and here we are this morning, having finished our breakfast and preparing for a day of exploring.

We will be in Vancouver until Sunday, when we set off to Vancouver Island to do the Pacific Marine Circle Route for five days.  Will post again soon!