Flea The Race

 

 

Day	6	Date	14th May 2015
Distance Total Distance	53.6km 299.1km	Weather	Sunny, Warm, No Wind
Rolling Time Total Rolling	03:11:24 17:29:38	Terrain	1 Large Climb
Climbed Total Climbed	611m 2,952m	Spend	None
Average Speed	16.7km/h	Sleeping	River Bank
Max Speed	68.0km/h	Difficulty	Easy

 

This morning I woke at 9am, made food before heading on my way, first down to check out the sea view about a km out of my way.  Today was a really slow days ride as there was so much cool stuff to see along the way that I kept stopping to take pictures. When I got to Dosewallips State Park the area was so nice and the weather perfect that I decided to sit about for 2 hours and do pretty much nothing useful, this was a welcome relief from the shitty weather I was saturated with yesterday.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Today I met another sound guy at Dosewallips State Park where I was chilling in the sun at a park bench enjoying the scenery with my laptop out.  This character whose name I forget (please comment if you read this so I can update!) stopped by for a walk out to a viewpoint of the sound when he happened upon me chilling in the sun by my bicycle!  I greeted him as he walked passed which served as his invitation to come over and say hi to see what I was all about.  One thing I’ve noticed on this trip is that most people are curious as to what I’m up to, where i’m headed and so on, all they need is an invitation to come over and chat, this invitation is a simple hello and they usually rock on over for some chit chat.

After a brief chat he asked “Do ye like to get high?” which I responded sometimes but not while riding!  He grows his own weed and he gave me all that he had on him at the time which was probably a good gram or two, he said he wanted to “sponsor my trip” and I graciously accepted.  We chatted for about half an hour in the sun before we said our goodbyes and he went on his way, twenty minutes later I was packed up and getting ready to cycle a bit more when my sponsor comes taring back through the dusty road in his beat up pickup landing by my bench, he opens his window and donates some more sponsorship, probably about 4 grams worth to help me on my way, this should make the hard ground a lot less hard at night!  What a cool guy, I’d love to sit around and have a beer with him some day!  I’d like to point out to all you judging do-gooders out there that weed is legal in the state of Washington which is currently my home so put that greenery in your pipe and smoke it :-P, when in Rome and all that!

After that I cycled onto Eagle Creek where I set up for the night by the sound, a tidal inlet of the Pacific Ocean, Eagle Creek is a small river that feeds into the sound, this is where I camped for the night.  I climbed down an embankment at the roadside and surveyed the area to see where was good to camp, there was a decent patch of flat greenery just beneath the embankment and it was higher than any other point.  I was unsure how far the tide came in but this area looked safe enough.  Once the tent was setup I made dinner and hung about a while before going to bed.  I got sleeping at about 10pm and remember waking once to a noise outside my tent, I didn’t know what it was so I listened out for a while to see if I heard anything more, it’s kinda freaky in a tent at night when there are unknown noises outside.  I decided to ignore the noise and go back asleep.

I woke again at 2am, I’m not sure what woke me but I woke.  I tossed and turned on my inflatable mattress and noticed something funny, my mattress had a little more padding to it, it felt funny, I moved some more and had the sensation that I was on a water bed.  Panic stations, I fumbled about in the dark for my head lamp to see what the hell was going on, when I got it on I zipped open the tent and could see my pots and pans that I used to make dinner earlier just floating there in 3 inches of water, this is not a situation you want to be dealing with at 2am in the morning when you have just woken up.  At this point no water made it into the inner part of the tent were I lay so all my electronics were still safe.  I packed up my shit in the tent as quick as I could before climbing out into the river that engulfed my tent.  I had no higher ground to retreat to that was flat so I tossed the tent up on a bramble bush on the road embankment and then proceeded to gather the pots and pans that were sailing around where my tent used to be.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Thankfully it was a clear night so I found a crevice on the road embankment to huddle into and wait for dawn to strike, it was 3.30am by the time I was done saving my stuff.  I crawled into my sleeping bag and set about trying to catch some shuteye while looking at the stars in the clear sky.  I managed to sleep until dawn rise where I could pack up my gear and get the heck out of this place…worst night so far on my trip but I guess it makes for a funny story which I’m already laughing at!  Rule 1 of wild camping, don’t bloody well camp at or near sea level!

I’m really glad it was a dry night and I decided to buy that headlamp, these 2 things really helped me out tonight making the situation a lot less shitty than it would otherwise have been!  I realise now what the first noise was that woke me last night, it was my pots and pans coming to life outside my tent rubbing against its edges like a bear sniffing for lunch!  Hats off to MSR, my tent manufacturer, we now know its waterproof from the ground up as well as the roof down, good job!

Onwards and Upwards 🙂