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As Matt's last ride for the summer (he's out fishing until September) a select few CCSC members headed out to Cowichan Bay and beyond.
The name is a concatenation of the first 4 letters of Cowichan Bay and the last 5 letters of Amerivespa. Since we couldn't make
it to P-Town, we thought a long ride was in order. We start by putting on sunscreen :).
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After a swift ride to Brentwood Bay to catch the small vehicle ferry, we decided to spend our half hour looking at garage sales
around the area. Matt was actually considering strapping a photo enlarger to his bike, but he would have to carry that AND an outboard
motor. I think he made the right decision, though the enlarger looked like it was from a bad Sci-Fi movie. Our humming and hahhing
made us almost late for the ferry... we actually had to run to make it.
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Still catching our breath, we managed to board the ferry and pay the guy. As the boat moved a cool breeze swept across the deck
making the weather quite pleasant. It was hot outside (thank you, scooter gods).
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If you needed a bathroom, you were in deeeep trouble. |
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The Raptor ATV and unknown Dirt bikes that had passed us in Brentwood made the ferry, too (along with their "custom truck" owning friend).
The guys were wearing TShirts and shorts... sigh...
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What a beautiful truck. |
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What a wonderful welding Job. |
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At least they're prepared, I guess. With the gas can, that is. :) |
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We got off of the ferry at Mill Bay and rode along the coast until we got to Cowichan Bay. Matt had to
pick up a small outboard motor for his non existent boat. Meanwhile, the rest of us stayed in Cowichan and looked around.
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This is the outboard in question. It's a small two stroke marine engine that can be hauled by throwing it
over your shoulder (like a continental soldier). The make is Seagull, made in Britian. No kill switch, you have to
stop it by grabbing the flywheel on top :) |
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An old building I just had to snap a shot of. I think it was an old boat building place. |
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I was amazed by the sheer size of the sail in the picture. I thought it was something more exotic. I just stood there and went
"Oh, It's a boat. Just like the rest."
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Aside from the sheer artsy fartsyness of this shot, there are some HUGE lights hanging off to the side. One person conjectured that it might be a
way of attracting fish or lighting the deck at night. I still don't know what they're for, other than the obvious. |
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Tanya enjoys a coffee. |
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When we were finished with Cowichan Bay, we headed through a Native reservation and past the scariest church ever. The church's front lawn was a graveyard and the building itself
was tall and skinny. We ended up in Duncan and filled up on gas.
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And we ended up in the middle of nowhere. The map we were using was not quite correct, so we were off course. We stopped at a local, hippy owned, business. They helped to
point us in the right direction, but I think we ruined their Karma, or buzz, or something.
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We arived at a beautiful apple vineyard, Merridale Ciders, near Shawnigan Lake and were treated incredibly well. We were invited to a tasting and they answered our
questions about cider making. They let us have a picnic out in the rows of cider apple trees.
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A shot of all the cider they let us sample. None of us could agree what tasted better, but I tell you what - I drank a litre of their
AWESOME "soft cider" (apple juice made from cider apples) YUM! |
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This is the spot we chose for lunch. We were surrounded by trees and watched a few eagles circling over the estate. It was an
amazing area just to sit, eat and rest (and madly take pictures).
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CHEERS!!! WISH YOU WERE HERE! :)
This was a great ride, I can't wait to get up here again. After thoroughly chilling, we took the Malahat (a windy fast ride) and
went into town. I'm sure the rides in Amerivespa are good, but this gave me my fix for the month. :) Now to rest my sore ass.
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