Victoria Summer Day 2018

One day this summer, my friend, Christine, proposed a bike ride out to Glen Rosa, a restaurant in the small, rural community of Metchosin to the the west of Victoria.  The Galloping Goose a former railway, now a walking/cycling trail, goes right by the restaurant so we set off from down town Victoria in the morning for the 30k ride out there.  On the way I stopped and took some photos of an interesting and significant construction site.  A condo development is going in replacing the former Customs House, a hundred year old federal building used for just what the name implies, in the heart of the city kitty corner to the Empress Hotel.  

Most of the original building was torn down but a part of it that has heritage value is being retained and incorporated into the design of the new development.  

I met up with Christine in town and we proceeded to pedal, first on the lovely new E&N Trail, a former railroad right of way, that connects with the Galloping Goose trail which we then followed the rest of the way to Glen Rosa.  Along the way we encountered this guy at a rest stop.

 Just as we were arriving at the restaurant, my shifter cable broke.  That added a new dimension to the day.  When that happens, you can no longer shift gears and the transmission defaults to the lowest gear, the hardest to pedal.  That would have made for a very difficult, slash impossible, ride home.  The people at the restaurant were very helpful.  The concerned owner and young chef came out to have a look and we all determined that there was not much we could do right then so we decided to go have lunch and worry about it later.  And so we sat on the veranda and enjoyed a delicious eggs Benedict lunch overlooking the farm and forests and down to the ocean.

 

After lunch, the owner's daughter offered to take us and our bikes to the nearest bus stop where we could get a bus back to town with our bikes.  When we got to the bus stop, Christine suggested that I try riding and see if we could get to the bike shop not too far down the trail.  So I tried it and it seemed doable so we pedaled off to the bike shop where they repaired it quickly and we rode home.