TravellingStrom

Monday – Dease Lake, British Columbia

Rain Rain Go Away!

Yep, it rained overnight and still is, I hate it when forecasts for rain are correct! The store at the campground is shutting down this Thursday. So they are having a 50% off sale on all food items. Once again a harbinger of winter! I snaffled some muesli bars, about 4 boxes of them, this should last a while. A lot of natives were in there stocking up, the shelves were emptying rapidly 🙂 Anyway, I packed up and headed to the Visitor Centre where I borrowed some paint and some nails and made a crappy looking sign for the sign forest. Considering the hairs on the brushes were all clogged up I used the other end and made a bit of a mess, but the best I could do on the day 🙂

I had met these chaps there, they were riding north, good luck to them as it was cold up that way. I think they were only going as far as Dawson though, because of the Vstars lack of dirt ability.

After fuelling up I headed off into the rain, I had to go west to get to the turnoff, before heading south. One downside to wearing this oil wet suit is that I cannot use my heated gear, dry and cool or warm and wet, hmmm. I will have to work on that, maybe make a longer lead 🙂 Although I do not anticipate riding long periods in the cold and wet, I know it will happen. It looked like a fair distance to anywhere when I saw the signs. Hyder is in Alaska again, there is supposed to be a bear watching platform, so that may be worthwhile seeing 🙂

There were a lot of gravel sections and the weather was on and off, spitting rain sometimes dry, there was even a patch of blue up there at one stage 🙂

I stopped at a small servo for some food but they had none hot, only packets, another pointer to winter and the season close down, so I kept on going. I had removed the oil suit as it was not as wet, this allowed me to plug in my heated gear, this lasted about 5 minutes as I had blown a fuse by the feel, no heat anywhere.

I had installed a 10A fuse, I now upgraded that to a 15A as I had more gear now than when I originally installed it, yay, blessed heat is back and not too soon either the mountains looked wet and cold. These Gerbings are supposed to be waterproof, so I reckon they can take a bit of damp, not a thunderstorm though.

It was not long before I was amongst the construction zone, which meant dirt, or mud, yuck! This went on for a while until I hit a flag person, this meant according to her about a 5 minute wait, change that to ½ an hour 😦

So, while I waited I took a photo of my failed zipper on my tankbag for Jen from PacSafe, the base had not arrived in Anchorage and there was a possibility of a new bag being sent to California to a friend there, this would be the last chance as I am sure mail drops in South America would be an issue!

That zipper is on the lid and it is only where it goes around the corner, PacSafe have been more than forthcoming with their help, I think a few other companies could learn from them, TomTom for a start! I eventually got to Dease Lake around 3.30pm. I was hoping to get further, but if the road is as bad is what I had been through then it would take ages to do the next stage in the rain. I spoke to some other riders coming from the south, they said there is a big mud section down the road and it has been raining all the way from Smithers 😦 Bugger it, I treated myself to a room at the local motel 🙂

Here I managed to exchange a few books I had read and have a nice hot shower. I also sent the photo of my tankbag to Jen, and she advised me a bit later in the evening that a new bag and base is on its way to California, you little ripper , thanks Jen 🙂

On another note, I had phoned the TomTom repair company last week and also sent an email, no response as usual, so I phoned again. Yes they had got my emails and they had forwarded them on, but as I had no idea this was happening, how was I supposed to know, I had requested ‘read receipts’ when I sent them, but these had been ignored. Anyway I also asked them for a ‘pin out’ wiring diagram so I can solder some power leads to the TT, the bracket is next to useless now, it just holds the GPS up there on the dash and does nothing else. Their customer support could learn from PacSafe and even Kisan for that matter, they both have always been good with their product support.

Anyway, I had a lazy evening watching the rain fall through the motel window with the heater up and reading a book. It looked to be another wet day tomorrow, but I might as well get out of this part of the country, the season has changed for the worst. Which is a shame, the scenery and views could be magnificent, but not in the wet and on a bike.

The actual worst failure that is happening right now is my camera screen. It sometime does not show pictures, this is a bit hard to take pictures with as you can guess. I am quite good at framing photos without looking, well not bad anyway, but when I turn the camera on I do not know what mode it is in, especially when I have thick gloves on. It seems to be a loose connection inside the back of the LCD screen, but there is nothing I can do about it out here. I have extended warranty, but the paperwork is in a shipping container in a paddock back home, and I could not send it away until I had a new one, so I will have to persevere with this, and maybe buy a new one. A lot of electronics stuff is failing on this trip, most of it designed for motorbikes, and also for rough conditions, so I may have to start writing some more emails and see if there are any more Jens around 🙂

Day 167 miles and 269 km
Trip – 31,505 miles and 50,702 km

Cheers
TravellingStrom

Go to top of page