Epic Scoot

Safely returned from my Epic Scoot up the Old Island Highway to Campbell River, Quadra Island, Cortes Island, Powell River and the Sunshine Coast!! About 600 km on about $15 of gas.



Here's my RV (tent under seat and rest in saddlebags) in Union Bay next to Sea-Change Studio (amazing artists). Felt a little giddy (a lot giddy) rollin' down the highway like I'd just escaped from the circus. Actually, I renamed The Scoot: Baggins, after Bilbo in The Hobbit. We definitely got out of the glen on this trip.


Many many ferry rides. I love ferries, also known as The Poor Man's Cruise. Even better, I got to roll on and off with the Harleys. There's something fantastic about gunning yer scooter engine up and down the ramps with a rumbling horde: first on, first off.







A calculatedly placid shot, below. Nevertheless, I notice a jetstream in the cloud-blown sky. That was from the ferry returning to Quadra from Cortes.







My hobbit friends, on Quadra. Anyone who moves to the Gulf Islands ends up looking like something from J.R. Tolkien, given time. (When I started looking like Golem, I knew it was time to leave.) Ryan and Jessica are blogging their gardening adventures at From the Living Soil and Eating the Coast respectively, both on Wordpress. They are starting a seed company, and market-gardening and tending farm animals in exchange for inhabiting their little red house...

I will travel 600 km to hug a kid this cute.



We went to Rebecca's Spit, where I contemplated a career making jewellry from dead crabs. You laugh...






We relaxed on the beach.





Here, there was a disagreement over the pronunciation of "flotsam."

I scooted onward, to Cortes, where I immediately ran into a family I'd met on a previous ferry. The little girl thought I was rad because I was a girl on a motorbike(ish). I thought she was rad because she had four braids in her hair. We went for a swim. I carried on to the Babbling Buddha hostel. Beautiful setting:

I arrived just in time to join a meditative dance in the carpeted and tapestried dojo, led by a British yogi/teacher. She was beautiful and intense. There was one other guest, a man, who also participated. There was a repetitive-dance part, a Sufi-spinning part, and a meditation part, splayed face-down on the floor. I was like, okay, this is cool.

There was also a hyper-active kitten on the premises. During the repetitive-dance part, the kitten repeatedly attacked the man's leg, sometimes launching full-out assaults from across the room. Remarkably, the man didn't miss a step or scream in pain. I was glad the kitten had developed single-prey focus.

During the Sufi-spinning part, I discovered immediately that spinning requires some skill. You have to concentrate on grounding yourself, and blur your vision or you will throw up. I was doing quite well, although I wished there weren't so many posts in the room.

During the splayed-out-on-the-floor meditation part, I fell asleep completely and woke myself up when I made one of those weird sleep-talking-noises. I had no idea where I was for a moment, but was reassured to hear the man making another weird sleep-talking noise elsewhere in the room. I decided that, for someone with a tendency to fall asleep while trying to meditate, lying face-down on the floor was not a recommended position.


Cortes is the centre of the Gulf Islands mystical universe. Here's my contribution, on the beach at Smelt Bay. It's a mandala. I don't know a lot about mandalas, but I like them. I've wanted to make one for about six months. It's my holiday, and it's time to make a mandala!!

Hollyhock retreat centre is largely responsible for Cortes' reputation. Here is the garden at Hollyhock, named after "the spirit of the 'Holy Mallow' known through the ages for its healing and spiritual qualities' (says the packet of Hollyhock seeds I bought there). The garden is beeeaauutiful:

Below, there are red dahlias in the foreground and bright red and dark red hollyhocks (I got seeds for those) in the back.

Below: crocosmia in front of a canna lily leaf...

Here's a something I don't know what it is. A poppy-like mallow. A mallow-like poppy?

I met so many nice people throughout the trip--windows into so many different lives: the off-the-grid fisherman, the Spanish school teacher, the 60-year-anniversary couple who invited me in for Rooibos tea, the California couple who told me interesting stories about their part of the world, and shared my enthusiasm for solo travel.

Church for sale on the Sunshine Coast. Baggins, feelin blessed.