The days went by and we took it easy in
Victoria. The grocery shop was in walking distance and had a good
selection of organic produce as well as many vegan food options in
the deli. Skippy had some more Karate, girls enjoyed playing in the
park and the restaurant and motel guests admired our trip and bikes.
Our new mixer Magic Bullet was already broken after two weeks of
daily usage. Lucky us we got our money back from Walmart (good
policies!) and ordered from internet a Tribest mixer – the same we
used before during Europe and West-Africa.
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| Thank you Sensei Danny McKee and Sensei Oliver Fitzpatrick from Shintani Wadokai for great trainings! I had great fun and learned many new things! :) |
My call for help to the local biker
community was answered by a few (thanks folks!) and the most
convenient was the one from Rod and Nora. Rod had a dry garage (very
important at that time of the year) where I could do a big yet
regular maintenance of my GS. The maintenance went well, and as I was
screwing around a few deer came by to say hello. My improvised fix of
the hole which covers the wheel to adjust the OT-point did simple
fall off when I tried to tight the screw. My new improvised fix
consisted of a piece of duck-tape.
It got pretty late, early dark and it
seemed to start freeze as well. Rod and Nora offered already earlier
that I could stay there over night and so I did. Nora made some vegan
food for me – Thank you very much! We had a few excellent beer and
talked about all sorts of things. I have not been drinking any beer
for quite a while and then instantly four .... or even five? I was
pretty much done :)
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| Nora & Rod |
Beautiful sunshine brightened my day on
the next morning and after a quick breakfast I hit the road. It was a
lovely yet chilly ride back to my girls.
We met some other people in the city
(special “hi” to Quinn and Lavender), found a vegan chocolate
shop (the goodies from the Portland one tasted better though) and
tested some of the vegan restaurants in downtown. The days were
typically dry and sunny with temperatures around +10C whereas the
nights brought already frost.
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| Pure Loving Chocolate - all vegan!!! |
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| Raw-vegan Cafe Bliss (well almost vegan, they do use some honey!) |
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| Really delicious raw vegan pizza slize and mushroom burger! |
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| Single-use coffee mugs create plenty of trash. Get a re-usable travel mug and be at least a bit more environmental friendlier! |
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| Victoria harbor. |
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| Good advice at Green Cuisine's female washroom :D |
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| Chinatown in Victoria, BC is the oldest Chinatown in Canada and second oldest in North America. |
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| Chinatown ... must have a dragon somewhere. |
We had our big day on the November 15th when we
had a “meet and greet” event at
Island BMW motorcycle dealer in
Victoria. Bill was absolutely fantastic in organizing everything from
the BBQ to the local TV news channel. Yep – BBQ! When I went the
first time to Island BMW to meet Bill and in order to prepare the
event, he noted instantly that oops you are vegan, so killing some
animals to promote your journey will not do. He organized some vegan
sausages, sauerkraut and vegetarian burgers!
Well done and thank you very much for
organizing this event!
The weather was inviting, sunny and
even warm in the sun (I guess many bikers regret that they canceled
their insurance already). We had a great time, met about 30 other
bikers, some who came just to see us and others by chance. We got
interviewed by
Chek News and made it to the evening news on the
local TV. I made an updated video which ran in the background and our
donation jars got some content. Thank you all very very much for your
generous contributions – we appreciate it and will take it to a
good cause.
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| Getting ready for the event... |
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| The official Island BMW "guardian". |
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| Hertta stayed in her favorite spot - the sidecar. |
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| Dylan from Chek News recording... |
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| and me telling our stories :) |
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| Thanks for all the donations as well as the food :D |
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| Vegan sausages and vegetarian burgers (Photo by Bill, Island BMW) |
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| ... and when can I ride in such a cool sidecar???? (Photo by Bill, Island BMW) |
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| Group-photo (Photo by Island BMW) |
This time two travelogues by Skippy:
~ Wolfi
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