The Final Chapter

What a time we've had.  A canoe trip of a lifetime that we will continue to digest over the remaining 10 days of our expedition and further.  Almost 2 weeks of bliss as we slid down to the sea, cashing in on the potential energy we stored up as we biked to the heights of land for 1400 kms previously.  As Dave said the other day after a particularly wonderful day on the water at an equally wonderful campsite "If I had to bike over all that gravel another time to have such a day like this again...I would do it in a heartbeat".  It is a special, wild and unbelievably gorgeous river.  Which makes for a very bittersweet adventure when in the back of your mind is the fact that it will all disappear.  Within 5 years the vibrant ecosystem that we were lucky enough to travel through will be drowned, never to return.  All the creatures, gorges, microclimates, fisheries will be blanketed in hundreds of metres of water, destroyed and unseen beneath two massive reservoirs.  One moment in the boat your head is spinning, trying to take in the beauty around you, the next your heart breaks open knowing that you will never see it again, nor will anyone else.  All for the sake of a few kilowatts of energy....none of which will stay in the province it's created.  That's an entirely different story, a high voltage one at that and it will undoubtedly give us food for thought while biking for the next few days.  On we go, the end in sight. Infinity miles per gallon.