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Rocky Mountain Oysters
(Although the oysters I ate in Montana weren’t soaked in beer I’ve learnt since that the process of soaking them tenderises the meat.)
Serves 6
1kg fresh calf’s testicles* (#ulink_b0c4ec48-c19b-58e2-b5ec-ddc9be209981) 2 cans beer 150g flour salt, garlic salt and freshly ground black pepper 3 egg yolks 240ml vegetable oil chilli sauce or a little chopped chilli
1 Using a sharp knife, split the tough skin-like muscle that surrounds each ‘oyster’ and remove the testicle from within.
2 Place the testicles in a deep bowl and cover them with beer. Leave to sit for at least 2 hours.
3 Now combine the flour with a pinch of salt and garlic salt and some black pepper and mix through. Remove each testicle from the beer and while still damp, dip in a little egg yolk and roll in the flour until well covered.
4 Heat the oil in a deep skillet or frying pan, seasoned with a little hot sauce or some chopped chilli. Drop in the oysters and fry them for a couple of minutes on each side until golden brown.
5 Leave them to cool on a bed of paper napkins and then enjoy them with a cold beer and a little chilli sauce for dipping.
* (#ulink_4c63c9d7-4404-5192-be53-600ca3367e26) Be sure to ask your butcher for calf testicles, not bull testicles. Calf testicles are the size of a walnut and are much more tender than the larger bull testicles, which can be a bit of a mouthful.
Chapter 3 (#uf3841516-5964-578b-b420-1ef591850d55)
A Rocky Road (#uf3841516-5964-578b-b420-1ef591850d55) MOOSE BURGERS, BEARS AND AN UPHILL STRUGGLE
Behind mountains, more mountains.
Haitian proverb
Along with having to wear Lycra, and the inevitable chafing, there are three major downsides to cycle touring. The rain, headwinds and going uphill. Crossing the American Midwest I had been exposed to my fair share of lip-chapping, energy-sapping headwinds. The ending of the summer meant I had already been well watered, but until now the topography of my route had been sympathetic. A few unfriendly grades in Upstate New York had tested my early resolve but since then my legs had remained almost completely unproven at riding a 50-kilo bicycle uphill. This was about to change. Leaving the United States I had made it to Calgary, in Canada’s oil-boom state of Alberta. Home to the annual cattle stampede, it stands where the Great Plains meet the Rockies. Examining my location on my soggy, worn-out map, the impending change in terrain was evident. To my east, the map’s clean expanse of even green ink represented the flat ground I had just covered. To my west, a confusion of grey shaded crags seemed to rise out of the page, promising a very different type of landscape.
Beyond Calgary’s silver skyscrapers the snow-covered peaks of the Rocky mountains shimmered against a cloudless blue sky. From the safe distance of the city’s coffee shops and busy streets they seemed calm, almost unreal, like the blue-screened scenery in an old movie. By all accounts I would need at least a month to get to Vancouver, and with the year moving on, if I was to make it ‘over the top’ before winter set in, I had to get going. Bike repaired, Lycra washed and bags packed, the weathermen gave me the green light, and on the first of September I rode off, excited and apprehensive, towards the Rockies.
Cycling through Calgary’s oil-rich manicured suburbs in the early morning I passed bleary-eyed commuters clutching briefcases and giant, insulated coffee beakers. They called their goodbyes to wives and children standing in the doorways of their prim cloned houses and climbed into shiny all-terrain vehicles parked in the tidy driveways. Row after row of identical houses sporting velvet lawns luxuriating under automatic sprinklers stretched in every direction, but as the houses stopped I began to ride uphill and the endless terrain of the Midwest closed in around me.
The wide-open spaces I had been used to became tight valleys with heavy, shadowed cliff-faces. Never-ending vistas shrank to dark dense forests. The water no longer meandered and gurgled in lazy riverbeds, it rushed and crashed in foaming streams. Within a day’s cycling of Calgary, I was enclosed by mountains.
But far from being intimidated in these new surroundings, I felt strong and healthy, the air was crisp and clean and the climate cool and refreshing.
Gone were the slow-moving, nonchalant cowboys of the Midwest. Up here everyone I encountered at gas stations and small mountain cafés looked like a model from a camping catalogue. Ruddy-cheeked, clad in lumberjack shirts, heavy boots and efficient clothing with dozens of pockets, they had an infectious energy gained from their healthy mountain living. The Rocky mountains were an outward-bound paradise and after almost four months on the road I couldn’t help but feel like the mountain alpha male, living rough and surviving on my wits. Under clear blue skies, surrounded by this dramatic new scenery, I rode confidently towards the mountain town of Banff.
Adding an uncomfortable coolness to my sweat-damp T-shirt, a chill wind whistled in my ears. As deep rumblings echoed in the distance, I looked ahead to the tops of the mountains that were enveloped in swirling white clouds. The sun was quickly obscured and without the picture-perfect backdrop of blue sky and bright sunshine the mountains took on a whole new character. The first few drops of rain fell on my arms and an explosion of lightning flashed behind the high ridges above me as I laboured up the last hill into Banff. I was losing a race against nature. From what I could hear, a storm was systematically moving from valley to valley, and as a blanket of black clouds unrolled above I knew I was next. I rode into one of Banff’s large campsites with the cold rain now pouring down my face and battled with the unpredictable gusts of wind to put my tent up quickly. Deafening claps of thunder clattered round the mountains and each time the lightning snapped every detail of the valley was illuminated in brilliant phosphorescent light. Frantic to unpack my bike, I threw my panniers inside my tent, hurled myself in behind them and pulled the zip.
Like the snug comfort of being beside a roaring fire in a small cottage on a winter’s day, rain beating against the windows, there is something strangely comforting about being in a tent during a storm. But this comfort soon turns to panic when your ‘cottage’ decides to blow away. My pathetic tent pegs put up no resistance to the gale-force winds that were now howling outside. My flysheet had torn away from the main body of the tent and, after transforming itself into an efficient mainsail, began dragging me around the campsite. Wrapped in a confusion of torn nylon, tent poles, sleeping bags, pots and pans and puncture repair kits, I tried desperately to locate the zip so that I could escape, but no sooner had I resigned myself to the storm’s power than I felt a strong hand grab at me through the wreckage.
‘You OK in there?’ came a cry from outside.
‘Not really,’ I bleated in distress.
I was pulled from the wreckage and, after salvaging what I could, was rushed by my rescuer into the nearby safety of a motor home, where the confused faces of a young family seated around a small table at a game of Pictionary looked me over.
‘We watched you come in. Didn’t think you’d make it through the storm with your tent pitched where it was. Done much camping, have you?’
‘Bits,’ I muttered, embarrassed that my camping show had provided some light entertainment. ‘I’ve cycled from New York,’ I added, in an attempt to improve my credentials.
‘Well, you’re welcome to dry up in here while this storm passes through. Some fudge?’
The mother offered me a plate of home-made peanut butter fudge from the middle of the table where the family were grouped around their game. The Wendlebows were a family from Vancouver Island on vacation in the Rockies. In the snug comfort of the motor home, Paul, Emily and Erik, the couple’s young children, eyed me up and down shyly.
Wrapped in a blanket, clutching a steaming cup of coffee and nibbling on a slab of fudge, I stared out of the steamed-up windows of the motor home and watched as the storm moved into the next valley. Suddenly downhearted in the midst of this comfortable family, I pondered my situation.
I had spent four months sleeping rough and cycling, and now the summer was coming to an end. I had almost crossed the continent but one last, seemingly insurmountable, hurdle remained, and after only a few days into the Rockies the weather had already got the better of me. My tent was in tatters and so was my morale. I imagined limping back into Heathrow and being met by a posse of friends and family offering polite congratulations.
‘You did so well to get so far.’
‘You should be really proud of yourself.’
‘What a shame about the weather.’
At this point it was very clear how totally under-prepared I was for my mountain crossing, and I had at least another month ahead of me until Vancouver. For the first time the thought of failure was very real. I felt a long way from the heroic continent-crossing cyclist I was claiming to be.
The sky cleared and before darkness fell I was able to recover what was left of my equipment, which had been liberally scattered around the campsite. My tent would need to be patched up, I had lost four tent pegs and my inflatable mattress no longer inflated. The Wendlebows kindly invited me to join them for supper and after a comforting evening of Pictionary, hot dogs and corn on the cob, I crawled back into my weather-beaten tent, curled up on my deflated mattress and slept.
In 1885 the completion of the Canadian-Pacific Railway finally linked the east and west coasts of Canada, allowing passengers to travel the 2,500 miles across the North American continent in relative comfort. Passing north of Lake Superior, the tracks traversed the Great Plains of Manitoba and Saskatchewan before snaking into and over the Rocky mountains. A remarkable feat of Victorian engineering, which cost the lives of countless Chinese labourers, the project was spearheaded by the charismatic William Cornelius Van Horne. A rising star of the new industrial age, Van Horne not only saw the railroad as fundamental to trade and commerce, he also saw the potential of the Rockies’ breathtaking scenery as a tourist attraction. ‘Since we can’t export the scenery—we shall have to import the tourists,’ was his entrepreneurial boast before starting work on a series of luxurious mountain resorts where the super-rich of this new industrial epoch could come and take in the clean air and enjoy the views. Van Horne’s vast chateau-style hotel, built on the convergence of the Spray and Bow rivers, was to be the jewel in the CPR’s crown. A towering testament to industrialism, the Banff Springs Hotel quickly became one of the world’s most prestigious getaways.
In bad weather, with its Gothic turrets and gables, it would have appeared like an impregnable cocktail of Psycho-meets-Colditz, but bathed in warm late-summer sunshine it was as reassuring as a Scottish baronial castle on the lid of a tin of Highland shortbread.
I pushed my bicycle up the long sweeping driveway, gazing at the towering façade with its backdrop of mountains. Then I walked into the imposing hotel lobby and, in my dirty shorts and worn-out shoes, I felt immediately and agonizingly under-dressed. Stone chimneypieces framed roaring fires, vast oil paintings of misty mountain scenery hung from the walls and the proud heads of deer and moose stared down at me with disdain. Colourful stained-glass windows lit up solid wood staircases and rich carpets, while busy staff scurried to attend to the well-to-do guests lucky enough to be staying here. I pulled off my bobble hat, revealing a shaggy head of unkempt hair, and approached the reception desk to enquire about brunch.
‘Certainly, sir. Do you have a reservation?’ drawled the concierge in a smooth Canadian accent.
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘Well, I’m afraid you need a reservation, sir, and we do have a dress code in the dining room. Resort casual.’
‘Resort casual?’
‘Yes, sir. Will that be all?’
A short ride back into town I found the nearest phone box and popped in a couple of quarters.
‘I’d like to make a reservation for brunch please.’…‘Today.’…‘Just one, I’m afraid.’…‘Eleven thirty? Perfect.’…‘Tom.’…‘Thank you.’
Back at the hotel’s front door a polite porter offered to keep an eye on my wheels, and after I explained that I planned to be inside for quite some time he offered me the valet service.
‘For a bicycle?’
‘Don’t see why not, sir.’ Handing me a smart brass token, he wheeled away my overloaded bike.
I hurtled through the lobby, past well-dressed guests enjoying their Sunday, and made a beeline for the Gents.
It was an opulent room with yellow marble basins, golden taps, tall mirrors and, amid a baffling range of towels and scented toiletries, I went to work. I trimmed my wayward beard, added a few well-needed blasts of deodorant, put on a collared shirt and slipped into an almost clean pair of jeans.
The reflection that looked back at me may not have been wearing a pink Ralph Lauren shirt, chinos and a preppy blazer, but as I brushed my hair and eyed myself up in the large mirror I decided I was as close as I was ever going to get to ‘resort casual’. Stuffing my dirty clothes in the small cupboard under the sink, I made my way to the dining room, leaving a trail of stubble and my own distinctive fragrance in my wake.
Like another of life’s simple pleasures, eating is much more fun with other people. I gave my name to the maître d’ and felt a momentary pang of sadness as I was shown to a single table, laid for one, in the middle of the large dining room, which was filled with families, groups of friends and the lively sounds of animated conversation. Eating alone is one of the downsides to solo travel, but determined not to dwell on my solitude I began to plan my brunch and activate my gastric juices.
‘Do help yourself to the buffet, sir.’
Just hearing the word ‘buffet’ conjured up apparitions of metal trays filled with multicoloured gloop in cheap Chinese restaurants. It reminded me of cheapskate corporate functions with tables littered with cold cocktail sausages, plastic ham sandwiches, damp quiche, greying Scotch eggs and soggy sausage rolls. But as I stared at the galaxy of food laid out before me here, it was clear that they treat buffet very differently Stateside. This was buffet, but not as we know it.
Heaps of crushed ice were covered with pink lobsters, meaty crabs, fat shrimps and coral-coloured langoustines; there were sides of smoked salmon, trout and gravadlax; pepper-crusted pastrami, haunches of prosciutto, shiny maple-cured hams studded with cloves, salted hunks of beef, rolled pancetta, looped Spanish chorizo, slender salamis, chunky saucissons…
Busy men in tall chef’s hats and white jackets whisked eggs and made omelettes to order. Balls of pizza dough were thrown around like juggler’s balls, stretched like chest expanders before being sprinkled with savoury ingredients. Headband-wearing sushi chefs patiently constructed flawless nigiri and sashimi while others tossed ingredients into hissing woks. Sous chefs with knives that could remove a man’s arm at a single stroke dissected tender ribs with all the skill of a surgeon and racks of lamb and huge hams glazed with sticky honey were deftly sliced. Golden chickens rotated slowly on spits. There were salads of every colour and description. Baskets spilling over with fresh fruit and wild berries were next to towers of decadent pastries and puddings cemented with whipped cream and bejewelled with fresh fruit. It looked like the delirious fantasy feast of a starving man. After four months of living on the road, it was almost too much to take in. I wanted it all and yet seemed to be overcome with a strange sensual panic.
There is an art to eating a buffet of this calibre. I needed to be calm, disciplined. I needed a strategy. How many times you revisit a buffet on this scale is a private matter between you, the capacity of your stomach and your conscience, but the first rule of buffet is knowing where your enemy lies.
‘Would like some bread, sir?’
Don’t even think about it.
To gently ease my system into the impending feast, I began with a bowl of fresh Rocky mountain berries and natural yogurt, and sticking with the breakfast theme I then decided on eggs Benedict, an old favourite. I declined the offer of having it served on an English muffin and opted instead for a couple of rashers of grilled Canadian back bacon and a little wilted spinach.
My next stop was the sushi bar where a patient Itamae was practising his art. I briefly questioned whether I should be eating raw fish in the Rocky mountains, but the objection was overruled, and I returned to my table with a plate laden with beautiful nori, wrapped futomaki, uramaki made with Pacific salmon, nigiri zushi with shrimp and eel, and plenty of tender cuts of sashimi, all enjoyed with a little wasabi and pink ginger that rebooted my system perfectly for the next step.
Spoilt with cold sides of smoked Pacific salmon, sparkling gravadlax and fat prawns the size of giant’s fingers, I loaded up yet another fishy plate with poached Bow river trout with a dill and caper sauce, and enjoyed it with some fresh asparagus dripping with butter. Fish is filling and, teetering on the edge of consciousness, I was grateful that I had had the foresight to bring a good book with me. After a visit to Middlemarch I was soon raring to go again.
Ahhhhhhh!
Roast loin of pork with morels, the sculptural mushrooms I had noticed growing on damp tree stumps and logs in the woods, served with a couple of boiled Yukon Gold potatoes coated in a little butter and fresh mint, and a couple of grilled peppers on the side. My mission was almost complete.
Unfortunately the Hungry Cyclist was on a tight budget, and this luxurious food had to be washed down with jugs of iced water and the complimentary fruit juices on offer. With each new plateful the black-dressed sommelier would approach to proffer his extensive wine list; each time he would retreat with merely a twitch to the corner of his mouth to show his disappointment.
He had much more luck with neighbouring tables, whose occupants changed two or three times during the course of my long-drawn-out brunch. By now I had been eating for over two hours. My brain was signalling frantically to my stomach and waves of dizziness washed over me. I began to feel increasingly light-headed and in a state of semi-delirium I mopped up the last of the meat juices with a lonesome potato. I needed to go back to Middlemarch.
After another chapter, I enjoyed some sharp Canadian cheddar and a healthy slice of Saskatoon strudel that had been flirting with me throughout the afternoon. I had reached my elastic limit and, sipping at a small espresso, I checked my time. Three hours and twenty-two minutes. I screwed up my napkin and triumphantly threw in the towel. Staggering out of the dining room I waddled through the labyrinth of the hotel like a sedated minotaur. The beast had been tamed. Stumbling across a cosy room with an open fire and a sofa the size of a family car, I slipped off my shoes, plumped up the cushions, let out a reassuring fart and collapsed.
Waking from a series of deep, cheese-induced dreams, I reluctantly made plans to return to the washroom to get back into my cycling clothes. In the lobby, excited fresh-faced guests were returning from the mountains and checking in for the night. How I wished I could have joined them. Instead I pulled on my woolly hat and walked outside into the cold. Reluctantly, like Cinderella returning from the ball, I gave the doorman my valet token and soon a young porter was struggling to push my bike to the front door. I shook his hand, slipped him a dollar for his efforts and pedalled out into the biting late afternoon.
‘Thank you, sir. Enjoy your evening.’
As I left Banff, the sun disappeared behind the dark green spruce that covered the mountains, and the warmth of the afternoon went with it. In the sunlight this snow-capped landscape was enchanting, but when you took away the sun it became a different place all together. Cold and imposing, the long shadows of the dark cliff-faces hung over me as if I was entering a whole new menacing world. The air chilled my face and icy drops of rain began to fall and to drip from the boughs of the dark trees that hugged the roadside. Cold and alone in this suddenly intimidating environment, my thoughts returned to the comfort of the hotel. It would be dark in an hour and I had no idea where I was going to sleep that night.
‘Hey there, I’m Dave. Quite a load you have there, eh?’ A man on a bicycle pulled alongside. ‘I’m camping in the woods on the left, seven miles up the road. Come and join me. Can’t delay, this rain doesn’t look like quitting and I need to get a fire going, eh.’
Ending every sentence with the expression ‘eh’, it was clear Dave was Canadian, but other than his name and his nationality I knew nothing about him, and he and his old racing bicycle quickly disappeared over the crest of the next hill. Exactly seven miles from where Dave had raced past me, a narrow track, flanked on either side by tall trees and scattered with fallen pine needles, led into the woods. Away from the road the forest was densely packed and the thick evergreen branches almost completely blocked out what was left of the day’s light. Rain poured down and heavy beads of water fell through the needles and branches. A mile or so up the track the light blue rainsheet of a small tent stood out in the darkness and working away behind it with a small hatchet was Dave, already busy splitting logs for a small fire that was sending a billow of thick smoke into the gloomy surroundings.
‘Welcome, welcome,’ he cried. ‘Try and find a dry spot for your tent, eh.’
Fat drops of rain splashed from the high branches but the forest floor, a mix of old spruce needles and small twigs, was surprisingly soft and dry. I pitched my tent, prepared my sleeping bag and, still wrapped from head to toe in my claustrophobic waterproof carapace, joined Dave by the fire.
‘Feather sticks,’ he said, holding up a piece of split wood. ‘Only way to get a fire going when the heavens open, eh.’ He went back to working at the piece of kindling with his long hunting knife. ‘You wanna try?’ He offered me a piece of wood.
In a blue bobble hat that came down over his ears to the top of his well-kept beard, and wearing an old jumper and well-worn yellow waterproof jacket that would have been more suitable on a fishing boat, Dave was skinny and probably in his fifties, but the deep lines of his weathered features surrounded a pair of keen eyes that sparkled with the boundless energy of a teenager.
‘So where are you cycling to?’ I asked.
‘Oh I’m jus’ here on a little holiday.’
‘And where’s home?’
‘Calgary right now, eh. But I’m kind of homeless at the moment.’
‘But what do you do during the winter?’
‘Oh, it doesn’t get too cold any more. Perhaps minus thirty when there’s a snap, and as long as I have my peanut butter and my marg, I do just fine.’ Pulling a plastic tub from his bag, Dave proudly directed a heaped spoon of white margarine into his mouth.
‘You want some?’ he offered through a mouthful of margarine.
‘Not for me, thanks.’
‘Keeps out the cold, eh.’
I watched in disgust as the lump of margarine moved down his throat before Dave went on to repeat the process with his peanut butter. What little appetite I had after my gourmet lunch almost disappeared after witnessing this gastronomic monstrosity, but expecting a cold night ahead I offered to cook some supper and returned from my tent with my cooking staples—two ripe tomatoes, half an onion, a head of garlic, two bruised courgettes, a roll-up chopping board, a collection of herbs and spices stored in 35mm film cases, some chicken stock cubes, some brown rice, a little olive oil, two apples, a small bag of raisins and a plastic bear half full of honey, plus a couple of pans. The kindness of strangers and plenty of cheap Midwest diners meant I hadn’t used them for a while. Producing my supplies, Dave’s eyes almost fell out of his head.
‘You cycle with all that gear on your bike, eh?’
‘I like to eat.’
Placing a couple of flat and steady rocks around the fire, I sweated off some chopped onion with a little oil in one pan before adding chopped garlic and a couple of pinches of dried cumin. I added one cup of brown rice, which sizzled and cracked, and after a few minutes added two cups of water and a crumbled stock cube. Leaving the rice bubbling, I added the remains of the chopped onion and the rest of the garlic to the other pan and put in the courgettes, the rain hissing as it hit the bottom of the pan. The courgette began to colour and I added the tomatoes and some seasoning. The rice was ready. Dishing up a healthy portion on a plate, I added a little of what could almost be called Rocky mountain ratatouille and served it to Dave.
‘Voila.’
‘You sure like your food, eh.’ Dave began attacking his supper.
‘Oh, nothing special,’ I said, ashamed to admit that only a few hours before I had been stuffing myself in one of the world’s smartest hotels. For pudding I cored the two apples and filled the centres with a mixture of three damp digestive biscuits I found in a pocket, some honey, raisins and a pinch of cinnamon. I stewed them in a few inches of water and after a long wait while chatting over a strong cup of coffee they were ready, the piping-hot apples sticky and spicy-sweet.
We stayed up and talked a little about our respective lives on the road. A year before, Dave’s mother had had to go into a nursing home and in order to cover the costs Dave had been forced to sell their apartment. Without a job he had no alternative but to camp for the ensuing year in a park in Calgary, from where he was able to visit his mother every day. This trip to the Rockies was his holiday. Before long the bitter cold sent us into the relative warmth of our tents. I stretched my balaclava over my head, pulled on my woolly socks and gloves and wriggled about for a few minutes to generate a little heat. It was no five-star hotel, but after my evening with Dave I was beginning to understand that comfort and discomfort were no more than a state of mind.
The following morning I emerged wearily from my tent cursing the cold, frantically blowing into my hands and stamping my feet in an attempt to reboot my circulation. Dave was already up and about, chopping wood and successfully resurrecting the previous night’s fire. My water bottles had frozen solid and after filling a pan in a nearby stream we brewed coffee and cooked oats. Then we said our goodbyes, and I was on my way to Lake Louise and the Icefields Parkway.
Fabled to be one of the world’s most beautiful roads and tracing the spine of the North American continental divide, the Icefields Parkway runs some 250 kilometres from the surreal turquoise waters of Lake Louise to Jasper National Park. Built by unemployed men as part of the ‘make work’ project during the Great Depression, it passes within viewing distance of seven upland glaciers. Dreamlike lakes the colour of scarab beetles sit peacefully below these vast fields of ice that cling precariously to the mountains, slowly dripping into the rivers that fill the air with the sound of rushing water and tumbling boulders. Cycling this road, where large trucks are thankfully prohibited, might be hard work but I have no doubt it is the best way to appreciate the outstanding natural beauty hidden in the heart of the Rocky mountains. Huge slabs of what was once the earth’s crust have been smashed and thrust in all directions by violent seismic upheavals, creating the vast sharp-edged limestone mountains and splintered cliff-faces that surround you. Millions of years of slow-moving ice and rushing melt-water have done their best to tidy up this violent mess, carving out smooth valley basins.
Two days later, as I sweated inside my restrictive waterproof shell on a morning of slow uphill cycling in indecisive rain, the sun eventually broke through the thick clouds and the dramatic beauty of the valley I was cycling through became visible. Finding a peaceful clearing some way from the road I stopped for lunch beside the ominously named Mosquito Creek. I had not passed a shop since Lake Louise and my meagre rations dictated another lacklustre banquet of peanut butter and honey sandwiches, two bruised apples and a chocolate bar. Unsatisfied with lunch I lay out my damp clothes on a series of large boulders to dry in the afternoon sun and, doing the same to myself, began drifting asleep to the peaceful tune of the icy waters rushing in the creek. The warmth of the afternoon vanished as the sun hid behind the mountains and it was replaced by a sharp coolness that quickly reminded me where I was. It seemed a perfect place to camp, and deciding to stay put for the night I spent the next hour crashing around in the bushes collecting the driest wood I could find.
Organising my findings into three tidy piles, small, medium and large, I split some of the smaller branches into ‘feather sticks’ (of which Dave would have been proud), cut a strip of rubber from an old inner tube, covered it with smaller twigs and struck a match. On all fours, I moved around my fire. A directed blast of breath here. Another well-positioned breath there. Just move this stick a little to let some more air in…
After ten minutes of concentrated tweaking, blowing and tinkering I was rewarded with the first comforting crackles and hisses of fire. I tenderly placed a few bigger sticks on the climbing flames and, swelling with primitive pride, I got to my feet and took in my surroundings. The wide creek ran away across the valley floor which was littered with sun-bleached tree trunks and heavy boulders, a reminder of its powerful potential. The broken peaks of the cold mountains rose hundreds of feet above the pointed tops of the densely packed trees that carpeted their slopes, and above it all the first star burst through the cloudless sky. It promised to be a bitterly cold night. In the gathering darkness my world was soon reduced to all that was illuminated by the dancing flames of my fire.
‘Hey, Hungry Cyclist, why don’t you come in here and take off my wrapper?’
