With the weather still a little sketchy – we opted to postpone our launch today by half an hour and headed out around 9:30.  A nice tour of the agricultural area just north of Courtenay and Comox followed by a trip up the hill to Cumberland.  We encountered a few rain showers but nothing serious enough to head for cover.  The sun kept re-appearing so that we dried off and became quite comfortable again.

Cumberland is at a stage of development/re-development that Revelstoke may have been about 10-15 years ago.  It has become a great deal more a town than a village in the past 10 years since my first visit to the area and I suspect that it will become a great deal more in the next 10.  The culture of mountain biking has taken a strong hold in the area.  Cool coffee shops and restaurants.  Bakeries, breweries and bike shops.  Re-builds and gentrification.  It’s all happening in Cumberland.

To get there, we decided to meander through the countryside not knowing that one of our roads had a barrier and ‘NO TRESPASSING’ signs.  The renegade in the group said ‘what the heck’ and off we went.  Thankfully too because we were able to cross this really nice little bridge over the Courtenay River – which we wouldn’t have seen if we hadn’t ignored the warnings.

Fortified by Americano’s as well as turmeric, cinnamon and honey latte’s from the Cumberland Grind and baking from The Village Bakery (definitely worth a visit), we headed for home.

The afternoon resulted in nothing good.  The gals went shopping and the guys tested beer and chips.  At least the gals had something to show for their efforts!  Although the guys did do the wipe-down on the bikes – so all was not lost.  One Growler, 1 bag of chips and probably a few stories swapped.

Day 4 in the bag.  Thanks Comox Valley and thanks to the group.

LiveSplendidly!