Orcas Island Biking Day 1:
25.87 miles, 2560 ft ascent, 8 hrs. 17 min.
Daily Drena: You Don’t Mind
This morning had a pretty fog on the water before dissipating shortly thereafter. We relaxed in the condo waiting until we saw the early ferry head across the horizon then headed up to the docks to head over to Orcas Island. While waiting for the ferry to dock, we struck up a conversation with an older couple who were also heading to bike Orcas. They were doing a similar route to us, but taking a side jaunt to Deer Harbor, which we were planning to do on our way out to a Lopez in two days time. We were a little jealous of their e-bikes and luggage service as Orcas is the hilliest island and they went with one of the self guided pre planned tours. We hope to be doing the same thing as them 30 years down the road!
After saying farewell to our new bike friends and Lorena heading off in the wrong direction, we corrected and started immediately climbing hills on a country road to the east of the docks. It was a lovely mixture of forests, rolling hills, and farmland with a few miles of gravel road along the way, which was well worth it, as again, we only saw about ten cars for the first part of this route. We met up with our friends in East Sound later in the day and they had taken the main road the other day and dealt with a ton of traffic instead.
An offshoot of the route took us down an enchanted forest lane with ravens in abundance flying about and cackling away in the tops of the trees. This led us to Orca Islands Pottery, a collective of the islands potters where a fourth generation family of potters lives and throws bowls all day, as was evidenced by the prolific amount of pottery for sale. There was one room which was floor to ceiling on every wall just of mugs! We spent quite a bit of of time there exploring the pottery, tree house, and gardens, before heading off with just photos, but the potential to stop back on the way off the island to purchase some bowls and plates to replenish the ones we have broke; over the years. The combinations of glaze colors was really stunning.
After a number of more hill climbs we made it to East Sound, the main town on the island, directly in the center between the two land masses to either side. We settled in for a quick bite to eat at the local cafe where they had run out of most supplies for the day already, so I ended up with a grilled cheese and Lorena had a chicken salad sandwich. We then spent far too much time wandering the town exploring the various shops and art studios until it was late afternoon. We also kept trying to make our way to “public beaches”, which turned out to be a few meters of rocky beach underneath a restaurant and a dock that didn’t even have access to the shore. Yet again, there is far too much private land and not enough public here, with no trespassing signs everywhere.
After the longest hill climb of the day and extremely poor timing of just being after work and thus, tons of cars zipping by, we made it to the Moran State Park and Rosario Village where we were staying for the evening. We had picked up provisions at the local grocers in East Sound as Rosario is mostly closed due to renovations. However, when we arrived, a grill cafe was actually open, although closed shortly thereafter. There was also a little store attached to the cafe and a laundry available, so we thought we would get some clean clothes! Alas, they had no quarters available as they were wiped out by the other guests earlier that day, but we scrounged up two quarters in Lorena’s supply and the lady felt sorry for us and gave us the two quarter she had left. We found out that was just enough for a dryer load, so we hand washed all our clothes back at the room, then biked them down for a dryer load. Unfortunately, one 20 minute dry session didn’t get them all dry, so we are hoping they will dry overnight as they are strewn across the bikes in our room and any surface we could hang them from. We did, however, enjoy our salami, cheese, and crackers for dinner on the lawn chairs with a beautiful view of the bay.
