Western Canada / USA, 2002: First Annual HU Travellers Meeting

• Rally Location - Where is it?
• Information about the area

You missed a good one!

The Rally was a fun time, we had over 30 participants from as far away as Switzerland, UK and Ireland, as well as North Americans from Alberta, Missouri, Texas and more!

The official group pic - click for larger version

The Canadians came from as far away as Calgary (Peter Berghs), and also Radium Hot Springs (Elmer Green) and Kamloops (Ray Woodley), as well as a Victoria contingent (Cindy Liboiron, Dan Graham, Jo-Anne Stacey, Gail Edgers, Lucy Storm, Peter Juergensen and James McFadyen). Not to be outdone, the Lower Mainlanders came all the way from Abbotsford (Larry Couper and Cliff Kafka, who took some of these pics), and Fort Langley (David Blair), as well as Vancouver (Kevin Beretta, Don Reid, Paul Nicholson) and Richmond (Grant and Susan Johnson).

Cliff Kafka (quintessentially Canadian, eh) and new friends

The Americans did even better in the distance department, with John Kennedy (KCFire) coming all the way from Missouri for the event. John and Jean Ferris came all the way from Nevada, and Dennis Latzy and Chris Wensel made it up from California. Of course, Washington was ably represented by Tom Hunter, Daniel Toader, Ken and Marolyn Davis, and Mike Kmet.

No, he's not Canadian, Dennis is from Cool, California, where it's so cold he had to come in a truck!

But the prize for longest distance travelled went to Bruno Blum, from Switzerland (via Kazakhstan, Kyrgizstan, Uzbekistan, Russia and Japan), narrowly beating out Andy Miller, from the UK (via Turkey, Iran, India, Australia and New Zealand), and Grant March, from Ireland via Texas.

Bruno Blum, Switzerland

Quite a few people showed up earlier than we expected on Friday, in fact all the best camping spots had already been taken by the time we got there! (Probably something to do with the famous - or is that infamous - "Johnson crack o' dawn start" - somewhere around about noon on a good day.)

Friday evening was spent around the campfire telling tales, and Saturday a number of folks, not having ridden far enough to get there, spent the afternoon exploring the fantastic riding country surrounding the campsite. The rest of us kicked tires and talked bikes and travel for the afternoon.

Comparing bikes and mods

Saturday evening we all met at the Pemberton Hotel for a catered dinner and slide shows and more talk. Dan and Cindy Liboiron put on a great show on their travels circumnavigating Australia, Tom Hunter gave us a very classy reading from his travels in central America, and Andy Miller gave us a great tour of the Taj Mahal, and his travels in Iran. Then Susan and I got up and bored everyone silly with holiday snappies of our travels in South America, and then babbled on about how to do this travelling thing yourself. The highlight of the evening was the strawberries and cream desert...

Swapping stories ...

I think everyone had a great time, and plan on returning next year, so yes there will indeed be a next year! A new location, as yet undecided, but this time we will have it sorted much sooner, hopefully by the end of the summer, so you will have plenty of time to plan for next year. We will also probably change the date to a little later in the year.

If you're a rally regular, please send us a list of the rallies and dates you're going to, and we'll try and schedule around them!

You'll remember last month the bike was described as a pathetic sight. But, thanks to the able assistance of Andy Miller, and about a week of very long nights, it did indeed emerge from the garage in time to grace the Nairn Falls rally. As one person put it, 'the thing speaks for itself'. Indeed it does.

'Boy, I'm happy to be out of that garage!'

Oh yes, the hard luck award goes to Timo Scheiber, who has been one of our big supporters in getting this event going, and has been really looking forward to it. He was unable to make it, stuck in Revelstoke working for the weekend at the last minute! (the hard luck award is a big zero, by the way :-)

See you next year at a new location to be announced by end of the summer!