Day 7: Williams Lake, BC

One tends to have a few hours a day to think about things when you do long distance motorbike travel. A few of the things running through my mind today went along the lines of why, in general, do the self proclaimed custodians of our various lands trash the place so much? It seems like every first nations settlement here harbours a car and general junk yard. This is a pattern I've seen with virtually every indigenous population I've come across in America, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia etc. is it just that when the white man ruined your life style, and I'm very aware that in many cases we did, that you simply stopped caring about anything? No answers, just an observation. Personally though I would give more credence to the land custodian thing if you actually did look after it.
The other thing on my mind was how the hell Dave has managed to live as long as he has. Dave lives in a bizarre world of permanent exhaustion where the only thing that keeps him from falling asleep is a thrilling existence.
So today we are riding along through a large open range ranch, me leading. It was a nice flowing road but I'm aware that there are cows and deer hanging around so I figure 70km/hour is about right. Then I start hearing the yawning through the helmet coms. Turns out I'm going too slow and he is falling asleep so I graciously suggest he goes ahead. Thirty seconds later he comes flying past at significantly greater than 100km/hr in this huge power slide , corrects with this horrendous fishtail and disappears into the distance in a cloud of dust. All of this to stay awake! Or impress me. If its the latter it would take more than that to make me share a bed with him again.
I'm sure I had something more meaningful to say than that but my train of thought was interrupted by a fantastic supper at the nearby pub.
Today we rode 320km from Lillooet to Williams Lake, mostly on fast gravel roads. We pretty much followed the Fraser river north. This is a huge body if water that eventually ends in Vancouver 600km later. Today Dave only had 800ml of petrol in his tank at the end which means his rear wheel travelled 40km further than the rest of us. And he wonders where Ricky gets his hoon tendencies from?
The country is very dry high desert and not at all the verdant rainforest I had associated with BC.
The pictures today include the reaction ferry that crosses the Fraser at Big Bar. The ferry is attached to wires and uses the current to drive itself across.
The gratuitous naked Dave shots are after he was stung twice by a wasp. At least it woke him up. Apparently urine can soothe the pain so I offered to piss on him which would have made us both feel better. He declined.
Tomorrow we are heading to Jasper on sealed roads and then on the Iceland Parkway down to Banff.
Yesterday's efforts resulted in me undoing the good healing I had managed on my recently separated shoulder. That plus a sprained finger and a bashed knee made me think a couple of gentler days might be in order. It was worth it though.