The Great North: Wheelies, Victoria, and Camping in Sooke

It seems like last minute trips are the theme when I go on dirt bike adventures. Earlier this year, my friend Ryan and I hit up Victoria for a little last minute planned trip. Nothing too exciting, but we had a blast.

We planned this one in about an hour after work one night. I had never been to the Island, and Victoria day weekend seemed like a pretty good time to do it. We gave ourselves about 2 hours to get to Twassen to catch the ferry. I had never ridden the long ferry ride, so I was stoked for that. We packed up, got ready and caught the ferry in good time. By the time we got to Victoria, it was after 11 so we weren't going to be able to do any trail riding, or find any rad camp spots. The night life downtown Victoria seemed so alive. There were university students, lots of girls, and loads of people walking the streets. The vibe was awesome. It was like the entire downtown was Granville, without the juice monkeys, and without the need for police barricades. We debated staying in a hostel just for the purpose of meeting some people and possibly partying, but neither of us are the hostel type, so we asked around about some places we could get away with camping in the City. We got some advice from a girl working at a 7/11. She told us to head down to Beacon Hill park, a large park on the edge of the water in Victoria, with forested areas where we could apparently camp without harassment from the Police. Sounded rad to me.

We rode down, checked out the entire park (after midnight) and found an area by the beach that was grown over by large bushes, with a trail cutting right through the bush. We rode up onto the path, turned into the trail, and found the perfect spot. We got off our bikes and decided to set up camp right there. About a minute after we turned our bikes off, and started unstrapping our bags, a guy dressed in all white clothing, walked right up to us and stopped standing within inches of us, and said "Hey how's it going?" in some sort of thick Russian accent. "Pretty good man." I replied. The guy stood there for a moment in silence, before he looked at Ryan and said "How are you?". Ryan looking puzzled replied "Pretty fucking good man.. what's up?". The guy stood there for another moment before walking away like nothing happened. We kind of look at each other like, this is fucked up, but we just brushed it off. Within the next few minutes, we were approached by multiple men, sometimes 2 or 3 at a time walking up to us, or right past where we were about to set up. Finally a group of 3 guys walked passed us, and one of them stopped and let us know it wasn't a very "family friendly" place to camp, and directed us to a "safe zone". We tried to set up camp in a fucking gay cruising bush! I have no judgement, but damn was it the most awkward 5 minutes of my life. The next morning we told numerous people we met that we had camped at Beacon Hill in the bush, and everyone of them laughed. Apparently it's the place to go if you're interested in feeling the embrace of another man.

The next morning, we got up and headed right down to the Wheelies compound. Hitting up Wheelies was going to be one of the main stops on our weekend trip. We got there around 9am, and read the sign saying they open at 11. We were super hungry, so we caved and had 4 dollar breakfast at some place down the road. I only got it because it was 4 bucks, and I figured I would still have room for one of the delicious looking sandwiches I kept seeing on Wheelies instagram account, but the 4 dollar breakfast was so big, I was too full to eat by the time we got the Wheelies.

Wheelies is unreal. I'm pretty sure I went there once before, in my fucking dreams. With a huge shop, and a retail space, they have still managed to bring an awesome food and beverage menu to us, as well as a license to sell to liquor. Right from the front entrance, you get a cool vibe from this place. With a large gated lot, there is no shortage of space for meets and shows. Everyone on staff was super friendly, especially the owners Jay and Joel. They showed me the shop area where they are able to work on bikes for the general public, and Jay even gave me some awesome deals on some stuff from the shop. To be honest I didn't want to leave, but we had dirt biking to do.

We ended up connecting with one Ryan's friends in Victoria, and he just so happened to have a big camping trip planned out with his girlfriend for that night, and he gave us an invite to join them. We got some last minute things, and followed Ryan's friends out to Sooke where we set up camp in a Family RV park. It was a rad spot, beside the river, and there were tons of dirt roads, and trails in the area to explore on our bikes. We went to Sooke 'Pot Holes' Provincial Park down there road with our bikes, and it was closed for the season. We found a way around the barricades, and up onto the walking paths, and rode them all the way into the campgrounds of the park. There where nice little hills and lips, and decent jump we found. We rode around the camp site for a good hour before we realized we could continue further down the service road there, that had been blocked off back down near the main gates. It was awesome, we rode the service road area up until we found an area full of construction machines, fill and gravel. There was some fun riding there for sure, and few peaceful spots we we're able to catch views from. All in all, I really loved Sooke, and the fact that there weren't a million bikes/quads there (probably because we weren't supposed to be there).

We had a rad camp that night, beers, fires, buds and food. In the middle of the night I was woken up by the gnarliest animal sounds I have ever heard. Ryan's friend yelled out of their tent, not to worry, and not to get out of our tents. They assumed it was a Cougar killing some sort of animal, but it turned out Police had shown up in the middle of the night to save the say, only to find to Racoons have some violent sounding sex. That was my brush with nature while I was out in Sooke. Still haven't seen a bear, not even once in my life. But I now know what two racoons having sex sounds like, and it's scary.

As rad as the camp was, I was excited to get back into Victoria and spend the day there before hitting up the ferry home. I wanted to go back to Wheelies and enjoy a sandwich. So we did exactly that. I had a pulled pork sandwich, and it was probably the best damn pulled pork sammy I've ever had. I ended up buying more gear, including a rad zip up 'Wheelies Motorcycles' hoodie that I wear all the time! Just fucking loved that place. I have seriously contemplated moving to the Island a few times since my trip, just to be closer. Who doesn't love rad motorbikes, cool people, and delicious food, not to mention awesome rock concerts and moto-meets. Before leaving I got to experience the Victoria day parade in Victoria, which is kind of cool, and I was able to meet with an old friend at the restaurant he manages. We had drinks, food and great times in Victoria that night before catching the last ferry home.

Best weekend ever :) Can't wait to get back out to Wheelies, and to make the awesome ride out to Tofino for my first time this summer...

(Here are a few pics I took on the island, unfortunately I didn't get many pics of Wheelies while I was there, but you can check it out for yourself if you're ever in Victoria, and you can find them on Facebook, Instagram, and all over the Interwebz. It was worth the ride!)