Day 127: 74.15 miles, 6:55 hours, Stealth Camp S of Junction 37 (Cassiar Hwy), BRITISH COLUMBIA
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Today was a true test of my sanity. We had lots of snow, lots of drizzly rain that soaked me through to the skin, heavy fog and not much to eat. And the test results are positive. I'm bloody mad to be doing this. Why I don't just stick out my thumb and get a lift, I may never understand.

I had the last of my grits today for breakfast and nothing more to eat until lunchtime, which consisted of a measly two rice cakes with a little peanut butter. I have enough Nutella for one more rice cake, but I figured that if we didn't find food soon, I could have it for tomorrow's breakfast. A Snickers bar for afternoon tea. I even considered only eating half of it and saving the rest for later, but once I'd started it, it was impossible to stop myself from finishing it off. Norbert shared his green tea with me today, which he makes in a small thermos in the mornings and at lunchtimes. He goes through a 1kg pack of sugar in less than a week just sweetening it, but it does wonders. Despite the few calories I'm taking in with solid foods, the sugar seems to keep me going.

Food, food, food, food. It was all I could think about, and thinking about food stopped me from thinking about the bloody weather. Before getting to the junction I told Norbert of my plans to ride the 28 mile roundtrip to Watson Lake in case there were no other stores open. Luckily it wasn't necessary. A small gas station at the Cassiar highway junction was open but with barely any food stock as it was closing in a week's time. I bought a pack of Pringles, two small tins of salmon and replenished my diminishing snicker bar stockpile. It was hardly the feast I had been hoping for, but at least it would keep me going for another day.

We set off down the Cassiar at about 4pm. It was a roller coaster ride of small hills, blind corners and no shoulder. It didn't matter a lot, there was no traffic anyway. I feel firmly committed to the insanity of this ride now that we are on the Cassiar. It really feels like we're in the M.O.F.N..

It is so bloody cold. There was snow everywhere we went today, it was lucky we had not been two days earlier during the snow storm. I tried putting a thick pair of Smartwool socks over my so-called "windproof" Gore-Tex socks but still I had cold, sore, aching feet all day. I squeezed my old wool gloves into my so-called "windproof" gloves and it helped, but several of the fingers in my wool gloves are holey, so my fingers would quickly go numb in those parts. I had my beanie on under my helmet for a while and then the hood of my rain jacket over that. My ears and cheeks stung so bad at one stage that I donned my ski mask. My water bottles were frozen throughout the day, lucky we had Norbert's tea.

We camped in a car park beside a small lake. With our tiredness and hunger, we couldn't even be bothered to be discreet about setting our tents up hidden from the road. We stashed our food panniers at the bottom of a rubbish bin about a hundred metres away. It saved us spending the usual fifteen minutes of trying to hang our food from a tall tree branch. It didn't save me from having to put up with the steady stream of verbal diarrhoea from Norbert though. For someone who's first language isn't English, he sure does talk a lot.

Day 128: 67.13 miles, 6:47 hours, Stealth Camp south of Jade City
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What an incredible day of extremes. Not only do I have to put up with Norbert's verbal diarrhoea, but I have to suffer through every piece of weather that the gods can throw at me. We started off this morning in 40-50km/h gusty headwinds. Then Norbert and I had an argument about peanut butter. I told him I wanted to make it to the next food store at Good Hope Lake by today, but he argued against it. For me it was easily within a day's ride but for Norbert it would be a long day. And Norbert didn't like riding too fast as he didn't like to get a sweat (why the hell he chose to ride a bike then is beyond my understanding). He offered me his remaining peanut butter ration, but me; ever so self-reliant, bloody minded and bloody stubborn wasn't about to dig into Norbert's food supply when I possibly had all the food I could need within 60 miles.

It was at this point that Norbert wondered aloud as to how I always seemed to know when the next food stop, albeit rarely open food shop, was going to be. I sheepishly showed him the milepost list that I'd had in place of a map for the past two weeks. He questioned why I had kept it from him, as if it was some sort of betrayal of the trust that we had built up over the last few days. I let out a small bitter laugh and admitted how much it killed me to know exactly at what mileage we would pass another food shop, and have my hopes dashed again and again to find that it was closed. Not good for the psyche.

"We'll probably get sunburnt today" were the last words I said to him as I took off again. I rode with extra purpose, no longer checking to see if he was keeping up with me. It was sunny at last. Then five minutes later I got hailed on, so hard that it stung my face and chilled me to the bone. Luckily the hail only lasted for five minutes and then it was just a very heavy rain for a good half hour to ensure that none of my clothes remained dry. And then back to the heavy wind. Well at least I didn't get snowed on. And at least it got up to a balmy 9 degrees Celsius, not the usual 1 or 2 degrees that we've suffered through over the past few days.

I eventually got to Good Hope Lake and bought a bunch of stuff and had a long toilet break. It was enjoyable to take a dump in a proper dunny rather than shitting in the woods constantly with a frozen arse. I helped myself to a wonderful sugary coffee. As I was paying, a guy wearing hunting gear asked me if I was the guy on the bike.

"You better watch out man, I had you in my rifle sights back there as you were coming down the hill. I thought you were a moose".

I asked with a naive laugh what he was talking about, there's laws about not shooting animals within twenty metres of a road.

"Not around here there ain't…",

I haven't seen a lot of wildlife so far on this ride from Fairbanks, I figured that the animals know it's hunting season and make themselves scarce. Now I will be the first to admit that I'm not an animal expert, I used to watch my fair share of David Attenborough documentaries when I was younger, but I've never heard of a bicycle-riding moose. Maybe in these parts there are some though. I'm going to try to keep an open mind about these things.

I walked outside to drink my coffee and found a forlorn, tired looking Norbert sitting, waiting for me. Another guy that had overheard the hunter talking at me walked out of the shop and approached me, smirking,

"What kind of a hunter does he think he is? Mistaking a guy on a bicycle with a yellow helmet for a moose??"

Norbert and I continued to ride on into more rain and now some of the most beautiful scenery I had seen for days. Snow covered mountains and a whole bunch of colourful lakes beside the road, all made more beautiful by the impending sunset. It was that time of the day again, looking for possible places to camp; a small patch of bare ground hidden from the road. Right on cue, as we come around a bend in the road we spotted an old shed, beside one of the beautiful lakes, no walls but with a tin roof still completely intact. For once we're completely out of the rain, just the usual bloody wind trying to pull our tents down.