If you do your research right, and you don't mind doing a little more digging than normal, there are several different ways you can find free places to stay while living on the road. I ended up finding such a campsite right off of the Yellowhead highway, along Rose Lake.
Some of these campsites don't have a lot of amenities and you'll probably not end up talking to anyone. They're also typically not geographically located near anything particularly spectacular BUT... you'll never get to see a certain side of the country unless you dig into those unknown parts, right?
I had a great time at Rose Lake. It was wonderful, in fact. I jumped in the lake to bathe, made dinner, scrubbed some more of the Dalton chemicals off Lechuza and I sipped on a bottle of wine while researching things to do in the cities of Vancouver and Victoria down the road.
I slept well, confident I now know the difference between bears and other things in the night.
When I woke up I was rested, the sun was shining, I got coffee brewing, got my phone and camera charging on the motorcycle, set out my tent to warm in the sun to dry off the dew, and I set up my chair and aimed it at the lake again to write a blog ABOUT bears themselves. I waved to the neighbors in a house near the campsite as they left for work.
I was productive, happy, ready to tackle the day. The blog and coffee took about an hour to do. I was taking my time, I had an apple for breakfast, and I got a little bit of a tan looking across the lake.
I packed the panniers up, loaded everything onto the Africa Twin, donned the ear plugs, gloves, helmet, and hopped on.
I tried to start the bike.
It was dead.
As it turns out, that hour I left the things charging on the motorcycle had the battery dangerously low. What's worse is that it was sitting in the cold a little bit as well, and I hadn't turned it on to warm up the battery or get some extra juice for charging.
A dead battery on a 2020 Honda Africa Twin 1100 comes with unique challenges because: The Battery is Lithium Ion.
Most acid or lead-based vehicle batteries can be "jump started" with jumper cables. Not mine, they could even explode. Lithium Ion is super reliable for starting engines in vehicles with a lot of tech gadgets in rough climates--- when it's not being sapped for power, I guess.
The frustration begins to set in. I look online to find out ways I can BUMP start the motor. This is the process of rolling the motorcycle down a hill, putting the engine in gear to "engine brake" and charge the motor for a start.
The campsite was a bit of a bowl, so I got a running start and ran it down one side, trying to start it, then ran it up the other to try it again. I did this about 3 times before I realized the voltage monitor was getting even lower. Trying to start the engine and failing was killing the engine. I thought I'd get a little more drastic. I figured I would have to wheel the motorcycle out to the highway, find the highest hill, and try to run it down THAT to get it started. One issue, the hill to get up to the highway was too steep, it was dirt, there were potholes, and I was afraid I was going to tip it. It was also getting close to 10:30AM and the sun was getting higher, it was getting hotter, and I was running out of water.
I changed into shorts and went out on the highway and tried to flag people down. I put my hand up and waved and people seemed to pass me by. I needed a push! That was all. Then, a white truck slows down and a French Canadian by the name of Jean Francois (AKA G.F.) hops out to help me push. He was donned in a high-viz vest and construction boots, super ready to assist.
He has an engineering and mechanical background, he's got better cell service than I do, and he's got a calming, can-do attitude that kind of helped me keep a more level head. He said "let's do this" and we push the motorcycle up the highway to the nearest hill. A British couple in a truck also pulls over and an older man hops out to assist in pushing, and we give it a real shot down the hill.
Turns out, the motorcycle's gadgets and extra bells and whistles are too much of a demand on the battery. Older, more simpler machines may be able to charge that way, and I would MAYBE be able to charge it if I had a major hill to run down (not sure) but the bike was just not going to fire. We then had to start thinking of alternatives. How do you start a Lithium Ion battery? You need to put it on a special type of charger that some dealerships and mechanics have and it has to sit there for about 7-8 hours.
We both hop on our phones and start to make calls. I should mention if I didn't already, this campsite is remote. It's far away from everything but the highway. The nearest city was Vanderhoof to the east 154km away (95 Miles). My destination was 254km Away (157 Miles) in the town of Prince George, the location of my Bunk-A-Biker stay.
We try to see if there are any garages on the route east would have a charger that could take my battery and it turns out the closest is in Prince George, my destination.
I take a look at G.F., Look at the bike, and after getting off the phone with Kelly, the Bunk-A-Biker in Prince George, G.F. graciously offers to take my gear and my lowly self out to Prince George, where he was headed anyway!
I'm officially hitch-hiking.
We push the bike into a spot where it's not visible from the highway and start the 3 hour trek to Prince George.
I won't drone on with the details of our small-talk but we learned quite a bit about each other. G.F. was telling me about his life, some mid 20th-century history of Quebec's history within Canada, and I went into my experiences with the US Healthcare system. 3 hours is a good amount of time to get to know someone when you're passing pine trees and small Canadian towns.
He makes a stop at Cycle North Powersports on the way into town and they pop my battery on the charger. G.F. then brings me to Kelly's house, the Bunk-A-Biker who will take me in and we lay the situation down on him.
Kelly was under the impression that we'd brought the bike with us. We had not. After some quick consideration, and after calling a few of his friends to see if there were any with a spare Lithium Battery, Kelly offers to drive me back out to my motorcycle with his truck and trailer and we'll haul it back to his house in PG. God dang. Seriously, some very, very nice people in Canada, I tell ya.
Again, this is 3 hours away, one-way.
On the way out of PG we see a couple of hitch-hiking Germans and we also pull over to pick them up.
So, in summation, we have me, hitch hiking because of a dead motorcycle battery, Kelly, the bunk-a-biker, and Conrad and Laura from Germany who are on their way to Whitehorse in the Arctic. They'd been hitch hiking since Vancouver north and Kelly was about to put another ~250km on their odometers in the direction of the Arctic, their biggest jump so far.
Kelly and I were in for a 6-hour ride, going all the way out to Rose Lake to pick up the motorcycle and bring it back. We too had great conversations with Conrad and Laura on the way west, and when we arrived the bike was fine, albeit dead. We loaded it up and left Laura and Conrad behind at the campsite-- they were both thrilled to have a place to sleep for the night in such a nice spot. It was also their first time doing some out-of-town camping as well.
The sun began to set as we rolled back into PG. By the end of the day, after being driven 786km (488 Miles), I was now only in 2 pieces. Me, Lechuza, and all of my stuff in one place, the battery in another.
I now know the limitations of my battery and the massive bottleneck it causes to kill it.