August 8 – St. John’s to Badger

Am I bored with biking? Do I never want to see another hill again? Nope! I got up and first thing this morning I went for a bike ride! I did not have that much time, so I went for a hill workout. A local had mentioned that signal hill was quite a climb (in fact she suggested walking my bike up it…). So I did that 5 times. Good workout, it is nearly as tall as Mt. Doug (130m), and steep in places, although it flattens out in sections so you can catch your breath. By the fifth ride I had figured it out pretty well and could maintain good speed all along it. Fun to have a new hill to do that on, I am so familiar with the climbs around Victoria that they get a bit boring.

There were really spectacular views from the top of signal hill. Also a bit of history of the place was listed on some plaques. I was not aware that it was torpedoed (no damage) in WWII. There were great views of the wide open Atlantic, good views of the harbour, and also city views.

We were on the road around 1:30 or so, and covered about half of the drive over to Port-aux-Basques – around 450km. We move much faster now! However, I was surprised at how long it still takes to cover significant distance. We passed a few of the ‘rest places’ from the last ride, and I was surprised at how long it took to go between them. When I was riding, I had imagined that Cheryl almost instantly was transported to the next rest stop, usually between 25 and 40km down the road. Obviously not the case! Also, much of the road looked pretty daunting when viewed from the van. I imagined riding it and thinking that it looked like a long way, or that the hills looked big. Much less intimidating on a bicycle for some weird reason. Good lesson – driving a road before a bike trip is not necessarily a good idea as you might scare yourself out of it!

We did not get a chance to do even a quarter of the things we wanted to around St. John’s, and no doubt tomorrow will be a bit pressed for time as well. As with many places we’ve been to, it is not hard to imagine coming back at some point in the future when there is more time to really explore a place.

Our campsite is right on a lake. This feels like one of the most remote places we have camped. They were sold out of sites, and the overflow area is down near the boat launch. That is just fine, because there are lots of noisy people in the campground, but it is nice and quite down here. Incredible display of stars! Also, there are so many planes flying overhead. We are not far from Gander, which used to be an improtant airport (as a last refueling spot) before jets could make it to Europe in one go. I guess it’s still more or less on the way.