Cross Canada Bike Trip 2005

Reformatted blog

2006-10-15T14:51:00.000-07:00

Since my return, I reformatted the blog to be easier to follow and navigate. I also added a few extra pictures. For other cyclists, one useful feature I added was vertical profile information logged from my GPS on the hilly days. Click on this link: http://www.jubien.ca/xcanada/index.htm

Home at last

2005-08-30T21:04:00.000-07:00

It is nice to finally be home, there have been many things that we have missed in the last 3 months – the benefits of a routine and some structure, so easy to take for granted until you don’t have it. Not to mention a job and some income! It is also kind of sad to finish the trip off. It has been a phenomenal experience, I feel lucky that I have been able to do this. We live in a beautiful country, populated by excellent people. There is so much geographical diversity, and plenty of regional personalities, but underlying it all we found much commonality in the people we met.

I hope this blog has been interesting to follow, and maybe a bit useful for anyone considering such a trip. It has been fun to keep up, and knowing that some of our friends, family, and co-workers were following along made us feel a little less alone when we had our tough days. So thanks for reading!

August 27 – Osoyoos to Victoria

2005-08-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

We caught the 5PM ferry over to Vancouver Island today – but almost had the day spoiled by BC Ferries. We arrived at the terminal around 2:30 but the 3 was full. There was no 4PM ferry (Saturday in August?) but fortunately I had reserved for the 5PM so we were OK. I heard later that most of the subsequent ferries were cancelled due to mechanical problems. I am glad we made it – it would have been irritating to have to spend a night in the terminal!

It is much less annoying to wait 2 ½ hours in the van as opposed to a normal car. While we waited, we made lunch, and popped up the top so we could relax. The car that pulled up beside us were pretty jealous – they used to own a VW van too! One of the people in the car was visiting Vancouver from Manitoba – we had passed less than 10km from her house. Given Canada’s population distribution, I guess this is not surprising. It is cool that we can expect to run into many people who live close to our route in the future, it makes us feel connected to our fellow citizens.

August 25 & 26 - Osoyoos

2005-08-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

Bike log (25th): 59.9km, 1098m of vertical, avg. speed 26.2km/h
Bike log (26th): 50.5km, 721m of vertical, avg. speed 27.3 km/h

After traveling so far and for so long, it is really nice now to realx for a few days and hang out at the beach! It feels like holidays, as opposed to a journey. It is nice and hot, (30 degrees), and we spent some time hanging out at the beach of our campsite.

This morning (25th), before it got hot, I rode up (then back down) Anarchist Mountain, which is on highway 3 going east from here. It is a tough climb, but I think Kootenay pass was a little bit tougher. Kootenay pass has a bit more vertical ascent, and also does not have any real flat spots to catch your breath. Anarchist Mountain throws the worst at you right from the start – the steepest section is the first 18km or so. After that it is less steep, and goes on for another 12km of rolling ups and downs to the summit. Still a tough climb, but it seems a little easier now than when I came through the first time!

On the 26th, I rode the other direction, up, over, down, and back up the hill which is on the westbound highway. This is a section of the Penticton Ironman, which is taking place in 2 days. There were a quite few Ironmen (and Ironwomen) out today, checking out the hill. Definitely not as hard a hill as some of the mountain passes but I think it would be pretty tough in the middle of that huge race. Hats off to those incredible athletes!

August 24 Moyie Lake to Osoyoos

2005-08-24T20:54:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 42.0 km, 1181m of vertical, avg. speed 20.4 km/h

We are in the home stretch now. I am glad that we ended up with a few spare days at the end of the trip because we can relax and enjoy things somewhat now. It was not a lot of driving to do today as we have been planning on staying in Osoyoos for quite some time – one of our favourite vacation spots.

The short distance today meant I could cover some of it by bicycle! On the way east through this area, we headed up through Nelson, which meant that we bypassed highway 3 from Castlegar to Creston. This is where Kootenay Pass is, which is the highest pass in the Rockies (1774m elevation). So being the sucker for hills that I am I biked from Creston to the summit this morning. Cheryl waited for me at the top, and we drove down the far side. I did not ride down as it was still a little chilly up at the top - coasting for 45 minutes or so at 40-50 km/h would have been cold! But I did check out the road coming up the east side as well. There was not much traffic, and there is a decent shoulder the whole way, with a passing lane in all the steep sections. All in all, good riding conditions. It is a tough hill going either way. Going west, it saves the hardest (steepest) part for the end. Going east looked to be slightly harder. The westbound uphill section lasts about 35km, and the last 10 or so is where it gets steep – 8% grade pretty much the whole way, with no flattening out anywhere to catch your breath. But unlike most of the passes there is a really nice rest stop at the summit where you can pull out and rest, and put on some warmer clothes for the descent!

It slowly warmed up the whole day. It was cold and wet in Moyie Lake when we left, but by the time we hit Castlegar it felt like summer was back. Finally, coming into Osoyoos, it was hard to imagine that we had been chilly – it was about 28 C when we pulled in here around 5 PM. The forecast is good, so we have decided to stay here until Saturday and then complete the trip home.

August 23 – Calgary to Moyie Lake

2005-08-23T20:49:00.000-07:00

What happened to summer? It was really cold today, from beginning to end. Calgary was forecasted to have a high of 12 degrees today, and I doubt it had hit that by the time we left. It got colder as we left – climbing up into the Rocky Mountains – and also started to rain. I check a thermometer at a gas station at around 3PM and it said 6 degrees, and the attendant told me that it was snowing in Golden, just up the road from where we were. I was not surprised! Two days ago we were sweltering and now it feels like summer is over.

Our route today was to take the Trans Canada highway through Banff, and then highway 93 & 95 south through Cranbrook, and stay the night in Moyie Lake Provincial Park, which was a really nice place that we stayed in on the way out. Once we hit Cranbrook we will be back onto highway 3, the same route we took heading east. This is one of our favourite parts of the province, especially in the summer.

We stopped in Banff to have lunch and see the town a little bit. The mist obscured the mountains a little bit but it did not detract from the awesome beauty. Unfortunately the van was not too happy with the cold and wet. It stalled, then flooded, just as we were planning to leave, so we got stuck there for an extra couple of hours waiting for the flood to clear. There certainly are worse places for that to happen!

It is great to be back in the mountains and BC again. I have almost forgotten how big and impressive these moutains are. The Rockies are perhaps the most stunning part of the whole trip for me. Nothing subtle about the beauty here. Going through the mountains of northern Ontario and Newfoundland was very beautiful as well, but the sheer size of these mountains puts them into a different class. You feel very small looking at them, and the fact that something so huge can exist is difficult to grasp.

August 22 Tilebrook PP to Calgary (via Drumheller)

2005-08-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

We spent most of the day (other than driving) Drumheller. Very cool place! We have both wanted to come here for a long time, to see the dinosaur (and other) fossils. I was not aware, however, of the striking landscape where the town is situated. It is located in a canyon, in Alberta’s badlands. Layers of sediments are exposed in the walls of the canyons – you can see how this makes it very convenient to go back to previous epochs when fossil hunting!

We visited the Royal Tyrell Museum, located just outside of Drumheller. It was a fantastic museum, very well laid out and with excellent fossil specimens not just of dinosaurs but of tons of other life forms that used to live in these parts. It is almost impossible to imagine the world inhabited, epoch after epoch, with such a variety of animals. Also fascinating to think that until the early 1800’s there really was no knowledge of everything that was here before us. Quite humbling really, humans are just a blip on the timeline!

We arrived in Calgary towards evening and briefly explored a small portion of it. It seems like a very nice city – very clean (maybe the wind blows all the garbage away!). Obviously quite propserous as well, as numerous cranes can be seen around the city! We would like to have more time to explore the city but time is getting short, so we will be limited to just a couple of hours tomorrow morning before pressing on. But, after crossing Canada, Calgary now seems so close that I can imagine coming back here to visit!.

August 21 – Rivers to Tilebrook Provincial Park (Alberta)

2005-08-21T20:41:00.000-07:00

That was a lot of driving - about 925km in all! But we wanted to make up for the lost day due to the breakdown, so we decided last night that today would be a heavy driving day. I think we have more or less made up for the lost time, of course including the fact that we did not see Winnipeg or Saskatoon.

We passed through the entire province of Saskatchewan today (and an hour or so in each of Manitoba and Alberta). A pretty good chunk of the prairies – zoom! – in one day. It seems pretty incredible to do that after biking through it. I had it in mind that we were going to be spending a bunch of time here. It is strange to make such rapid progress. It is also strange that when we hit the Alberta border I felt we were getting very close to home! Everything’s relative.

The landscape was beautiful, though slightly different than on the way through. It has been around 2 months since we came through and the crops have aged, and dried out! There was a lot more green last time, now it was brown and even golden. I have never seen so much crop land before, so close to harvest time (some was being harvested). I now understand the expression “a sea of wheat” as the tops of the wheat shafts do blur into almost a liquid form as the wind pushes them along, and the little rolling hills form the contours of waves.

The list of products of this land is quite impressive – we passed through huge sections of wheat, potatoes, canola, cattle ranches, sunflower, and also oil fields, and some salt mines! We also saw a pronghorn (a.k.a. antelope) standing in a field. Too bad he wasn’t moving – they are the second fastest land animal in the world, behind the cheetah.

August 20 – Kenora to Rivers Prov Park (near Brandon)

2005-08-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

The folks at Canadian Tire found the problem pretty quickly – a broken fuel line. Someone had previously repaired it with a kludge that eventually gave up for good. I am relieved it was something minor and easily fixed! We were on the road today by about 1:30 and made pretty good progress into Manitoba.

The breakdown cost us more or less one day, and it has caused us to change our plans slightly. We had planned on hitting Winnipeg (last night) then Saskatoon (tonight), but we are now going to bypass both of those cities. It’s too bad, we did want to check them out, but time is starting to get short now. And we are both looking forward to being back closer to home.

This is a nice provincial park we are in. Quite remote, and there are not many people here. We are right across from the water and it is very peaceful. It is nice to be camping again, after hoteling it last night. I am glad the way things worked out after all.

We are back in the prairies now. It is cool to finally be back here, after so many weeks away. It feels familiar, which is very interesting because before this trip I had never been to the prairies (that I can remember). I am excited about this, it means that to me much of Canada now seems like “mine” - no longer is it a land of vast unknowns.

I am really glad that I was driving and not on the bike because it was a blasting headwind! The sunset tonight was spectacular– we certainly have seen many beautfiul sunsets on this trip but the prairie sunsets can hold their own! So much sky, and meadows of wildflowers too!

I am really glad that I was driving and not on the bike because it was a blasting headwind! The sunset tonight was spectacular– we certainly have seen many beautfiul sunsets on this trip but the prairie sunsets can hold their own. So much sky, and meadows of wildflowers too!

August 19 Thunder Bay to Kenora

2005-08-19T20:32:00.000-07:00

We got our early start today, with the intention of making it to Winnipeg. However, things played out a little differently! As we were approaching Kenora, the van started running very rough, and then finally it stopped altogether. Yes, it finally happened, we were a broken down Volkswagen van by the side of the highway. However, things could not have been much more convenient for a breakdown. First of all, the van continued to run (or more like limp) until we were able to make it to a campground/gas station, which also, very conveniently, sold beer. So I called CAA, and, knowing the day was over for driving, we cracked a beer and waited for the tow.

We were only about 15km from Kenora, so the tow did not take long. We had not been planning on stopping on Kenora, being somewhat bent now on making progress westward, but the plans changed! The tow truck dropped the van off at the Canadian Tire around 5, so I went in and made an appointment for them to take a look at it first thing in the AM (they were very accomadating). We got a motel right across the street and hit the town! What party animals, we were in bed by about 9:30 (but hey, we lost an hour due to the timezone today).

Kenora really is a beautiful place. I was wondering if it would seem as nice on the way back west as it did coming east, since coming east it was the gateway to the land of lakes and forests, after so much prairie. But it did not disappoint this time through either. After a day of rain, we were lucky enough to get sun while we were waiting for the tow truck to come, and it held until after dinner. We took a walk along the water, and looked out at the boats and islands. Sure looked like summer fun!

August 18 - Rabbit Blanket Lake PP to Thunder Bay

2005-08-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

The weather got cooler today, and it rained on and off, so we did not get our last swim in the lake. But it was a good day anyway. It was actually a relief that it was a bit cooler today, driving in the heat is almost as bad as cycling in it! When it is cool and rainy, it is kind of nice to just stay in the van and drive, so we covered some good ground despite a slow morning spent drinking coffee and chatting in the van.

Today’s scenery was really spectacular, just as we had remembered it. There are possibly even more great views going west, although it was a little foggy coming through so maybe we just hadn’t seen them.

The van is quite slow, especially on these hilly, twisty roads. Sometimes I feel bad holding up traffic, although there are enough passing lanes that I don’t think it’s really a problem. But we are back in Thunder Bay, which is possibly where I have seen the worst driving of all the trip, including shoulder passing and trucks passing at high speeds in construction zones right beside the workers. If you look closely in the picture above, you’ll see a white smudge at the edge of the road by the curve. This is what it looked like up close.

After seeing this, I really didn’t care about holding up traffic – these roads do demand serious attention and caution!

The truck, labelled Maritime-Ontario, was probably full of lobsters, which got loose and into Lake Superior. Hopefully they will help with the eel situation in Rossport, but it was just one more reason to not swim today.

When we came through on the way east, we spent a rest day in Thunder Bay, and now it seems quite familiar! We are staying in the same place and ate at one of the restaurants that we went to last time, and we did not need to consult any maps to get around. Where is our sense of adventure? I think I lost it in a Quizno's around Sudbury where they offered a soup described as "Scrumptuoso."

August 17 – Chutes PP to Rabbit Blanket Lake PP

2005-08-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 36.2km, 470m of vertical, avg. speed 29.3 km/h

For some reason we both slept in this morning til after 8 – very unusual for me! Probably had something to do with being up until 1AM 2 nights ago. Strange that it did not catch up with me until today. So we got off to a bit of a slow start but still managed to cover some good distance. It feels good to be getting so much closer every day. Still a long way to go though – we are not half way there yet!

It was beautiful scenery today – we passed along the north shore of Lake Huron (though we only got a few views of it) and then through Sault Ste. Marie and along the eastern shore of Lake Superior. Lake Superior is definitely one of the scenic highlights of the trip. Today was not as sunny as it was on the way through but it was still spectacular. We stopped at a few places to admire the view. The water was a greenish blue colour, and there were a number of beautiful beaches. There was a reasonable amount of wind, enough to create a few waves, so the water was not as warm as last time, and the air temperature was not compelling enough to coax us in. Maybe tomorrow if it heats up we will get a last dip in Superior.

We stopped driving around 5:30 today – stopping so we could stay within Lake Superior park for the night. It gave enough time to get a bike ride in before dinner. Conveniently, we are right near some of the largest hills along Superior’s shore. So of course I had to ride up and down them a few times. Great ride! In addition to the great scenery, this area was also one of my favourites just for the cycling – as I am a sucker for punishment on those hills. I wish it wasn’t so far away from home, I will miss this area.

August 16 – Ottawa to Massey (Chutes Provincial Park)

2005-08-16T18:10:00.000-07:00

Got some good miles in today, it feels good to be moving west. We spent the first part of the morning visiting with Luke, Catherine, and Nathan, so we did not really get going til nearly noon, but we stayed on the road until about 8 so we covered quite a good distance. The only thing that slowed us down was that we hit about 4 construction zones – we had to wait for about 40 minutes at one of them!

We passed to the north of Algonquin park and had to decide whether or not to detour through it. In the end we decided not to because it would have been a few hours detour, and we were not far enough along to stop for the day, so we just would have been driving through anyway. So best to just keep on moving. Similarly, we did not dip down into southern Ontario at all, instead taking highway 17 straight across from Ottawa, through North Bay to Sudbury.

The drive was pretty unremarkable today, but tonight’s campground is really beautiful – best spot we’ve been in for a while. Nice to be back in the Ontario provinicial parks. There is a really nice waterfall here, pretty large and raging away. There’s also a swimming hole just below the falls. It would be great to be spending a day here, but we don’t have the time. A great vacation would be to drive from around here (maybe starting in Algonquin) and head to Thunder Bay, stopping at several provinical parks for 2 nights – so you have a full day with no driving to enjoy the campground you are in. There are so many between here and there.
Once we passed Espanola (about 30km ago) we were back onto familiar ground – though it doesn’t look too familiar right now. Kind of unremarkable along the road though, it’s not surprising that it did not stick in our minds. Tomorrow should be a really nice day as we pass along the eastern then northern shore of Lake Superior – some of our favourite scenery coming out. We plan to stop at a number of spots along the way.

Once again I am glad about the route we took heading east – heading down into Southern Ontario across Manitoulin island was much more scenic than the stretch we did today. The only part I would have done differently was to head for highway 2 sooner than we did, and avoid highway 7.

Ottawa

2005-08-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

We spent a day with my friends Luke and Catherine in Ottawa and went for a giant walk along the Ottaw river, to the parliament buildings, around the market, over to Hull, back to the market for lunch, and then home. Very tiring in the heat! I lived in Ottawa nearly 20 years ago for 4 months, but so much of it looked different. Some of it is new but also I have forgotten a lot. It is was cool to walk along the river, oblivious to the city above and then come up the stairs at the locks and be in the middle of the city!

August 14– Montreal to Ottawa

2005-08-14T17:51:00.000-07:00

Leaving the city was not nearly as confusing as getting in, and the drive to Ottawa was once again the old Trans-Canada. It only took about 2 hours.

We hung out with my old friends Luke and Catherine, along with them and their son Nathan. Nathan is about 5 now and it is the first time I have met him. He is very talkative and funny! I showed him around our van and he was really into it, as it seems so many kids are. Although small for an adult, all the little cupboards and kitchen appliances are perfectly kid size, and the upper poptop seems like a fort.

August 13 – St. Andre to Montreal

2005-08-13T17:47:00.000-07:00

We intentionally bypassed Montreal on the way out, but it was a planned highlight of the return trip. We got in a bit later than we had planned – we kind of got lost trying to find our hotel and before we knew it a couple of hours had passed! By the time we got settled in here, it was dinner time, so we headed to Weinstein and Gavino’s, where we had been with my parents on Cheryl’s 30th birthday. Fun place! We wandered around a bit along St. Catherine’s st. as well, but it was getting dark and we were both tired, so we packed it in early.

Montreal sure feels like a different country! It is extremely multicultrual compared to everywhere else we’ve been. I think it is one of 2 “great” Canadian cities that are world class, Toronto being the other. Montreal is more exiciting in many ways than Toronto, however. It would not be hard to spend a week here just visiting different parts of the town, checking out some museums, old town, etc.

Our hotel has a great view – we are on the 25th floor. It has a view of the train station, and I have counted many passenger trains going in and out. It is nice to know this is still a form of public transport in some parts of our country! It is a tribute to times gone by, when efficiency really mattered in transport, not like now when gas is so cheap that people can afford huge guzzlers just to commute. I suppose this is why engineers are fascinated by trains.

It looks like much of old Montreal that has been neglected is getting restored now. As with many cities, it seems, the downtown core is being rediscovered, and it is a trendy/expensive place to live. Funny how things go in patterns! Old Montreal was a bit bigger than I thought it would be, and due to the fact that much of the rest of downtown Montreal has old buildings as well there is a gradual change from the old town into the city.

August 12 – Moncton to St. Andre (just west of Riviere-du-Loup)

2005-08-12T17:34:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 53km, 123m of vertical, avg. speed 32.5 km/h

Bike log? Yep! Moncton to Montreal is too long for 1 comfortable day of driving, so we split it into 2 medium days. It was about 6 hours of driving, and so we got here at a comfortable 4:30PM – plenty of time for a good bike ride! I snacked and was on the road in about 10 minutes and made it to Kamouraska and back.

It was great to be back on the bike again, after 4 days off. I also enjoyed the fact that this was not part of the trip, so I could go as hard as I wanted without worrying about getting a cramp or burning myself out or wearing my legs out for tomorrow.

Our campsite last night was near “Magnetic Hill”. It is a tourist trap where giant magnets suck all the change out of your pocket if go in. We avoided it like the plague.

The drive was pretty standard fare for the Trans-Canada. At the end of the day we passed the spot where we backtracked, so essentially today we saw what we missed. I am glad we took the route we did, this way was not very scenic, and of course it was very busy, being the Trans-Canada. There were some secondary roads that followed more closely to the St. John river, I bet they would have been nicer (essential in some places since there were 2 bridges that forbade bikes), but still I liked the parts of the New Brunswick coast that we saw more, as well as the more scenic route north of Riviere-du-Loup and cutting across the Gaspe. However, there is an unpaved bike trail (old railbed) that parallels much of the route we took today. No doubt nice grades and decent scenery. It would not have worked for us since we like to take the identical route, but it would be the way to go if you were cycling alone.

Along the way we passed the world’s longest covered bridge, over 1200 feet. Why is the cover so important? I don’t know.

August 11 – Halifax to Moncton

2005-08-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

The hotel we were in had a 1PM checkout time, so we took advantage of it. I hiked up to the Citadel again. Very cool, although it was even more impressive last night, with fog rolling in and eerie lights shining out from inside.

I am sort of feeling like I am going through a bit of a post-bike-trip withdrawl. I really miss riding, maybe not huge rides every day, but I would like to get some regular riding in. So far our schedule has not allowed for it. I want to get some decent driving miles in though, and feel like we are making some progress back home, so it is hard to find an hour or two in the day for a ride. Well, maybe tomorrow, if we get a decent early start, I can get some riding in along the St. Lawrence river – we plan to hit Riviere-du-Loup tomorrow.

Inexplicably, the Rolling Stones are playing in Moncton on September 3.

Not so tiny Bubbles

2005-08-10T20:41:00.000-07:00

Possibly the highlight of the trip back so far has been seeing a large mural of Bubbles. Trailer Park Boys is filmed near Halifax, maybe in one of the campgrounds we stayed in.

Halifax

2005-08-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

Halifax was very fun to see. It is not too big of a city, just a little bigger than Victoria. Lots of restaurants and pubs, and an touristy harbour walk full of people and buskers just like Victoria. There are some really loud buskers though, kind of irritating. And I have not grown any more fond of the bagpipes here in the maritimes.

We went up to the old citadel at the top of the hill. Whereas in Quebec you could crawl all over it, in Halifax they wanted you to pay to enter. Seems like a shame to pay for something that is part of our national heritage! Still, the citadel was impressive (we saw it at night as well, with a mist rolling in and eerie lights coming from within) and it gave great views of the city and the harbour. I read that Halifax was never attacked, and you can see why – what a great defense with the citadel on a hill and little islands in the harbour to put a fort on.

August 10 – Ferry ride / Drive to Halifax

2005-08-10T17:05:00.000-07:00

Again, not too long a distance, but it sure felt long! We arrived in North Sydney around 5AM. After a short drive to find something to eat in town, we hit the road, taking the “other route” across Cape Breton (Highway 4). It made me glad we took the north side, the Trans-Canada, on the way there. Highway 4 was narrow with no shoulder, and the pavement was in bad shape.

The ride over was not bad – not rough at all. The sleeping berths were fine, though not as nice as a cabin! Around 10 we pulled off in a rest spot and popped up the top of the van for a rest – it was great! Probably we’ll be doing more of that.

We are both looking forward to getting some good miles behind us. After so long on the road, it will be nice to be heading west. It is still very enjoyable to be traveling, but just getting closer to home is good.

August 9 – Badger to Port-aux-Basques

2005-08-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

Not too long of a drive today, but we were retracing our steps from just a few days ago, which made it seem tough in places. It’s always harder to drive over familiar terrain than something brand new. There was one notable hight point, though, as we were driving along, I spotted a cyclist coming towards us, and soon realized that it was Ryan, who I have met now 3 times on the road! He is biking across Canada, and did both the Cabot trrail and is now biking across Newfoundland. We wheeled the van around and met up with him. I think he was as surprised to see us as we were to see him. He is gunning it across Newfoundland, trying to make it in 5 days, I believe.

We finished up our tour of Newfoundland by arriving at the ferry around 6, with nearly 6 hours to kill in Port-aux-Basques before the ferry left. We cooked dinner in the ferry terminal and lamented the fact that we couldn’t just stay in the van on the ferry, once again! After dinner, we wandered around the town a bit. It was quite full of people this time, unlike the last time we were here (due to us leaving rather than coming no doubt). Although it was quite warm when we were driving today, as we sat in line a thick fog rolled in and it eventually became quite cool. Definitely what I expected from Newfoundland!

We have sleeping berths on the ferry tonight, no cabins, so we should get some sleep. But still, the crossing is just 5 hours so it will be a long day tomorrow.

August 8 – St. John’s to Badger

2005-08-08T17:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Flags

2005-08-06T11:44:00.000-07:00

We got this photo one day in New Brunswick – it was a good opportunity to get the flags of Canada and all the provinces (and territories too). A nice windy day too, to fly the flags, and it was going the right direction!

Some wrap-up stats. The trip here was 7154km long, included 39,480m of vertical ascent, and took 67 days. We took 11 rest days, 1 sick day, and 4 or 5 short riding days. In all, I peddled for 251.7 hours at an average speed of 28.4 km/h. There were 29 days of mostly headwinds, 15 days of mostly tailwinds, and the rest were mixed or calm. We went through 8 major construction zones and 4 and a half time zones. We traveled through 20% of the longitude of the earth.

The trip back will be much faster, but far from instantaneous in a van that doesn’t like to do more than 95 km/h! We plan to try to see a few of the things and places we didn’t get a chance to see on the way here, and I plan to keep updating this journal from time to time with the things we see.

Celebration!

2005-08-06T11:41:00.000-07:00

People in Victoria may recognize this as a bottle of IPA from Swan’s. No, it is not for sale here, but instead we ferried it here in the van. Appropriate, since it was a gift from the “beer fairies” back in Victoria. There were 2 bottles presented to us for good luck when we left. The first was consumed at the halfway point, and the second, well, it won’t make it through the night!

We have 3 more days in Newfoundland until our ferry reservation (we can make those kinds of things now) and plan to spend a day in and around St. John’s and then start heading back to Port-aux-Basques (the Argentia ferry is still fully booked). We're looking forward to it - it's a really cool looking town!

End of the road

2005-08-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

The weather slowly improved throughout the whole day, and by the end it was a beautiful summer day. There are 2 main ways to do the last little bit into St. John’s – follow the Trans-Canada or else take highway 2. We took the Trans-Canada, assuming it would lead to the fabled “Mile 0” marker. However, it more or less just petered out, unceremoniously passing by a landfill site and then into a residential area, no longer a highway but now just a plain old street. But at last the road ended at a T-junction and we had water!

We could not find any sort of indication that this is the start (or end) of the road, but we were sure we had arrived at it. Later, we found that we had overshot St. John’s by a few kilometres, and this was in fact not the ocean but a small lake. Also, the “Mile 0” marker is nowhere near the end of the Trans-Canada highway but is instead tucked away fairly obscurely downtown. But fortunately there is no official rule book on where you have to stop or start, and this was a really beautiful place to stop and take some photos! So we took some of us, along with the vehicles that got us here. And so it is the end of the trip east for us.

Misty vision

2005-08-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

It was a very hilly ride in – in fact, today takes 3rd place in terms of vertical for the whole trip. Only the biggest mountain passes in BC involved more climbing. I was really loving it though, I am glad it was a challenging ride to end it up, especially with the huge tailwind pushing me along. I did not really want the ride to end (in some ways), and I was glad to see the hills keep coming to delay the inevitable finale. Even the misty, rainy weather could not put a damper on things, although it made it hard to dodge potholes as I could not wear my glasses!

Camping near Argentia

2005-08-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

We arrived fairly late last night – around 9PM – and stopped at a motel near the ferry terminal to get a room. However, they were fully booked up. But the lady at the desk was so nice, she phoned around to a number of places she knew of in the area (not listed in our tourist guide book of course), trying to get us a place to stay. Everyone was booked up, so in the end the lady let us set up camp in their parking lot for the night, and left the lobby unlocked so we could use the public bathroom. That's Newfie hospitality!

August 6 – Argentia to St. John’s (the end!!)

2005-08-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 141.0km, 1329m of vertical, avg. speed 31.2 km/h

What a great day, a fantastic way to finish this bike trip! I started from the ferry terminal at Argentia (seemed like as good a starting place as any) and biked in to St. John’s. At the terminal, the wind was absolutely blasting into my face, I thought it was going to be a really long day. It was also quite cold, foggy, and raining. A proper Newfoundland day, I suppose! I was really relieved when the road did a big turn just a few kilometres along, and the wind was at my back – and stayed there for pretty much the whole day! The road was also pretty good, although there were some nasty potholes that needed avoidance along the highway theat lead up to the Trans-Canada.

Wintry light

2005-08-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

As the day wore on we got some clouds, which turned to rain at night, and the wind started picking up. It got pretty chilly too, for the summertime. The sun hardly had a chance against those wintry looking skies!

Not so familiar terrain

2005-08-05T11:25:00.000-07:00

Some of the terrain looked really exotic and foreign. No trees growing anywhere, and there were big boulders lying about and little lakes. Perhaps it is too cold for tree to grow in some places – it felt like we were going above the treeline. What an incredible place – scary and beautiful at the same time.

Newfoundland from the Trans-Canada

2005-08-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

Another day where it was difficult to know where to point the camera! The drive from Port-aux-Basques to Argentia was about 800km long, and took us through some really remote parts. I am glad we saw it. It would be quite a bike ride – the road was really good for the most part, with a good shoulder, and the traffic was light (although people were speeding pretty badly). It was extremely hilly, and the wind was very strong in places. We definitely didn’t have the time to do it on this trip!

The mountains were a decent size – although it looked like the tops of them had been chopped off or something. In BC you would expect the mountain to just keep going up, but here they ended just as they got going. It also appeared that the mountains were too steep or else the weather was too fierce to allow much vegetation to grown on them. Sure looked cool!

As in a few other parts of the country, like northern Ontario, there were lots of little lakes all along the road. We saw many cars pulled over to the side and people out fly fishing. Cheryl commented that her dad would love it, too bad it’s so far from home!

Port-aux-Basques around sunrise

2005-08-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Port-aux-Basques near dawn and were immediately blown away by Newfoundland’s unique beauty. We pulled into town to let the ferry traffic pass and looked around the town a bit.

It really does look “just like you imagine” for a Newfoundland fishing village - the little colorful houses perched on rocky ground in random clusters along the water. Really cool, I am so glad we are including Newfoundland in our trip! It is expensive and time consuming to get here, but it is sure different from anything else we have seen!

August 5 –Ferry/drive to Argentia (NFLD)

2005-08-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

As is our usual mode of traveling, we did not plan ahead or reserve anything to do with our passage to Newfoundland, and we were lucky to have things work out for us without much delay. When traveling by bicycle, it is really hard to make reservations for anything more than a few hours in advance because a change in the weather can change everything.

There are 2 ferries to NFLD that leave from here, one to Argentia, and one to Port-aux-Basques. The ferry to Port-aux-Basques is more or less a direct route from the closest points linking Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and takes about 6 hours. The ferry to Argentia is about 14 hours long, but you travel much further east and arrive just 140km outside of St. John’s . The drive between Port-aux-Basques and Argentia is about 800km. Our original plan was to catch the next ferry to Argentia, and then bike in to St. John’s. However that ferry, which runs just 3 times per week, was sold out for vehicle space for the next sailing. The ferry to Port-aux-Basques was also sold out, but as luck would have it, they had just decided to put on an extra sailing at 11PM on August 4, so we made a quick decision to get on that ferry and just drive the 800km over to Argentia!

We really felt like we were heading out on an ocean voyage. They have cabins for rent – seemed like a great idea considering it was a night passage, and you are not allowed to stay in your vehicle.

Icebreakers and forgotten skills

2005-08-04T11:09:00.000-07:00

These coast guard icebreakers are needed in the winter time to keep the ferries to Newfoundland moving, among other things. Apparently the ferries occasionally get stuck in the ice and get delayed…for a day or so. Just one more difference between the ferries here and back home in BC. Speaking of which, I should also mention that the ferry workers we met were once again very friendly. We chatted to the security guard for a while, he had lived for 32 years in Nanaimo, and sure missed the mild winters. Moved out here because he met a woman from Newfoundland. Later on this evening, he was involved in an altercation on the ferry – one of the disembarking passengers forgot to take his medication and went berserk. Our friend took a punch in the head, and the cops had to come and wrestle him to the ground! He came back to tell us about it, proudly showing off his fat lip. No worker’s compensation claim for him – and he was probably nearly 70! Tough old guy.

I have found on this trip that I have forgotten some things related to my “old” day to day life. For instance, I have lost the ability to button up my shirt properly. I now smile obliviously while my shirt is all crooked - I can do this all day. It will probably be some time before I regain that skill.

How does the cyclist cross the bridge?

2005-08-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

Answer: in the van!

The wind was an extremely powerful crosswind for the crossing of this bridge. There was also no shoulder or sidewalk (pedestrians are prohibited on the bridge), and the lanes were narrow – too narrow for a truck to pass safely. So there was no safe option but to put the bike in the van and drive across.

Just ahead of me at this point were 2 cyclists from Montreal, touring from Montreal to Halifax (they had done the Cabot trail), who had started across the bridge but turned back when the shoulder disappeared. They had decided to try and hitchike across, so Cheryl was able to ferry all of us over the bridge in 2 trips! They were pretty grateful, although I think I used up all that goodwill a little bit later. Cheryl & I had lunch right after crossing while the couple continued on. I passed them a while later & scared the beegeezus out of them by accident – you really aren't expecting anything silent to pass you when you are riding peacefully along. The gal actually screamed as I passed…sorry! I’ve had a number of cyclists tell me that I scared them that way, I’m not really sure what to do about it as beeping my airhorn would obviously be much worse and calling out is usually pretty hard to do with all the wind noise.

View towards the Atlantic

2005-08-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

It was a challenging ride today, even though the distance was not that high, mostly due to a very strong headwind. The wind was nearly as strong as some of those prairie blasters, but at least the road kept changing direction a bit, and there was shelter due to hills and forests. There were also some decent climbs. The largest was about 250m, and gave a really spectacular view once you passed the summit. You could see for miles out to the Atlantic ocean, as well as down towards the road ahead and a bridge that needed to be crossed. There was a sharp switchback on the descent, after which the wind changed to a tailwind for a short period. It was also quite a steep grade, so I actually needed to use my brakes on the downhill! Normally I don’t use the brakes as I find they just slow the bike down. But I was doing close to 70km/h, and with the quality of the roads it did not really seem too safe.

August 4 – Whycocomagh to North Sydney

2005-08-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 99.9km, 860m of vertical, avg. speed 27.8 km/h

Well, this is about as far as you can go on the mainland! It is very exciting to be here, we sure feel like we are getting close! We are at the ferry terminal in North Sydney. We had a few hours to kill before the ferry left, so we explored North Sydney. It’s a small town, so it didn’t take long! However, it definitely had a maritime feel to it – including a real working harbour. We are looking forward to seeing a bit more of Nova Scotia, especially the coast, on our drive back.

Wind and waves

2005-08-03T10:57:00.000-07:00

The wind got the waves going a little bit today. It’s cool to see waves again – even little ones! Although it was not a nice summer day today, in some ways it is better to see the sea with a bit of energy and cloud. More exciting! Perhaps I will regret saying that if the ferry to Newfoundland gets rough.

Although it was a pretty strong headwind for about ¾ of the day, I was glad to have the wind on several occasions. Today was probably the worst I’ve gone through in terms of roadkill – I passed at least a dozen really bad ones. What a reek! Maybe the Nova Scotia highways department does not bother to clean them up, just leave it to the crows, I don’t know. On this trip I have learned that a headwind is much preferable for dealing with stink on the road – it minimizes the amount of time you smell it and once you pass it you get fresh air right away. My technique is to hold my breath as soon as I catch wind of it, then try to hold it until I pass “the spot.” You can’t do that if you have a tailwind because the odour follows you down the highway for a long ways. I think if I’d had a tailwind going past some of those flattened pelts I would have had a pretty hard time keeping my peanut butter on the inside.

Clouds blowing in

2005-08-03T10:55:00.000-07:00

It got stormy today – lots of clouds for most of the day. However, it did not really start raining in earnest until after we got to the campground! It was quite cool as well, real maritime weather.
For the first 50km or so today, we were on a secondary road (highway 245) that gave us some really nice views of the water. Traffic was very light along this road, which was good because the pavement was full of potholes that I had to keep dodging. I am glad we took the scenic route though. One local told us they refer to it as the “mini Cabot Trail.” Kind of like a “Brussel Sprout Trail” I suppose, if you pronounce it right. I am not planning on biking the Cabot Trail so I am glad I at least got to see this part. It was by far the most scenic part of the day!

August 3 – Lower Barney’s River to Whycocomagh

2005-08-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 150.7km, 1087m of vertical, avg. speed 29.1 km/h

We are in the home stretch now – onto Cape Breton Island. We are under 100km from the ferry to Newfoundland, so we should have no problem getting there tomorrow (jinx!). I do not know what the ferry schedule will be like. We have a tourism “brouchure” put out by the Nova Scotia government that is over 350 pages long. I haven’t gotten to the part about the ferry schedule yet, it’s kind of difficult to use…

I was back on the Trans-Canada highway (104 and 105) for a lot of today. I can’t say I missed it – there was lots of traffic, although the condition of the road was mostly good. However, once we got onto Cape Breton island this seemed to decrease quite a bit. There are 2 roads that lead up to Sydney, one around each side of Bras d’Or Lake essentially. Most of the traffic must take the south road, because we took the north one and it is not too bad. Very hilly though! In the 50km we took along there there were 2 x100m climbs and 2 x 50m climbs, plus lots of smaller ups and downs. The other way may be hilly too, all of the roads on Nova Scotia have been so far.

There is a causeway that connects Cape Breton Island to the rest of Nova Scotia. It was pretty hairy crossing as there was a really strong crosswind coming through. I was grateful for (though puzzled by) a big gap in the traffic going my way – no cars passed me in my direction the whole way. Finally I got to the other side, where a cop was actually stopping cars going the other way. I looked back and a truck was moving a massive double wide mobile home that barely fit across the road. Glad he was behind me!

Dinnertime in the van

2005-08-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

Cheryl is seen here madly cooking up a huge pot of pasta for dinner. I made the mistake of underestimating the effort to get to the campground today. We picked our route (trying to avoid the Trans Canada for a bit), then looked for suitable campgrounds, and there really was only 1 option. It didn’t seem that far – just 55 km or so from the ferry, so I went for it without a food break. I figured I had a good rest on the ferry, and had eaten lunch prior to bordering, so I should be good to go. But I bonked (ran out of energy) about 10 km from the campground and so it was a bit of a struggle to get here. I haven’t done that very often on this trip, probably twice. The last time was when we took the ferry from Manitoulin – the big pause in the middle of the day is tough to deal with! Live and learn though – even the “short” days require careful food energy planning.

Nova Scotia north shore view

2005-08-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

This is a view from our campground. As I type this, the sun is setting over the island and is a huge fiery red ball. Fantastic!

So far things have looked similar to the other maritime provinces. We are taking a secondary highway (245) at the moment, which follows the northern coastline of Nova Scotia, towards Cape Breton island, and has given a few views of the water. We will follow this along to about Antigonish, then I think we’ll be on the highway as we head towards Cape Breton Island and on to North Sydney, where we catch the ferry to Newfoundland.

I find that as the trip is getting on, I have wanted to be off the main highway more and more, and will even ride extra distance to avoid it! The condition of some of the roads is a bit of a pain in the butt though – literally!

Reunion with a fellow cyclist

2005-08-02T10:46:00.000-07:00

Riding time was a bit short today due to taking the ferry. We missed the 11 o’clock ferry by about 15 minutes, and had to wait until the 1, which meant we didn’t get moving on the Nova Scotia side until nearly 2:30. Still, it was a lucky occasion – I met up with another cyclist (Ryan) who I had met way back near Wawa. We have travelled similar routes, but with lots of differences, so it is quite remarkable that we met up again, on the ferry of all places! Very nice guy, and he’s planning on doing either the Cabot Trail, or else the “long way” through Newfoundland before finishing up. Both are tough rides considering he’s packing all his gear.

August 2 – Charlottetown to Lower Barney’s River (Nova Scotia)

2005-08-02T10:43:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 106.0km, 801m of vertical, avg. speed 28.4 km/h

Made it to Nova Scotia - they sure do have some great town names around here! Very charming to read them off the map.

Today we travelled about 52km to the ferry at Woods Island (PEI) and then took the ferry (our 5th of 6) to Nova Scotia. On the PEI side, we took a shortcut (highway 23) indicated on the map which turned out to be really hilly! Probably saved a bit of time anyway, especially since the trees gave some shelter from the headwind. There was almost no traffic on the road as well.

The hills were a good wakeup for me. I did not seem to have my normal post rest day lag before getting going. I still don’t know what causes that, but maybe a steep hill is all that’s really needed to jumpstart things!

August 1 – Rest day in Charlottetown

2005-08-01T03:36:00.000-07:00

We had a good day off here. We explored the downtown area on foot and found a lot of nice looking areas. There were lots of really cool old wooden buildings dating from the early 1800s. They were in excellent shape, obviously a great deal of pride here.

We checked out “Victoria Park”, which is a large park on the water near dowtown, with a walkway along the shore. The red boulders lining the path looked like they should be those foam Disney rocks that you can pick up with 1 finger!

As usual, the rest was great, but we’re looking forward to moving on tomorrow!

Taking it easy in Charlottetown

2005-07-31T06:04:00.000-07:00

I have not had a rest day since Quebec City (8 days and about 1100km), so we are going to take a rest day here tomorrow and do a bit of sight seeing. It was kind of a short ride today, so we got in at a reasonably early time and saw a bit of Charlottetown today. It is not a huge city, only about 65,000 including the surrounding area. But there is a downtown area with restaurants and pubs that we explored a bit. We found PEI’s only prewpub and tried out some of their products – best beer we’ve had since leaving! I have to say that once we left BC it has been a bit of a wasteland as far as beer goes (not that we’ve been looking too hard though). Everybody has the same stuff on tap – “Canadian, Blue, Coors Lite, and Rickard’s Red.” I guess we’re spoilt by the microbrew industry in BC. Anyway, we sure enjoyed this place!

PEI farmland

2005-07-31T06:03:00.000-07:00

Once you get onto the PEI side, the scenery changes once again. The soil really is quite red – and it must be excellent for crops since almost the whole island is farmland. The island is dotted with tiny little towns. The ride was very pleasant – nice road condition and a few decent hills to make the ride interesting.

Bridge to PEI

2005-07-31T06:02:00.000-07:00

The bridge onto the island was really impressive. You are not allowed to ride a bike onto it, unfortunately, but I can imagine that the winds would be pretty insane. You could see the bridge for quite some time coming from the New Brunswick side, which is where this photo was taken. It must have been very interesting to watch it getting built. You do not pay to go across onto the island, only to get off, and the fee for both the ferry and the bridge is the same – about 40 bucks. We took the bridge to get on, and will take the ferry off to Nova Scotia after a day of rest.

July 31- Cap Pele to Charlottetown (PEI)

2005-07-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 105.0km, 666m of vertical, avg. speed 29.9 km/h

We’re in PEI – really we are! Pay no attention to the missing sign at the welcome greeting, just look at the red soil. We took the confedartion bridge onto the island this morning, and the first thing you have to do when you get on is to go through a maze of very tourist-trappy stores. “Quick! Tourists are here! Get their money before they leave the island!!!” The old welcome sign is located just pass there,but maybe they took it down since by this point they figure people have been welcomed enough just by stopping and buying some Anne of Green Gables memorabilia. Or maybe the budget for keeping up the welcome sign went into the construction of the tourist village. Oh well, maybe I’ll get a photo at the ferry on the way off.

Gagnon Beach Campground

2005-07-30T05:58:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get as close as possible to the bridge to PEI today, making for an easy day tomorrow. The closer the better in case the weather is bad in the morning! We were fortunate to get a tailwind for almost the whole day, and it was a good thing too because we had to cover more ground than expected. This is a very popular tourist destination, and since it is a holiday long weekend most campgrounds were completely full. We were planning on staying in Shediac (or Parlee Beach Provincial Park) but all campgrounds there were full. The people at the tourist information centre in Shediac mad several calls for us and finally found us the last spot at a campground at Gagnon beach. One of many campgrounds not listed in our guidebooks! Anyway, it is in a fantastic location with a private beach on Northumberland Straight. The water is warm too – we went swimming upon arrival! It is very shallow, and there are sandbars that you could walk out to. It was still quite windy, and there were kids flying these cool kites. Very festive place, much nicer than some of the parking lot style campgrounds we passed by in Shediac.

Number 100

2005-07-30T05:57:00.000-07:00

Today was a milestone of sorts. I passed my 100th wheel bolt lying on the road. At least, it was the 100th since I started counting. Sometime a while back (I think in Saskatchewan) I started counting these things to help pass the time. I get a little bit of a thrill when I pass one. Sometimes I can’t remember exactly what number I was on, but I’m pretty sure this is number 100.

I always wonder how the bolt got here. Did it fly off a moving vehicle? Or did someone forget to put it back on after changing a flat tire? Both seem unlikely, you’d think you’d notice either way. Or maybe someone is driving down the road with a big bag of these, hurling them at cyclists? A mystery for sure.

July 30 –Bartibog Bridge to Cap Pele

2005-07-30T05:55:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 165.0km, 616m of vertical, avg. speed 31.1km/h

A good solid day’s effort today. We were on highways pretty much the whole way, which meant there was not too much scenery (other than trees and moose warning signs), but we did cover a lot of ground. The traffic was not bad at all, being Saturday. Yesterday we were on a secondary highway, but as I mentioned it was not particularly scenic as it is not close enough to the ocean to afford views, and people were speeding pretty bad on it anyway. So we figured today we would just take the main highway (highway 11) the whole way, and all in all it was fine.

There was a giant lobster in the “lobster capital of the world,” Shediac. I couldn’t resist the photo, as no doubt millions before me have as well.

The cliffs of Clifton

2005-07-29T05:54:00.000-07:00

There were some really interesting cliffs near Cliffton, a well named town! The seagulls liked them too.

I have noticed the famous “maritime friendliness” as people here are very chatty and friendly. Today as we were filling the van up with gas we were chatting to the attendant, and he mentioned that he had just been to Hope, Cheryl’s home town, last year. He was out visiting some friends, who live in Hope had their summer home across the street from where we were filling up! Cheryl did not immediately recognize the name but no doubt the degree of separation is small as the town is not big.

Churches

2005-07-29T05:51:00.000-07:00

We passed through a number of tiny towns this morning as we set out – Clifton, New Bandon, Grande-Anse, Pokeshaw. It looked like there was some farming around, but also some of these places were once (maybe still?) fishing villages. I did not see too many fishing fleets but the maritime feel was definitely there. Some of the towns did not consist of much more than a general store, a few dozen homes scattered about, and a church! Some of the churches were small and cute…

...while others were massive and daunting!

I guess some towns had more money for the construction of the church. If you had a 100 years to do the trip we are taking, you would have the time to find out the story behind every interesting thing you see.

July 29 – Janeville to Bartibog Bridge

2005-07-29T05:49:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 149.8km, 500m of vertical, avg. speed 28.8km/h

Our scenic detour along the north shore of New Brunswick was well worth it, and I am glad we took it. The stretch of highway leading east from Bathurst to Grande-Anse was definitely the most scenic part of New Brunswick that we’ve seen so far. I am sure there are other excellent parts to the province, but getting a road that is close to it, with decent views, and is in decent shape with not too much traffic is a tough combination! It was only about an hour of peddling this morning, and then we headed south along the eastern coast.

From there on, it was much less scenic – basically a straight, flat highway through the woods. I had the weird sensation (I’ve had this before) that I wasn’t getting anywhere because the scenery did not change. The road was populated the whole way, and the towns were quite small – more like the density of homes increased slightly near the towns but the houses never stopped coming. It was also a headwind the whole way, which never helps! But the road was in very good shape, with a nice shoulder to ride on, and the weather was near perfect. All in all, a tough day but still enjoyable.

Quebec across the water

2005-07-28T05:48:00.000-07:00

I am learning the geography of Atlantic Canada well. I never realized that the coast of northern New Brunswick goes so far out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence! All day today we were looking out across the water towards the Gaspe penninsula. Tomorrow we’ll cut in a more southerly direction.

Rest stop on the shore

2005-07-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

We stopped here for a picnic, it was right beside a little marina. I have renamed this place “Unfavourable Wind Change Harbour” in honour of the fact that I had a tailwind all the way here, but it changed to a headwind from here on out. We also broke six eggs by mistake. The sandwiches, however, were delicious.

Home on the water

2005-07-28T05:42:00.000-07:00

We are doing a minor scenic detour, keeping to the northern New Brunswick coast for an extra 30km or so, and then cutting south. It is really beautiful along this coast, and today was ideal weather to see it in. Sunny and warm, but not too hot. It seems that most of the waterfront area is populated, although in places sparsely so. There are little (former?) fishing villages along the coast, and the houses have that distinctive Atlantic look to them.

This is Acadian country. As luck would have it, today is the 250th anniversary of the deportment of the Acadians from what is now Nova Scotia. Many of those people settled in this area and still remember their heritage. It seems that this part of New Brunswick is very bilingual, we are still hearing lots of french (and speaking a bit too).

July 28 – Dalhousie to Janeville

2005-07-28T05:38:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 107.8km, 451m of vertical, avg. speed 31.2 km/h

Didn’t cover a huge distance today because we got off to a really late start. The band played kind of late, and there were people milling about until even later, and that combined with the hour we lost due to crossing into the Atlantic time zone meant that we were not on the road until after noon! We are also a bit limited with camping options (once again) due to sparseness of campsites. Or, at least, sparse listings in the camping guide we have. The campground we are in tonight is not listed in the official New Brunswick guide, it was recommended to us by a local at the tourist centre in Bathurst. It is one of the best (in terms of what I like in a campground anyway) we’ve been in for a while – beautiful spot right on the water, decent size lots, and nice and quiet. And cheaper than most as well! I am not sure who puts together the official provincial camping guides, or how they decide who gets in and what rating to assign, but they sure use different criteria than I would!

As planned we are staying off major highways and taking secondary ones (highway 134 and 340). There is not much traffic along the roads (with the exception of the area north of Bathurst) so it was a very enjoyable ride. The pavement is not great, but better than many parts have been. At least the patch jobs seem to help here, not like in Quebec when it looks like they just randomly fling tar from the back of a pickup using an oversized ice cream scoop!

Dalhousie Lighthouse

2005-07-27T05:36:00.000-07:00

Today’s ride cut across the Gaspe penninsula, and we continued in New Brunswick onto the coast, overlooking Chaleur Bay on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. There can be no further question of it – we are in Atlantic Canada now. The towns have changed noticably, as has the scenery. The towns do not look as old – maybe because there are more wooden buildings as opposed to the old stone ones in Quebec? And the maritime feel is noticable – lighthouses and open sea. Should be some interesting stuff coming up!

Packed in

2005-07-27T05:34:00.000-07:00

We’re staying at the Dalhousie municipal campground (“Inch Arran Park” is the name of it, not sure who are what Inch Arran is yet). Fairly close quarters here as it is a full house tonight due to the the celebration of the town’s centennial anniversary. The spots on the other side of the park are right on the water and look fantastic! They’ve got the flags of all the provinces flying – I tried to get the BC flag flying here but it was kind of flagging.

There’s a free concert here in the park tonight. About 50m from our campsite, as a matter of fact. They sound a bit like my dad’s band, “Just Us” when they went through their country phase. The sound quality is pretty bad, they could use a good sound engineer and some decent speakers.

Crossing into New Brunswick

2005-07-27T05:31:00.000-07:00

There was only 1 car on the bridge when I crossed into the province. Not much traffic! From the Quebec side it did not even indicate that this headed to New Brunswick. In fact, the road sign indicator pointing towards Cambelltown, NB, which is the nearest city, actually urged you to go further in Quebec before turning down! I guess they are trying to keep people in the province for as long as possible.

Speaking of which, being from out of town (to put it mildly) I always check license plates, and in Quebec, even near the borders, almost all the plates were from Quebec. Very few visitors. Over the border in New Brunswick, there are many more out of province plates – lots of Quebec, a few more Ontario, and some American. This area seems to be quite bilingual – lots of french folks, but the signage is in english and french. Perhaps this opens things up a bit more for travelers. If you spoke no french at all, you might have a hard time in some of the places we have just been through…depending on what you wanted to do.

Reminiscent scenery!

2005-07-27T05:30:00.000-07:00

It was a very scenic ride today. From our campsite in Sayabec, we follwed the Matapedia river all the way down into New Brunswick. It was strangely reminiscent of the Similkameen river in BC, which we traveled along many weeks ago (June 3rd and 4th). Yep, we’re still in the same country as we started! This river is very popular for fishing.

Confused in New Brunswick

2005-07-27T05:24:00.000-07:00

For about the 1000th time, we were glad to have our Garmin GPS units. It is really useful to be able to see not just a map, but where you are on the map, and trust it! Sometimes the road signs do not jive with maps, especially off the major highways.

On the New Brunswick side, the roads seem to be OK so far, although the paved shoulder is not as common or well maintained. We are going to be on secondary highways for the most part so I guess we’ll see how it goes.

I am not sure if they have the same positive attitudes towards cyclists here as they do in Quebec. Within about 10 minutes of getting into the province I was honked at (as in, “get out of my way”) by someone in Atholville. What do you call someone who lives there, anyway? Probably something similar to what I called Mr. Honk.

My rear view mirror finally exploded today – literally! I was riding along, hit a little crack in the pavement and it busted into about 50 pieces and fell off my bike. I guess the potholes in Quebec were too much for it! Just as well though, it was already worn out and wouldn’t hold it’s position when you hit a medium size bump, which was about every 2 seconds in many places!. Kind of a bummer considering I just bought it in April, but then again I do have more than 8000km on the bike since then (including my 2000km of training in April and May).

July 27 – Sayabec to Dalhousie (NB)

2005-07-27T05:22:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 160.1km, 809m of vertical, avg. speed 31.5 km/h

Here we are in New Brunswick! We took a fairly sparsely traveled route into the province, crossing by bridge just past Matapedia, Quebec, and unlike every other border crossing so far, there was no “Welcome” sign immediately visible. We checked our GPS maps, and looked across the bridge to Quebec (which did have a Welcome sign up), and we were pretty sure we were in New Brunswick, so we pressed on and eventually found the welcome sign a mile or so down the road. I’m glad it was there – it would have been a bad sign for the famed east coast frendliness had we not been welcomed!

The road through the Quebec side alternated between extremely good and bone jarringly bad today, in about equal quantities. We hit some construction for about 5km though, they are definitely working to improve it. I found that the roads in Quebec were either terrible or fantastic. I think they do not do a very good job of patching them up, and wait until they are really bad before repaving. I have definitely hit the worst potholes so far here. But the good parts on the whole were much more common.

Goodbye Quebec

2005-07-26T05:20:00.000-07:00

Well, today will definitely be our last night in Quebec. We both really enjoyed our time in this province, even more than expected. The scenery along the river was fantastic, and I thought the old towns were very cool. My limited experience with the people here was also extremely positive, even with my terrible french language skills. And of course, the fact that you can buy wine in the grocery store or even at “the Dep” was great! So to celebrate our last night in this province, we did just that, and are raising a glass of (imported) french wine.

Lac Malcom near Sayabec

2005-07-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

We headed in a southerly direction, away from the St. Lawrence, at the town of Mont-Joli. There was an immediate change in the scenery as we climbed up and into some hills. We are back into terrain that looks much more similar to northern Ontario – little lakes, and lots of rolling hills. Some of the climbs are a pretty decent size, though still small compared to those around Lake Superior (or BC of course). I cracked the 1000m mark on the vertical again today, thanks in part to the whoppers that we climbed after the turnoff into this campground. No complaints, though, there should be some good coasting tomorrow as we follow the Matapedia river down into New Brunswick. The weather also changed as we headed inland – the wind died down and it started to cloud over. In fact, it started to rain lightly about 2 minutes after we got into our campsite. Lucky timing!

(later note – it was 6km off the road to the campground, despite the fact that it said 3km in the guide book. Had I known that, I would probably have continued on to the next town, about 15km to the next campgsite and it was very flat).

July 26 – Trois Pistoles to Sayabec

2005-07-26T05:15:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 150.0 km, 1023m of vertical, avg. speed 29.9 km/h

I am definitely glad we did the backtrack yesterday and continued along the St. Lawrence river. We had about 100km or so of road along the river today, and it was very scenic the whole way. For a couple of days, as the river has been getting wider and wider, we have been wondering at what point it stops being “river” and starts being “sea” (or I suppose it would be the gulf of St. Lawrence). Possibly this is a well defined place, but I thought it was a very strong indication today when we passed through the city of Rimourski and actually smelt the ocean! Yep, it’s hard to mistake that salty low tide smell. The large low tide mudflats that were visible along the road were a tipoff as well. As we contined along east towards our southerly turnoff in the direction of New Brunswick, the little homes along the water started to look more and more like classic maritime cottages – small white homes with red roofs nestled along the water. A preview of what is to come in the next week or so!

It was very exciting to finally see seawater again after so long on the road. We still have a ways to go, not to mention 4 provinces, before the journey is over, but it sure felt like a big milestone had been hit. A couple of towns that we passed through today offered whale watching tours, and a number of the roadside food shacks are now offering “homard” (lobster).

The road was pretty good today, although the shoulder diappeared in some places. In Quebec, when the pavement is bad, it is really bad, and a couple of times today I felt like I was sitting on a jackhammer as I bounced over some pretty huge potholes and dodgy pavement. I had a pretty decent tailwind all the way along the river as well, which meant I was going pretty fast when I started bouncing away! But the road along the water was still fairly heavily used by other cyclists, and so the motorists are pretty good about giving you space. But, I finally had a rude motorist experience here in Quebec. It was a section where the pavement was bad (potholes more than a foot across) and I had to get over into the road to avoid them. I shoulder checked and the driver behind me had lots of time to pull out, and the oncoming lane was clear, so I pulled out. He passed me, but honked rather obnnoxiously as he did so – kind of unnerving when you are in the midst of such a maneuver. As he passed me, I noticed the plate – he was from Ontario! I guess he was not used to the bike culture that seems to exist here – people of all ages are on bikes, on the roads, and the cars share it with them.

Church in Trois Pistoles

2005-07-25T05:12:00.000-07:00

The rest of the ride to Trois Pistoles was pretty nice, although some of it was away from the river so you did not see as much. Trois Pistoles has a fairly large church which looms up above pretty much everything around – not uncommon to many of the towns we’ve seen along the way.

Scenery along the south shore

2005-07-25T05:08:00.000-07:00

The traffic picked up after highway 20 joined us on highway 132, but the condition of the pavement improved greatly as well so it was about even. This is the only (major) road out to the Gaspe pennisula, so I guess it is not surprising that it is busy. There are still lots of towns and the water side has lots of really nice looking homes all along, even between towns.

Heading to Riviere-du-Loup

2005-07-25T05:04:00.000-07:00

Today we did a bit of backtracking. Our original route plan was to go south at Riviere-du-Loup (RDL) and head for Edmunston. However, that was not to be. We had about 60km or so to go from last night’s campground to RDL, and the scenery was really spectacular. Really great views of the St. Lawrence river, which is getting quite wide. The mountains on the other side of the river have started looking pretty big, and rise up in layers away from the water. It is quite reminiscent of the scenery back home on Vancouver Island once again – looks a lot like the east side of the island, up past Nanaimo. Except of course that there are really old towns and buildings all along the way!

The condition of the road for that stretch was not the greatest (this photo was a bit of an exception), but the traffic was light and the drivers were considerate. When we hit Riviere-du-Loup and headed southeast on highway 185, my old friend the Trans-Canada, it all changed. The traffic was really heavy, with lots of logging trucks and transport trucks, and the scenery got kind of dull (boy have we been spoiled for the last while). I guess dull is not the best word, but a wide, fairly straight highway through a forest does not compare too well to the kind of scenery we had been seeing all morning. The map seemd to show that the area was a bit more sparsely populated as well, which is a bit of a disadvantage for the kind of traveling we are doing. Lots of small towns are good as they give us lots of options for the next meeting point as well as for camping locations.

We had a lunch break about 20km outside of RDL (about halfway to St.-Louis-de-Ha!-Ha!, I kid you not) and decided to head back to RDL and take “the other way” into New Brunswick. The other way is to continue along the south shore of the St. Lawrence river and turn southeast at Mont-Jolie, another 130 or so km east of RDL, and cut over to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This route does not go through Fredericton or Moncton, but after dealing with cities I am thinking that is also in its favour. It is probably a tiny bit longer (especially when you backtrack…) than the other way, but hopefully the scenery will be worth it.

July 25 – Riviere-Ouelle to Trois Pistoles

2005-07-25T05:02:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 136.8km, 656m of vertical, avg. speed 27.5 km/h

Great name for the town, eh? We are staying at the municipal campground here – it’s a really nice campground. One of the better ones in a while.

We were pretty surprised to wake up this morning and find that the weather had turned a bit chilly! What a huge change from just a couple of days ago. I was wearing longs sleeves for much of the day, even a windbreaker shell at one point. It was overcast the whole day, although it did not rain. There was also a mild headwind the whole day, which built stronger as the day got on. It seems that the “uncommon” weather, which we have experienced quite a bit of, is often accompanied by an east wind, while the “more normal” weather comes with a westerly wind. Rain on the prairies, cold through the interior of BC and northern Ontario, really high humidity in Ontario, were all like this, whereas when the weather got back to what the locals said was more usual for the time and place, we have been getting west winds. I guess that is what is meant by prevailing winds, although so far I have had 25 days with dominating headwinds and 11 with tailwinds (the rest being calm, crosswinds or a mixture). Not sure if that’s unusual or not! The good news is that when it is a tailwind it tends to be a good strong one.

Campground in Riviere-Ouelle

2005-07-24T04:56:00.000-07:00

The campground here in Riviere-Ouelle is much nicer than the one in Portneuf. At least you get a few trees and some space around the campsite! And it was about half the price too – I think the manager gave me a break (or didn’t want to hassle with my bad french) and just charged me as a cyclist, no car.

Farms along the south shore

2005-07-24T04:55:00.000-07:00

It was a nice sunny day today, pretty much the perfect summer temperature, and I had a tailwind for the whole day. The road (highway 132) was very flat and once again in excellent condition for riding. Saw lots of other touring cyclists again today. Couldn’t have asked for much better conditions!

There is quite a few people living on the this south shore. In addition to a number of very old, small towns that we passed through, almost the whole way there were homes or farms, at least on the water side. I was expecting it to start getting a bit sparse as we head along here, but it’s very busy – cottages and campgrounds everywhere. I am really enjoying seeing the old towns here – lots of building dating back to the mid 1700’s. Cool!

Cheryl on the ferry to Levis

2005-07-24T04:53:00.000-07:00

The town of Levis is immediately south of Quebec city, across the St. Lawrence river, andis connected by bridge and ferry. Much less popluated than Quebec city but still some nice looking parts to it. The road up to the highway is a steep climb right of nearly 100m right off the ferry – no chance for the legs to warm up! There was a bike path that looked like it probably wound its way up to the highway, but we like to take the same route – bike and van – so we know where the other is at, and so I generally do not take dedicated bike paths.

July 24 – Quebec City to Riviere-Ouelle

2005-07-24T04:51:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 130.9km, 584m of vertical, avg. speed 31.8 km/h

We had a slightly late start since we did a little bit more sight seeing this morning before heading down to the ferry. This was an unscheduled ferry trip – when I planned our route I though we’d be taking the bridge here, but this ferry left from very close to our hotel and saved us having to back track several km, so why not? So this is ferry ride 4 out of 6. A very short ride, 5 or 10 minutes over to the town of Levis on the south shore of the St. Lawrence river. That’s our hotel up on the hill – impressive!

Touring old town Quebec

2005-07-23T04:48:00.000-07:00

Old town Quebec is full of little narrow streets lined with neat old buildings. It is the only walled city in North America north of Mexico City, I've been told. There were some “ruins” (old walls) in the lower city that went back to the late 1600’s. Most of the ones that are still intact are newer – some 1700’s and mostly 1800’s. Many of the buildings appeared to be residential, some were offices, and there is no shortage of excellent restaurants and your standard touristy shops. We spent much of today wandering around the city just looking at the buildings and streets.

This city was definitely a high point in the trip for both of us. I am so glad to finally get a chance to see it as it topped my high expectations. Certainly a place I would love to come back to. Although I suppose you’d want to be careful about the month you choose eh? I would expect these streets get a little treacherous during the long snowy winter. Still , we found it hard to get enough of this place – we are kind of sad to be moving on (although I’m sure once we get moving tomorrow that feeling will disappear as it always does).

Hotel room/Bike shop/Laundrymat

2005-07-23T04:46:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure that the hotel would be thrilled to know that I brought my bike into our fancy hotel room – and thoroughly cleaned it! I had newspaper and plenty of rags down though, not to worry. I finally got a chance to swap out my Sigma Sport spedometer which has not worked for me since just after Sault Ste. Marie despite changing all 3 batteries and endless fiddling. Got a different brand altogether – hopefully this one holds up!

July 23 - Rest day in Quebec City

2005-07-23T04:43:00.000-07:00

What a great tourist attraction – where else can you fire a giant cannon at passing boats? It was even more fun than driving those huge trucks in Sparwood. These suckers really make a bang when they go off – wear your hearing protection and make sure the wheels are chocked before you light the fuse!

Another Westy

2005-07-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

Our Westfalia was too tall to fit in the parking garage here, so they offered us the most prime parking spots they had – right in front of the hotel! As luck would have it, there was another Westfalia in the same situation. We chatted to the owners for a bit, they are from Montreal and are on their way to the Iles de la Madeleine, which is a long ferry ride north from PEI. Talk about a remote place!

Ferry to Levis

2005-07-22T07:10:00.000-07:00

We are taking tomorrow off to enjoy the city. This was a bit shorter than normal before a rest, but in this case we are doing it to be tourists. As has become our custom, we have checked into a hotel. We choose a really cool old hotel in Old Quebec. This is the view from our window – the ferry goes to Levis on the south shore. We’ll probably end up taking the ferry to get over there tomorrow when we leave, to avoid heading back through traffic to the bridge. We'll take the south shore of the St. Lawrence from here.

July 22 Portneuf to Quebec City

2005-07-22T07:04:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 47.0km, 257m of vertical, avg. speed 31.7 km/h

Wow! This city is truly stunning. We have been anticipating this city as one of the highlights of our trip, and were expecting something very impressive, but we were still blown away by it! “Old Quebec” is really like a European city, completely with walled fortress, narrow winding streets, and old buildings! It is another instance where it is near impossible to determine where to point the camera as there are fantastic views everywhere. It is so strange to come across this in the midst of a cross Canada bicycle trip, I keep having to remind myself that we have not left our home country.

It was a very short ride today – glad we pushed hard the last couple of days to get so far east because we got here by 11 and had almost a full day of sight seeing. The road continued to be fantastic for riding – I have seen many people in the last few days riding along, enjoying the route and the small towns. There are “auberges” (inns) all along the way for people to stop and rest or eat at. I have seen more recreational cyclists in the last few days than anywhere else on the trip - people of all ages and fitness levels too. Yesterday’s west wind was changing to an east wind today, getting pretty strong by the afternoon – too bad for all the people I saw yesterday heading out from Quebec if they were planning to return today!

Camping or parking?

2005-07-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

Our campground tonight has taken several prizes – none of them good! It was the most expensive spot yet - $36.80 – and also the smallest. Not much bigger than an average parking stall. I had to move the “fire pit” (a.k.a a rusty old wheel) so we could get in, and our door could not open all the way due to a tree, and we couldn’t’ roll back to avoid it without getting into our neighbour’s space. There was not even room for a picnic table on our site – good thing our van is self contained and we did not need to set up a tent! If you are ever looking for a campground near Portneuf, I would recommend moving along to the next town – it’s not far and it can’t be worse!

Covered bridge

2005-07-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

We’ve seen a few covered bridges lately in eastern Ontario and Quebec . Very cool! I rode through it even though the sign said not to. What a rebel.

Villages across the river

2005-07-21T06:58:00.000-07:00

We passed through many little villages today, very charming old buildings. And huge churches!
There has been a noticable change in the towns and villages over the last several days. As we moved out of northern Ontario into central and then eastern Ontario, the frequency of villages has increased – you go through them much more often. They also are getting older and older as we move east. Some of the ones we passed through today boasted founding dates in the early 1700’s. The influences of Toronto and Montreal have definitely disrupted this pattern and have caused giant sprawling suburban messes where the only hope of survival is to live in your car and drive everywhere. You can definitely feel the European influence of the settlement here – it is not hard to picture yourself cruising through European countryside, watching the steeples on the horizon get bigger as the town gets closer.

Looking at the south shore

2005-07-21T06:56:00.000-07:00

The river alternated between quite narrow and very wide. Not too many islands in this part, compared to eastern Ontario, but once again there are large bluffs visibile in many parts – remnants of previous epochs where the water level was higher. The road that we were on was up a bit from the river in places, which allowed for some spectacular views!

July 21 – Joliette to Portneuf

2005-07-21T06:54:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 171.0km, 380m of vertical, avg. speed 30.8 km/h

What a difference a day makes in the conditions of the roads! Yesterday was one of the worst (in terms of road conditions once we crossed the border) but today was definitely one of the best! The stretch of highway 158 and then 138 between Joliette and Quebec City is known as “Le Chemin du Roi” and is extremely well suited for cycling. It is completely flat, there is a bike lane for most of the way, and the pavement is in excellent shape. There are even road signs up telling people to share the road with cyclists! The road follows the north shore of the St. Lawrence river and has incredible views all along.

It was still hot today, but once again the humidity is gone so compared to what we’ve been through it is nothing. The tailwind is holding up as well – what a nice change. It is almost strange to be covering so much distance once again and cruising at a more normal speed!

Old town

2005-07-21T06:52:00.000-07:00

We stopped for breakfast in the town of Vankleek Hill (ON). It is a very old town, dating back nearly 300 years. There were lots of cool old buildings around. It is nice to see that they keep the buildings up so well, as do so many of the little towns we’ve been through. Obviously very proud of the heritage.

After crossing into Quebec, we took highway 148 towards Lachute (where it turned into highway 158.) This was a route recommended to me by some Quebecers as a way to avoid Montreal. It did that for the most part (although the traffic did get fairly heavy in places), but the condition of the roads was a shock! I thought secondary highways, as these are marked, would be in reasonable shape, but there were some pretty astonishing potholes. This was some of the worst pavement I’ve ridden over. There’s also the old disappearing shoulder trick…one mile it’s there, the next it’s not! It was not really a pretty ride as it passed through the “strip mall” section of several small towns, but also through some farmland as well.

I am relieved that the weather pattern we’ve had for the last week and a half or so has finally changed (or we’ve gotten clear of it). It is still hot – around 30 C – but the humidity is finally gone. Late yesterday a bit of a storm came through, and after it cleared it was no longer humid. The wind also seems to have changed for the better – it’s more or less out of the NW now, as opposed to an easterly headwind. Yay!

We are camped about 7 km west of Joliette. It was a long way to come after crossing the border – although the headwind I had battled to get into Quebec became a taiwind once we headed east! The quality of the roads defintely slows me down – it is hard to get up speed when you are constantly dodging potholes, and rough, bumpy roads also make it hard to get a good groove going. However, I was anxious to press on as far as possible today, to get clear of the influence of Montreal. I did not want to be dreaming about that.

My french language skills are holding up OK so far. It has been a long time since I studied it, but reading those cereal boxes must be keeping me sharp as we have been able to get by our first day without any major hangups. I had to ask a couple of people to speak slowly, but they did. I have not found people to be rude at all despite my horrendous accent.

July 20 – Bainsville to Joliette (PQ)

2005-07-20T06:50:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 170.0km, 616m of vertical, avg. speed 27.6 km/h

At last – we are into Quebec! If I sound excited about that, it is partly due to finally getting through Ontario. I have mentioned before that there is a noticable change at the border, and this was definetly no exception! Obviously the signage and language was a bit tipoff. The condition of the roads was noticably worse as well – perhaps Quebec will be challenging Manitoba for the worst roads yet. We will see!

As planned, we headed north from our campground last night along some back roads towards Hawksbury. There was a bit of zigging and zagging involved, and at one point we came to…the provinicial border! Kind of unexpected, but we crossed into the “horn of Quebec” which is the bit of land south of the Ottawa river, west of Montreal, and north of the St. Lawrence but still in Quebec. Kind of a unique way to enter the province for the trip – and it was such a nice road that it made a good photo op. We exited the province not long after and proceeded along our course, crossing in at the bridge in Hawksbury.

Sunset on Ontario

2005-07-19T06:49:00.000-07:00

I am excited to be close to the border at last! We have been in Ontario for about 3 ½ weeks, and I am really looking forward to getting on to the other 5 provinces. Our campground is a little bit off the main road, so I wasn’t sure how close we were to the border – maybe it’s just down a country road or something, and I thought I might sneak over tonight just to get out of the province temporarily. So I asked someone who works here how far it was to the province of Quebec from here. The reply was “45 minutes to the airport.” Fairly low content of useful information in that response, but I suppose it’s good to know I can get on a plane so quickly if I need to.

I later checked my GPS, which tells me that I am only 2km from the Quebec border. However, I am not taking the direct route into La Belle Province. Instead, I am heading north about 50km to the bridge at Hawksbury, and then following along some secondary highways well to the north of Montreal (through Lachute and Joliette). One thing is for sure – if I thought that Toronto drivers were annoying, I am sure to find Montreal drivers, umm, really annoying. Best to avoid it as much as possible!

I saw 3 other cyclists today. Two of them were a couple from New Hampshire, touring around this area, and the third was a gal from Peterborough on her way to the Laurentians for week or so. Today was great riding,they all seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it. I think that if I were to repeat the last few days of my ride, I would not have come along highway 7 after my sting in the Kawartha lake region, but rather cut down right away to highway 2 and then headed east. More distance for sure, but more enjoyable too. Live and learn!

Views along the St. Lawrence River

2005-07-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

It was an excellent route today. I was on highway 2 almost the whole way (except for a minor detour through Williamstown and Lancaster to avoid Cornwall). This is the old road between Toronto and Montreal, before the 401 was built, and is only lightly used these days. The road follows the St. Lawrence river, which is visible for much of the trip. The road is in very good shape, with a decent shoulder much of the way, and there is even a bike lane for a bit! Beautiful views of the river for many parts as well.

The road is the “main street” through a number of small towns, like Prescott, Cardinal, Long Sault, and Morrisburg. These towns are old by western standards and there are plenty of cool old stone buildings in the towns. Between towns, there is a lot of farmland, but also some really nice homes all along the St. Lawrence river, as well as a fort or two left over from the war of 1812!

The monument in this photo commemorates the battle of Crysler farm, where “we” routed an American invasion force even though we were outnumbered 5:1. I believe the Canadian forces still use the cannons in the picture.

You can gauge how old a town is by how big the cemetery is. Some of these tiny little towns have really big cemeteries! I also saw a building that was built in the 1700’s. Ok, it was 1799, but still, that’s old by my standards!

July 19 – Brockville to Bainsville (about 2km from Quebec)

2005-07-19T06:43:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 137.4 km, 376m of vertical, avg. speed 31.8 km/h

Back on the road today – with a tailwind! It has been a while since I had a tailwind, I had almost forgotten what it was like to have one. Good thing it was there though, it was still hot and humid today, and as is often the case after a rest day it took a while for me to get back into the groove. I am not sure why that is, but it often happens. Maybe I get so used to the comfort of “civilization” that it is difficult to face up to the challenge of grinding through the heat. Anyway, after a couple of fairly sluggish hours I did start to get back into it.

July 18 – Rest day in Brockville

2005-07-18T17:34:00.000-07:00

Took today off and got some rest! It has been 8 days since the last rest day, and we have travelled over 1000km in that time through some serious heat! I did some much needed cleaning of the van, inside and out, and gave mom and dad a tour of the van. Cheryl did not take the day off, she walked for an hour up to the YMCA, worked out, then walked back. When she got back – surprise – we hit the pool again! The heat wave is still on here, although the forecast is for the humidity to let up a bit tomorrow.

July 17 – Sharbot Lake to Brockville

2005-07-17T17:26:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 114.0 km, 617m of vertical, avg. speed 29.1 km/h

Made it to the old homestead! Kind of a neat feeling, to ride into the old home town, having come all this way. As I got closer in to town, things started to look more and more familiar. Cheryl is not familiar with Brockville, so we met just on the outskirts, and then she followed me in! Actually, she had directions but I was pretty anxious to hit the pool so I passed her and raced ahead for the last few blocks. She took this picture of me from the van as I cornered onto Ann St. where my parents live.

Incidentally, I have always said that my parents live “about 5000km away”. At the end of today, we are at 5,026km for the trip – pretty close! However, my parents will soon be moving to Victoria – in fact they will be moved out there before Cheryl and I get back. So this is my last visit back to the old house, and probably the last time to Brockville for quite some time. It is nice that it is part of this larger trip as it takes the edge of what could be a sad goodbye. It is also very strange to think that when we get back to Victoria my parents will already be living there!

It was a really great ride today (though still as hot as ever, and had to deal with a minor headwind for the first half). We were on backroads and secondary highways all the way in from Sharbot Lake. Very scenic and lots of small towns and villages to pass through. As we go east, in a sense we are going back in time in terms of the age of the towns. Many of these villages have been around way before Victoria was on the map. They were probably a bit more bustling then as well. It is strange to ride for a half hour or so through farm land, then come to a crossroads with a couple of buildings and a big church and a railway station! It’s also neat (and differenct compared to BC or the part of Northern Ontario we’ve come through) that there are many intersections and side roads that actually go somewhere – to more towns, or a lake, or whatever. It is more like being on a grid, rather than living along a single dimensional strip of highway with towns every so often. It would take a long time to explore it all! A cyclist’s dream as well, you could pick a different training route every day.

July 16 –Stonyridge to Sharbot Lake Provinical Park

2005-07-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 131.5km, 581m of vertical, avg. speed 27.5 km/h

Back into the heatwave today – hot as ever! Oops, I mean, humid as ever. Anyway, it got a little uncomfortable out there today!

Today was not the funnest day yet. The first hour or so, along a background from our campsite down to highway 7 (the Trans-Canada) was great – nice little hills, very little traffic, and lots of shade. Then we were onto the highway, and that was pretty much it for anything decent. Bad pavement in many places, too much traffic with terrible drivers, nowhere to swim unless you are a swamp-loving turtle, no scenery to speak of, very few towns, and heat! And of course, a bit of a headwind. Had to do about 110km of that to get to this campground. It was so hot I did not really feel like eating, all I had was 3 muffins (bought at a roadside stand), an ice cream bar, and a Coke.

Hopefully that will be it for the Trans-Canada for quite some time. I am very glad that we took the north route around Lake Simcoe and stayed off the highway for as long as possible. Dealing with any area that even comes close to being within the sphere of influence of Toronto has been really unpleasant as far as biking goes. The term “complete moron” might be a bit strong to apply to some of the drivers, perhaps “imbecile who wants to risk dying in a fiery car crash for the chance to save perhaps 3 minutes of driving time” is more appropriate. 99% of drivers are very considerate, but the imbeciles do kind of set the tone bytailgating and passing recklessly. Getting off the main roads and onto backroads is definitely the way to go, even if it is less direct. No doubt Montreal will be much the same, which is why we are attempting to bypass it to the north as much as possible. Tomorrow, we are off the highway and taking secondary roads down to Brockville – should be much more pleasant than today. And of course, we stop at my parents house, have a swim in the pool, and enjoy a day of rest!

This campground is quite nice – lots of trees and nice size lots, and a sandy beach on a lake to swim in. A very nice little lake, popular with cottagers from Ottawa I suppose. Staying in a private campground, as we did last night, does make you appreciate what the provincial parks have to offer. In general, you get way better scenery and a much nicer, more private site. However, the provincial parks loose a few points for convenience in some ways compared to the private ones. There are not enough “real” bathrooms, and there is no water outlet at your campsite – there are only a few taps scattered through the park. And someone in the ministry of parks decided that they needed to reinvent the water tap. No simple twist valve here. Instead, there are these big torpedo shaped valves that require an enormous upwards thrust to activate. They have 1 speed as well – flood! You will get soaked using them, guaranteed, and there is no way you will get it to open if you are in any way feeble. However, I have to give the Ontario parks points over the ones in BC for realizing that people actually want to use them – and having lots of parks with lots of sites! Today, a Saturday in mid July, we were able to arrive at the park around 5PM and get a spot with no reservation. Don’t try that at home!

Despite the fact that we are in the middle of a heat wave, many of the campers around us have a campfire going, and it is only 8PM. I find that a bit strange, but maybe it’s because I am still rather hot from riding today. I am going to be heading back down to the lake for another dip before bedtime – despite the weeds!

You can tell the heat is getting to me a bit – this is a pretty negative journal entry! I’m looking forward to a change of pace after the rest day.

July 15 –Balsam Lake Provincial Park to Stonyridge

2005-07-15T16:42:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 109.0km, 620m of vertical, avg. speed 26.6 km/h

The heat let up a bit today – definitely a relief! Still plenty hot, but at least it wasn’t a complete meltdown out there. And there was a pretty stiff breeze as well to help keep cool. Of course, it was a headwind for almost the whole day, but it was well worth it.

Lots of raccoons around these parts. There was also a skunk that wandered through our campsite this morning in exactly the same place that this “little” raccoon was. This guy obivously does not miss too many meals.

We travelled exclusively on secondary highways and backroads today. We passed through the towns of Coboconk, Fenelon Falls, Bobcaygeon, Buckhorn, and Woodview. It was a great route, not much traffic (considering it is Friday and we are in cottage country) and the shoulders were mostly good. The roads were actually in better shape than some of the main highways we’ve travelled as well. We wanted to avoid highway 7 – which goes through Peterborough towards Ottawa - for as long as possible. Tomorrow is a Saturday, which I am hoping will be light traffic for that road.

Most of the towns we passed through would actually be classified as “towns” in my opinion. This is in contrast to many of the towns (dots on the map) that we have passed through in other parts of the country. We are definitely in a more populated region! The towns actually look like viable concerns as well – not like they are about to dry up and completely disappear, nor do they appear to be solely dependent on a single huge factory or mill. Nice to see, for a change!

This is a really nice part of the country to pass through in summertime as it is cottage country. It is known as the Kawartha Lakes region. There were many lakes that we passed by, fairly decent sized ones too. The roads were excellent to ride on – rolling hills through farmland. Some of the lakes are part of a waterway system known as the Trent-Severn waterway that is connected by locks.

There were no good opportunites for a mid-day swim, not to mention the fact that with the headwind we did not have the time to take off, but this campsite (Pilgrim’s Rest campground) has a nice little beach as well as a little river. We shot the rapids too!

As with most of the private campgrounds we’ve stayed in, this one has its share of trailers that are here permanently, with little decks or outbuildings hanging off of them. Sometimes I almost expect Ricky and Julian to show up.

July 14 –Elmvale to Balsam Lake Provincial Park

2005-07-14T16:32:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 113.0km, 573m of vertical, avg. speed 26.9 km/h

It was a humid one out there today! There was also a reasonably strong headwind for a good part of the day as well, and those two factors definitely slowed me down today. But it was a beautiful ride on country roads for much of it. Only the bit just east and west of Orillia was tough to deal with. Otherwise, we were travelling through farmland on country roads with little traffic. For me, it is starting to look very familiar, much the same as eastern Ontario where I lived for many years. I did a lot of bike riding around roads similar to this a long time ago. I am trying to pick a route towards Brockville that is mainly on backroads, so hopefully it will stay like this for some time. The heatwave is projected to be settling in for a good while here, so most likely the next few days will be quite similar.

We went swimming several times today! I took a break from about 1 to 3PM due to the heat, and we went swimming in Lake Couchiching in Orrilia. I went straight from the bike to the water as soon as I got there, and just bobbed for about 10 minutes. Then, after some lunch, we went back in just before getting moving again. Made the first half hour or so pretty bearable. We also went swimming as soon as we got to the campsite (we are across the road from the lake) and again just now before going to bed. Things have cooled down too, and there is now a nice breeze blowing in off the lake, which our pop top is catching very nicely! Should be no problem sleeping tonight.

I drank close to 6 litres of water today. When the hot weather started in, I started wearing a headband to keep the sweat out of my eyes. However, I had to give up on it today because it was just too hot – and it was not really helping anyway! Once you get past a certain point of meltdown, there is not much that can be done. I also stopped wearing my bike gloves since my hands were just too hot in them. I am not concerned about getting heat stroke, but I am concerned that the local health authorities are going to cart me away to a mental institution if they spot me out riding in this weather. I was told to avoid Midland for this reason.

I stopped for an ice cream in a variety store in the middle of nowhere (just outside Dalrymple, actually), and got chatting to a farmer who was hanging out inside in the airconditioning. He said that it is shaping up to be a pretty bad year for his crops due to the heat and lack of water. There has been very little rain since April, and what little bit that has been falling lately disappears immediately due to the heat. It is weird how we went from floods on the prairies, to rain and cold in Northern Ontario, to this. If you average it out, it seems pretty good though!

July 13 –Lion’s Head to Elmvale (near Orillia)

2005-07-13T16:16:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 160.0km, 627m of vertical, avg. speed 25.4km/h

As with the wind, or the rain, I will stop making comments about how hot it is, and how it can’t possibly get much hotter! (Anyway, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity that gets you…) Today was a long day! There was big chunk of construction on highway 26 east of Owen Sound that stretched a 45 minute ride into 2 ½ hours – not fun in the sun! At places it was down to 1 lane for about 300m or so, and you had to wait for the flagperson to wave you through. I then had to sprint the distance so I wouldn’t hold traffic up too much going the other way – what a riot! I think most people who looked at me assumed I was crazy (a logical assumption) for being out there, but there were no signs up saying how long the construction went on for, or a suggested detour. There are alternate routes (I later found out) but you kind of need to know where you are going.

Traffic was pretty heavy today past Wiarton, until after Wasaga Beach (except for the backroads which my aunt tipped us off to). Probably the heaviest traffic we’ve had since near Winnipeg. I guess everything around here is under the Toronto influence to some extent – I am anxious to get through it. We are planning to go north of Lake Simcoe and head for eastern Ontario via backroads as much as possible. Probably take a bit longer but it will be much more enjoyable. The shoulder also alternated between excellent and really bad, which was a tough combination to deal with in heavy traffic…but I made it!

Inicidentally, Wiarton is know for “Wiarton Willie,” the albino groundhog who forecasts the end (or not) of winter each year. It is apprarently quite an event to see! The photo above is of a statue erected in his honour. It's a good 8 feet high!

After getting through the construction zone, we came to the town of Meaford, right on Georgian Bay, and hit the water! What a relief, to just get submerged in the water for 10 minutes. Normally it would probably be fairly uncomfortable, but in this heat it felt so good.

Today I finally met up with the “Family of cyclists.” I had been hearing about these folks since Herbert, Saskatchewan, and got reports every week or so that they had just been through. It is a family who was living in the Okanagan Valley and are moving to Nova Scotia. The parents and kids are all riding their bikes! Now that is an incredible achievemnt! The mom of the group flagged me down in Owen Sound to ask for directions, and mentioned she got separated from her husband and kids. I said, “Are you the family from BC moving to Nova Scotia?”, she said “Yes!”, and I said “I’ve been following you since Saskatchewan!” It was pretty cool to finally meet them. I really hope that they did not take the same road under contstruction that I took, I kept wishing I could get a message back to them telling them to go for an alternate route. Oh well, I am sure they figured something out.

Speaking of family, I stopped in for a visit and awesome dinner with my relatives (Aunt Lorna, Uncle Roger, and my cousin Nancy and her husband Rob) in Collingwood. It has been a long time since I saw them, although we used to see them all the time when I was young. They are still in the same house, it was really great to see them again! It was kind of a brief visit, but after today’s delays due to heat and construction, and the dread of dealing with the traffic around here, we needed to press on and get as many miles in before weekend traffic descends upon us. So we headed out, aiming to get close to Orillia, but we had to stop a bit short when the thunderstorm started up in Elmvale! Fortunately we had just passed a campground about 4km back, so we turned around and called it a night. Good night!

July 12 –Sheguiandah to Lion’s Head

2005-07-12T15:30:00.000-07:00

Bike log: 100.5km, 642m of vertical, avg. speed 31.8km/h

Plenty hot today, although not as bad as yesterday. Also not too long of a ride, due to the fact that we had a ride on the Ferry (Cheechimaun) in the middle of the day. We waited for about 2 hours for the ferry, and the ride itself was nearly 2 hours. A beautiful trip, though. Unlike BC ferries, the workers on the vessel seemed to be happy and friendly. The food was actually fairly decent as well. And there was a person there who told the cars to keep moving up until they were within inches of the one in front of them. I bet if BC Ferries had that, we would not have missed the ferry on the first day of our trip!

The ride across Manitoulin this morning was great. Lots of little rolling hills, and farmland everywhere. Somewhat reminicient of Vancouver Island. It’s the closest thing I’ve felt to homesick since leaving – although still a long way from actually feeling that way! The Bruce pennisula, as this stretch of land which separates Georgian Bay from Lake Huron is called, is also very nice.

Our campground is right on a beach which looks out to some really interesting cliffs – similar to the ones we saw up in Thunder Bay. They make you want to dance! We hit the water as soon as we got into the campground this evening (around 6). I was just about melting, it is very humid here. The water was very refreshing – cooler than yesterday but not so bad that you couldn’t stay in for 5 or 10 minutes. That did the trick!

The road here (highway 6) is not great – the pavement is quite broken up. There is no paved shoulder, but the traffic is light so it is not a problem. Still, the difference in traffic volume between here and Manitoulin is noticable. I am looking forward to getting clear of the southern Ontario congestion before the weekend! We are hoping to meet up with my aunt, uncle and/or cousins tomorrow in Collingwood. I have not been able to call them to warn them that I am coming since the cell coverage is so bad! I saw someone at the next campsite over using their phone, I think maybe Roger’s doesn’t have such great coverage here in the east. I guess you should not expect much from a cable company…

Due to getting in late, we ate dinner in a restaurant in town tonight. That was the first time in a long while we did not cook in the van. Nice to have a night off cooking and dishes! On the ferry, we met another 2 cyclists. They were going from Vancouver to Montreal. These guys had a pretty deluxe setup as well – one guy’s wife was driving a truck pulling a huge trailer. They had come through the US route, south of Lake Superior, and had met one of the other cyclists I ran into on the prairies (a 64 year old man from Holland). Small world if you’re on a bike!

I knew it would be a short(ish) day today, so I decided to ride it a bit differently than usual. Today was split into 3 sections of about 30-40km apiece (pre-breakfast, post-breakfast, and post-ferry) with a reasonable rest interval inbetween. Normally I try to pace myself for the long haul, but today I decided to go all out for each section, kind of like a time trial in bike racing. It was fun to go fast, although I was paying the price by the end of the day! Hopefully my legs will not be too mad at me tomorrow.