The End

Well, I'll spare you all the descriptions of what I did in Halifax - essentially, I played regular tourist...and enjoyed lots of live music at night. 

It's been a great trip!  So - after 2137.7 km, 106 hours and 20 minutes in the saddle, an average speed of 20.14 km/hour and somewhere around 510,400 pedal strokes, I made the goal.  Yes, I'm that much of a nerd that I calculated all of this - but, I'm pretty proud of my accomplishments, and feel I've earned this much nerdiness!

Now it's time to figure out where next!  The trip (and meeting Bas - who has been so far on two wheels) convinced me that there is no better way to travel!  You miss lots (anything outside of 5 or 10 km of the route you're taking), but you see so much more in the areas you do go to!  So, if you've got suggestions - feel free to email.  I figure I've got ten months to pay off the debts and plan for the next one!  Thanks if you followed - you're a better person then I!  Although, now I owe some people - I promise I'll try to take more interest in other's blogs.

Day 24 - Graves Island Provincial Park - Halifax (via Peggy's Cove)

Well, starting the day off with a view like this is definitely not a bad way to begin my last day of cycling.  As I wake up, I've now got a hostel booked for two of three nights in Halifax (Thursday night everything is booked already - either spending a fortune or sleeping in the streets)  so, I've got to push through to Halifax today.  It's going to be a long one - I'm estimating around 120 with a lot of hills - but hopefully it's scenic enough to make up for it!

Started off the day with little gas in the tank.  My legs are stiff and don't seem to have the regular power - and to top it off, I've got a head wind...one that stayed with me the whole day.  After only about 20 km I was ready for my first break...swim at Queensland beach - it was a smallish beach, but nice enough for a read and a swim before hopping back on again.

After the swim, there was some reasonably scenic portions before heading back inland to push towards the peninsula that Peggy's Cove is at the end of.   A lot of hills here as well, and the ride sucked in terms of seeing things. But, eventually made the turn onto route 333 and the ride started to get a lot more interesting!  The harbours and little fishing villages here are awesome!  What I've been waiting for since getting to the maritimes! 

Lunch was at a place near Indian Harbour - seafood chowder (not so great at all) and a lobster club sandwich (wow - I loved it).  View from the patio of the restaurant was amazing!

View from the Restaurant

After lunch, made the last little push to Peggy's Cove - wow, I was a little worried - a lot of people called it touristy, and I figured it would be Disney style over touristy.  It was really busy - but, the view and the scenery were just amazing!  Stopped first at the SwissAir Flight 111 memorial - what a beautiful and natural location just inside the preservation area.

On the ride into Peggy's cove, ran into a gentleman who had done across Canada (Vancouver to here) in 40 days - unreal.  He must've been doing ridiculous distance each day!  He asked if I was crazy - as I was trying to fight a huge headwind by this point into Halifax...I was, but I was ready to be done - needed to get there!  Looked around at the cove for about an hour - it's interesting when you go somewhere and you've seen so many photos from there, it didn't feel like going somewhere new.  But, in person was pretty amazing!

After my visit and walk around the lighthouse and out on the rocks (Mr. Prior's lesson of the day - hiking on slippery rocks in bike cleats is a bad choice!), hopped back on the bike ready to bolt for Halifax.  Came around the first corner, and realized what type of headwind we were talking - the wind was strong enough to significantly slow my progress - probably close to 5km/h slower with the same effort level.  The last 42ish km sucked!  But, some nice views, the sunset over the water, and little mini light houses on every other person's property - this area is a little on the touristy side!

Finally, made the edge of Halifax! 

After a few more ups and downs, got to the first liquor store I could find and bought my celebratory champagne!  After getting directions from a few helpful individuals - including a construction worker who epidimized the East Coaster (had a five minute conversation with him - his name was Mike - he knows about my whole trip!), made it down to the waterfront board walk to drink my champagne out of a nalgene!

After the champagne, and a chat with a waitress named Meredith who gave me directions, a map, and suggestions on things/places to see, I saddled up for the short ride to the hostel.  Yup - I'm ready to be done this trip!

Day 23 - Waterloo Lake to East Chester

Today was the day I supposed I would blow through the interior of Nova Scotia (my camp is near the peak of the hills - so it's downhill to the coast from here) and then enjoy some beautiful coastal views from there!  Surprise - not such a fun day at all! 

The day started pretty normal - except for a 10 km stretch of construction (response to the signs put up at every house along route 10 - "Pave our Roads"...it really didn't seem THAT bad.) with the grooved pavement - inconvenient in a car - really crappy on a bike!  Filled up my water at a lady's farm along the route - super friendly - her and her friend brought me inside, filled up my water bottles, and then chatted - close to 1/2 an hour about where I was going, what to see, and where I'd been so far.  I love Maritimers!!  They confirmed my downhill assessment - all the way to Bridgewater - which it was, but my legs were a little burnt out from yesterday, and there still were a fair number of hills to contend with.  I think I'm a little sick of the bike today...ready to make it to the destination!

Had lunch in Bridgewater - delicious seafood chowder with a pretty average fish sandwich.  Was told that I had to go to Lunenberg - a 20 km detour (a lot on a bike) - but, the highschool girl running the info booth didn't give me enough info on where to go to find the nice parts....I rode the detour, and missed out on the good stuff - Nova Scotia - Mr. Prior's lesson of the day - hiring highschool/uni students is fine - but you have to train them sufficiently to give info to your travellers - wasn't impressed with your information...poorly trained!

Finally see the actual ocean!! 1989 km from my doorstep

So, went farther then I needed to...but, DID get to see the ocean today.  Eventually, pulled into Graves Island Provincial Park for the night with Irish Stew and noodles, and a Wheat beer from Propeller Brewery to celebrate having made over 240 km in two days in the hills!  Even had myself a camp fire tonight...overlooking the ocean - check out the view below.  Strongly recommend checking out this camp ground if you're in the area - it was amazing and only 20 something dollars! 

Hit 2000 km today - Gotta be close to Halifax by now...right??...

Day 22 - Digby to Waterloo Lake

Well, turns out the rest was a good thing!  And - today was a good day, I got a long way and saw lots...but, started to realize that our calculations on the map/GPS might've been a little short of actual distance - I've got three LONG days to Halifax!

Started off with an early morning - Bas wanted to know why I hadn't been so eager to get started when we were riding together....but, enjoyed some of our gourmet instant coffee (gooooo dollar store!) before leaving.  After that, took a detour through town - nice calm morning again...love it!  Then, off onto the highway.  Here, the secondary and primary highways merge - so, only option for about 10 km is the major highway - the 101.  Which also happens to have construction on one of the major bridges.  GREAT!  So, cars going 100 km/h plus as I ride along make me feel very comfortable.  Luckily, some guys at the front of the line waiting for the light to change suggested walking through the work area with the bike - the lines were super long, people waited for a big chunk of time, and would not've been keen on waiting for me to bike ahead of them.  So, saved some time, and some angry drivers by walking through.

Sign reads "Norm's World Cuisine - Pizza, Wraps, Donairs, Subs and Seafood"...Norm, I know you know world cuisine better then that!

After more rides through many small villages along the mouth of the Annapolis River, and some fantastic Martin Sexton playing on the IPod, I made it to Annapolis Royal for my break...who knew, it was paint the town weekend?!!?  The town, which looks pretty awesome even without the extra excitement, had a big market with wineries, food and fresh fruits from the area, and artists were all over the area painting scenes and parts of the town - all to be sold at auction that night!  I enjoyed some local plums, an awesome local pork farmer's pulled pork, and some selections of wines from the wineries - great fruit wines, and whites - reds - meh, not so much.

The two scenes are painted here!

The Market Square!

After the market, went to the village's fort to look around - kind of a smaller scale citadel - they're starting to get quite repetitive! But, some neat buildings - especially this one built into the hill - from the early 1800's and used by both French and English forces.

After Annapolis Royal, the ride wasn't as exciting - and it was time to motor!  I saw what claimed to be the world's only tidal power station (although I saw a few more of these later on...)  The knee hurt today again, but frequent breaks are my only choice - gotta make Halifax in three days!  In Middleton, stopped at info to ask about likelyhood of finding spots to camp along 10 - they were very unhelpful...and inaccurate - I decided to ignore their warnings of "Nothing out there...and lots of bears" and take my chances.  Ended up cycling a lot tonight, and mostly uphill.  Why do the hills always come LATE in the day?  Found a little spot to stop just off the side of the road.  Got here late, so rushed to beat sundown with making dinner, setting up camp and slinging my food bag in case of bears.  Made it to a place called Waterloo Lake - recommendation of some wierd guy on the side of this rural road who sold Dragon statues out of a little hut.  But, it'll work - other then the Beaver couple who is swimming/walking about 5 feet from my tent - they're making lots of noise, I don't think they like me much.  Also some loons and an owl - I like this nature!

Picture from a river just before my camping spot.  Finally in REAL nature!

Day 21 - St. John to Digby

Today was not a happy body day.  I needed the rest day definitely - my legs had given up on me; but my knee is really sore and my left quad is kind of stuck straight - bit of a problem when trying to cycle.  And today's walking didn't feel too nice either...bad news bears. 

But, today was a pretty good day otherwise!  We woke up first thing and off to Tim's for breakfast.  Today was the day I realized that going home, I'd have to watch my appetite after biking...we didn't bike anywhere (really - only 11 km) today and I ate like a champ.  After that, biked to the ferry - on the way past the reversing rapids in downtown St. John - a neat idea, but the rapids really aren't all that exciting right now...the concept, Bay of Fundy has big tides; when tide is up, the Bay flows up into the St. John river, and rapids go upstream, when the tide goes out, flows downstream.  If you're looking at the picture thinking I'm not sure this is that exciting - you're on the same wave length as me!

St. John - in the sun, maybe not so bad...

As we were riding through St. Johns today, we decided maybe we were a little hard on St. John last night.  We rode right back along the same streets through the city and all the houses looked nicer, the sun was shining.  It may've been just excitement to get out of the city - but I'll give it a little credit.

Our Ferry coming into port

There was something awful nice about moving without having to work for a bit.  The ferry actually travelled at around the same speed as we did, and today was my first rest day in ten days.  Ready for it.

The ferry wasn't so exciting though - we had expected a much bigger boat, with more to do on it - but, no such luck.  They did have fantastic scallops (ohhhh - can't wait for DIGBY!), but other then that it was just sitting and waiting.  No Norae Bang (singing room) like on Bas's Korean ferries...We did meet the head chef for the ship who was having a smoke break - gave us some real info on where to go for dinner!

Digby made me happy - this was more what I had been looking for in St. John - fishing village, lobster and scallops (Digby Scallops - best in the world!) for dinner.  It was a great place - I wanted to stay, and Bas decided he would!  A good chance to hang out with Bas before I take off tomorrow.

Day 20 - "The Day I Almost Broke" - Queenstown to St. John

That title comes verbatim from my journal...it was the only title I put on any of my daily journal entries. 

Woke up this morning to another beautiful morning - fog breaking over the lake, cool (great for biking!), minimal cloud.  Packed up and pretty pumped - only about 75 km to St. John, which I'm excited to see - haven't heard too much about it, but how bad could it be?  Pictures look nice - although they are mostly from the Bay of Fundy, which we don't really get to see much of...oh well. 

Started out our ride, and man - it was a great morning...but, the legs just aren't quite working like they should after a hilly 105 km yesterday.  Bas dropped back so we could chat and explained to me this is called Pap in de Benen in Holland - meaning legs feel like they're full of oatmeal.  Actually, quite a great explanation for the feeling I'm experiencing...the legs just don't feel like doing the work that I've come to expect my legs to do.  Heat and hills mean I'm in need of a recovery day!

As we rode along the St. Johns, the weather seemed to continue to be pretty nice....for now...

View of the fields and St. John River

First rest was at this abandoned fish market

But, in the distance, weather was not looking plesant.  It was a pretty hilly ride - not huge up and downs to start, but lots of up and down - essentially no flat riding to be had.  And then the rain came....just as we passed by a gas station, where we stopped to rain gear up, get some coca-cola and beef jerkey (coke gave a nice little jolt of energy).  Well, the rain just kept coming...and it was really coming down.  We had a lengthy downhill called the Devil's Back (learned this at the gas station) where the rain really hurt as it pelted you on the way down - had to keep speed reasonable too.  Rain is bad - a spill on a downhill would make this day worse.  More up, down, up, down...

The rain in the distance...it got close quickly

Beef Jerkey Break - this is me, not happy.  The wet and unhappy look
I was going for just looks "special"

We pushed through - and swore lots to ourselves as we did.  This is the last day of riding with Bas, and I'm glad we could curse together to get through it.  Once actually into St. John (ohhhh, so close to a warm hostel), we drove through some construction...and (insert curse of your choice), I get the first flat of the trip.  Smoke showed my back tire on a rather huge pot hole - flat right away.  Great - now I'm sweaty and cold (yes, at the same time...), and need to fix a flat on the side of the road.  Yes, this was the day I almost broke!

Eventually, we pulled into St. John.  Our hostel is in a sketchy area - just outside our door on the way to downtown was a fight at a house nearby - fight over girls, drugs and why one of the participants should/shouldn't get back to jail.  It was funny - but, we didn't stick around to enjoy.

I was excited for St. John - but, whether the poor city never had a chance, or it really is worse then Hamilton, I will likely never know.  The downtown seemed to me to be just one gigantic eye sore of a harbour.  Many of the stores in the downtown core are empty (possibly due to bad economy?  I don't know).  The seafood restaurants were as expensive as home, the market was small and very much unexciting, and the beer at the place everyone recommended going to for the night was $9 a pint.  This place sucks man....I did get one nice photo.  I think this was the only photo of this crappy city that was shown in the guidebook - now I know why!

We ended up a little tipsy from our three/four beers each (riding a full day makes tolerance a little lower - little is inaccurate), found a McDonalds and had bigmac combos (another stereotype checked off for Bas), and went back to our hostel to pout.

Day 19 - Mactaquac (sp?) - Queenstown

Today wasn't so eventful.  After brekie, we started out with two VERY large climbs...not nearly warmed up enough to already do all that climbing.  But, after that it got flat and very fast all the way into Fredricton.  Literally in and out of Fredricton - with a washroom stop at an info booth and a stop on the bridge to take a picture and that's all.  Maybe next time, although it didn't seem all that exciting.

The Fredricton City Skyline from the bridge crossing

We ended up stopping for lunch (and talking to Mom on the phone - HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY MOM!!! XOXO) from a grocery store right near the very large military base just outside of Fredricton.  Lots of people in uniform everywhere...and LOTS of Harleys.  Is the a prerequisite?  Bought a thing of pre-cut watermelon at lunch - best $2 I've spent the whole trip!!

Yet again, it was HOT and HILLY - they're getting bigger and steeper, but my body has adjusted quite quickly and these are nowhere near as difficult as the ones before - despite being a lot bigger.  At one point, there was a descent that was over a km long, and close to 10% grade at times - got going for a chunk of it over 60 km/hour...unfortunately, we all know that means more up to come.  We had a lady from the New Brunswick Toursim Bureau stop us today - ask our stories, tell us they were working at getting more cycle tours to New Brunswick (I resisted the urge to tell her if they'd build their road between the gigantic hills, people might be more likely to visit her damn province) - and glad I did - she gave us each a few local apples, which were delicious!

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Ugggh - the hills were huge...this is right before
the big decent

Hills still don't look as big in pictures....grrrr

Finally, we pulled into a rest stop in Queenstown which we decided to make our camp for the night.  Again, free sites are usually the most picturesque, and this was no exception.  It had some shelters, picnic tables, a porta-potty and a great view!

Even had the old style well like Gram's farm in Stratton - did have a sign not to drink from said well, but with some filtering, we made it good. 

In the whole night we were here, not one car stopped in at this rest stop.  Love it!  Man - my eyes stung from the salt that had settled there - it was a sweaty day!  Looks like tomorrow we make St. John!