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!
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| 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!
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