Thursday September 24, 2015

I woke up in the night with a migraine, not a good sign. I managed to find some Advil, and went back to sleep. The migraine had not disappeared by the time I woke up again, if I had been working I would have taken the Imitrex and gone back to sleep! However, I am not working and we had booked into the HI in Charlottetown for Friday night so had to keep moving, plus the motel in Moncton was a bit expensive. More drugs and we were on the road at 8:55 a.m.

We did a short tour of the downtown – Garmin likes to take us on a mystery tour every now and then. Eventually we found the right road and we were away. The wind was coming from the NNW and we were heading NE. The route today was flat and we went through some nice coastal areas.

We passed through Shediac, which is a very nice touristy town. The giant lobster measures 10.7 metres in length and 5 metres in height.

We stopped in Cap Pele for lunch and carried on towards PEI. The wind changed direction and we had a great tail-wind for about 20 kms, love tailwinds.

We switched roads from the back country road to Highway 11 and then on to the TransCanada (TCH).

The TCH was busy with lots of trucks but we had a good wide shoulder and the wind was still in our favour.

At one of our pit stops I heard the funniest response to “How are you?” – “Doing good, doing good at least I am on the right side of the soil”

We got to the Confederation Bridge at just after 4:00pm. Bicycles are not allowed on the bridge, they are shuttled over by the Bridge Authority. The wait for the shuttle could be anything from 30 minutes to two hours, depending on how busy they were. We had a pit stop and I was about to ask about the shuttle when a guy approached Ralf and we loaded the bikes into the truck and we were crossing the 11.9 kilometre bridge, we didn’t even wait 15 minutes. The bridge took three years to build and is the longest bridge in the world that crosses a river that freezes. We asked about ice on the river and the fella said that the design of the bridge in conjunction with the waves and the wind “rolls the ice over” so that it doesn’t build up and damage the bridge!

I complained to Ralf that the flags were not in the right order. “What order do you want them to be”? “From east to west or west to east” I suggested. “They are in the right order” he said, I kept looking – nope not east to west or east to west, not in alphabetical order – what order? The order they joined confederation – I looked again, he was right! What a smart arse!

The KOA was only 1.5 ks from the bridge and we opted for a cabin, it is very cosy. Although the wi-fi is dreadful.

While I was trying to connect to the internet, Ralf went back to the bridge to take some photos.

Wednesday September 23, 2015

Another hilly ride to day. We left our hosts, Susan and John at 9:00 and headed out to Hopewell Rocks.

The Bay of Fundy is renowned to have the highest tides in the world.

As the tide is receding it leaves these mud flats, that have small crustaceans in them that feeds the birds on their migration path.

As we made the turn down to the rocks, I saw Ralf checking the map to see how far down the road we had to go. I carried on cycling, if he thought I had cycled up and down all those hills yesterday and not see the Rocks, he was going to have to think again. When we got to the area of the Rocks we discovered you had to pay to go down to the beach area and see the rocks! Ralf was checking the prices. I carried on to the kiosk and asked where we could put the bikes. She was really nice and Ralf asked if there was a military discount. Yes there was, so we got a $2.00 reduction in price.

At low tide you can walk on the ocean floor at high tide you can only see a very small portion of these flower pots. Last nights high tide was 7 metres, in the summer it can be as high as 15 metres. To put it in perspective, during high tide the water came half way up the arch on this rock.

Then we went down to the Ocean Floor – amazing.

We grabbed a quick sandwich at the café at and headed out towards Hillsborough and Moncton.

John had told us about this great place in Hillsborough that had the best cinnamon buns and I really fancied one, the store was closed aaaaggh.

The rest of the ride was constantly up and down, it was a tough ride for me. I couldn’t seem to get any rhythm going. We eventually got into Moncton around 4:00.

We found a motel and while Ralf went to get something for dinner, I looked at the rest of the route, we will probably be in Halifax around mid-October.

Ralf came back with quiche and a salad, very nice. He had taken quite a while, as the store and bank he had found on the Garmin no longer existed – there was a big open lot where they used to be.

Tuesday September 22, 2015

A very cold morning this morning, only 5 degrees to start the day. It seemed warmer, but after only 15 minutes of riding we stopped and put on extra layers, my thumbs were so cold I thought they were going to fall off.  It did eventually warm up and we could shed some layers.

There was a very unusual ring around the sun this morning, it almost looked like a full circle rainbow.

A very hilly ride today we climbed over 1,100 metres, mostly on short sharp hills. There wasn’t supposed to be so many hills, but at one point google had us going on a gravel road, we opted not to take it. The alternate was to go into Alma, down a very long steep hill but only after we had climbed to a dizzying summit of 380 metres. Not a great height but our overall climbing at that point was 788 metres of elevation gained!

The downhill to Alma was definitely worth the reward of all that climbing.

We stopped in Alma for lunch – a lovely bakery that advertised themselves as “Home of the Sticky Bun” they looked really good, but I didn’t need the sugar rush.

There were two routes out of Alma, the coastal route and the less hilly route (Hwy 114). We opted for the less hilly route!

Riverside-Albert is a nice quiet village. There are some beautiful historic buildings but not a lot of services. Although there is a school where kids are transported in from the surrounding areas, including Alma.

We arrived at our warmshowers host house at 3:55 pm. Susan and John are transplants from Alberta. They kept us entertained during the evening with stories of “What you should know before moving to the East Coast”. They could write a very funny book.

They are planning their move possibly back to Alberta! They realized they made a mistake coming to rural New Brunswick – they are city folk. Ralf and I have discovered that about ourselves as well. We could never live out in the middle of nowhere.

Monday September 21, 2015

A really good nights sleep under warm blankets, which appeared to be all on my side of the bed this morning. I was so toasty warm I didn’t want to get out of bed. I forced myself to get into the shower and get moving. We were on the road by 8:30.

The sun was out, but it was a very chilly morning. I wore my socks, leggings and wind-breaker. I was going to write Ralf only wore his wind-breaker but I know a few of you out there would take that the wrong way, Ralf wore his normal cycling gear and the wind-breaker, no extra leggings or socks.

Inquiring minds need to know.

Why do Ospreys build their nests on hydro wires?

Why is there an Emu Ranch in New Brunswick?

We are heading down to the Bay of Fundy, an area of the world’s highest tides. New Brunswick is quite hilly, the roads are quite good with decent shoulders. We made good time to Sussex and both of us were feeling good, I think we could have carried on a bit further but we decided to have a relatively short day today and a longer one tomorrow.

Sussex is a very pretty town, with all the amenities you need including three grocery stores, nice boutique shops and I think a theatre group. Maybe this is why this sculpture is here – “A sense of Place” created by Hew Chee Fong of Australia.

There were numerous murals in the Town which were on a variety of buildings in the downtown area.

We have a warmshowers tomorrow night near the Hopewell Rocks and we were hoping for one tonight, but she is not available tonight, it was short notice for her, I only emailed last night.

We opted again for a motel, we really should be camping but the night time temperatures are dipping below 10 degrees and that is our cut-off point for camping.

Ralf went back into the Town to take some photos of the murals and I spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to find a route to Hopewell Rocks and then on wards to Prince Edward Island (PEI) and of course sending emails to warmshowers hosts.

Ralf spotted the “Big Bike”. The Big Bike is usually ridden for about one kilometre around a Town and money is raised for a charity. Beate (Ralf’s sister) rode one last year and she said it was really hard to get going and keep it moving.

We will be in PEI in a matter of days and then by the end of the month in Halifax – we are rapidly coming to the end of the road.

Will the Grand Adventure stop in Halifax or will we carry on? – that is the million dollar question.

If we decide to go home from Halifax it will not be the end of the Grand Adventure, only the end of Part One, we still have so many other countries to visit. We have to cycle in Asia as we missed going there from Australia. We have to cycle in Italy and the rest of Europe. We have also thought about cycling in Korea and Japan as we have met people who have cycled there and said it is awesome. Of course there is always South America to add to the list.

Sunday September 20, 2015

We said our farewells to Steve and Sydney (Kayla had left earlier). We had a really nice stay with Steve, Kayla and Sydney, they gave us the time and space to catch up on the blog, do some washing, get the bikes fixed and we still enjoyed some good conversations. Thank you so much for having us stay with you, you will be more than welcome to stay with us, if you ever need a place to stay in Barrie (when we get reestablished).

The weather forecast was for rain all day, but we left Fredericton before it started to rain. We managed to cycle for three and a half hours before it started to rain. I had a migraine but I took pills and it eventually eased off.

A shorter ride today than originally planned. We had planned on getting to Sussex, but the heavens opened, we were cold and wet and we decided to call it a day in Jemseg. There is a small motel and across the highway a restaurant and convenience store.

The route along the St. John River was nice and flat.

The area had a lot of farm stores, at this time of year the pumpkins are out ready for the fall decorations and Halloween.

There were some interesting wood carvings – Homer and a Canadian Astronaut.

There were a lot of nice houses, and the occasional run-down place. I am sure this house would have been a lovely house in its day.

As we were coming towards Jemseg, we noticed another detour sign and road barred ahead. As usual we opted to push on and hope that we could get by. The road was barred by large concrete blocks, we had to remove our panniers to get the bikes through the very small gap.

If we had not been able to get over the bridge (which crossed the river) we would have had to cycle back 5 kms and it would have added another 10 ks to the day. We would have had to join Highway 2 earlier and got very, very wet.

We settled into the motel and cleaned the bikes, then veged out and relaxed.

By 4:30 the rain stopped and the sun came out, we would have been cycling in the rain for over four hours. I am so glad we spotted this nice little place.

Friday September 18, 2015

A better day today, it was a very hilly ride to Fredericton. Aynsley said New Brunswick was a little hilly.

The morning started of with the mist coming of the river, but the sun soon burnt it off and it was a lovely sunny day.

We stopped in Hartland – 20kms from Florence Bristol to check on the rail trail. The Tourist Information told us that the “rail trail” we thought we would follow was actually a 4-wheeler trail, not really suitable for loaded touring bikes. We followed a very rural route with no services along the road.

Hartland is a very pretty Town with the longest covered bridge in the world.

The first 68 kms were up hill. We met a guy who told us there was one small hill and then down hill all the way to Fredericton. For once he was right, although the hill wasn’t exactly small, 7% to 9% grade.

The route was a very quiet rural road. There were no services along this route except for one very small convenience store and post office. We stopped and made banana and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, then when we got to the convenience store we bought some more water.

We arrived in Fredericton at about 4:00 and stopped at McDonalds to get something more to eat and call Aynsley’s friends who we are staying with tonight.

Kayla and Steve are a really nice couple.  They have a lovely baby girl, who is so sweet.  She is quite chatty and is running around all over the place.

When they knew we needed to get our bikes fixed they offered us an extra night, how nice is that.  Ralf and I are both having problems with our brakes, I think they may need replacing.

Kayla and Steve are going to a hockey match tonight and asked us if we wanted to go with them. We are both a little tired, an early night for both of us.

Saturday September 19, 2015

A very early start, little Sydney was awake early. We managed to go back to sleep but Kayla was up with her, what an early start.

We did get up early, because we had contacted the bike shop last night and they said if we got the bikes to the bike shop early, they would be able to work on them.

We were at the bike shop at 9:10 and unfortunately they didn’t have the parts for our bikes. We cycled around to the next bike shops and fortunately they had the parts and were able to get them fixed for us. Yeah brakes that work:).

While the bikes were being worked on Ralf and I had a nice wander around the downtown of Fredericton.

This weekend in Fredericton, there is a Blues Festival, a lot of the downtown area was closed of and it was a pedestrian zone, it was so nice.

We followed the cycle trail back to Kayla and Steve’s house, there is a bridge over the main highway and another bridge over the river.

We spotted these people playing bubble soccer. It was so funny. They are strapped into the bubble with a harness and then attempt to play soccer, they can bump into each other and knock each other over.

With the help of Kayla and Steve we have planned our route for the next few days.  One long day and two shorter days. The forecast isn\’t very good for tomorrow but Monday and Tuesday it is supposed to be good and warm again

Thursday September 17, 2015

Today was one of those days that started wet and cold and although the weather improved and mood didn’t improve much as the day wore on.

The tent was wet with dew on the outside and moisture on the inside, we actually had a puddle of water in a couple of the corners of the tent. We woke up cold and damp. The sun came up quickly and we waited for a while hoping that the tent would dry out. The only good thing was there are no mosquitos.

We eventually packed the tent – wet and left at 9:15 a.m

Maybe it was the start that put us in the mood for the day, but neither of us had a good ride today. Ralf admitted that his back was hurting and he rode most of the day in pain. This is unusual for him, usually when he starts cycling his back pain goes away – not today.

I just was not into the ride. The scenery was nice, but it was hilly and we had headwinds – you all know by now how much I love headwinds. To show how bad Ralf was feeling I heard him complain “headwinds and hills come on”. Neither of us could get into a good rhythm.

We stopped in Perth-Andover for a snack and got chatting to the Ex-Mayor who told us about the flood of 2012.  He owned this food place which he had to rebuild after the flood.  the original café was on the floodplain and was under three feet of water after the flood.

At Perth-Andover we had to cross the river and carry along the other side.

There are a lot of covered bridges in this area.  This bridge had two fires, only one of the ends were rebuilt.

For some unknown reason we overshot the campsite by about 15 kms! And arrived in Florenceville-Bristol the hometown of the head offices of McCain’s frozen foods. This is the multi-billion dollar frozen foods empire created by two brothers in 1957.

Ralf checked on garmin for a motel, the first one was close so we headed to the second, which was a little expensive for our budget. However, they were very nice and allowed us to erect our damp tent to let it dry out.

We had nice meal in the restaurant which was a very reasonable price and breakfast is included tomorrow.

Wednesday September 16, 2015

A late start to the day, I didn’t wake up until 8:45 am! Ralf went to get a cooked breakfast from Tim Hortons and we eventually left the motel at 10:45 am, the latest we have started the mornings ride.

The motel had a \”lovely\” view of the pulp mill.

Edmundston has a big lumber industry. The pulp mill is the biggest one we have seen and it appears to be right in the centre of Edmundston.

The sun was out and it was a warm day. The ride was very scenic along the river and passing many small villages. The churches today were very interesting and different architecture and construction.

We arrived in Grand Falls just after 2:00 pm. Grand Falls as it name indicates is a Town that has a very large waterfall and gorge. There was not a lot of water flowing over, but the gorge itself was very impressive.

Ralf spotted this bikini shoot.

We took a path along the gorge and met a wonderful lady. Lea and Sonia were walking along the trail. Lea is blind and rides a tandem with her partner she wants to get a better tandem so that they can go faster and farther. The farthest distance they did this year was 75 kms. Awesome lady, what an inspiration.

I also got an email from a couple that we had met in May, we have inspired them to begin the plans for a trip similar to ours.

After a nice wander around the gorge area we cycled to our campsite. The campground was quite nice and the picnic table had a cover which was nice. The site was grass we knew we were going to have a wet tent in the morning.

Finally, I now know how to add a \”subscribe tab\” to the website. Dan (our warmshowers host in Kingston) sent me an email suggesting the subscribe tab and giving me a link on wordpress. It was really easy to do. If you want to subscribe to the blog, which means you will get an email whenever I post a blog, go to the home page and at the bottom of the page on the right is a subscribe button! Thanks Dan for telling me about this.

Tuesday September 15, 2015

We left Riviere du Loup under cloudy skies, but warm weather. The downtown area of Riviere was very nice and if it hadn’t rained most of yesterday we would have spent some time wandering around.

Today\’s ride took us along the rail trail to Edmundston in New Brunswick. The trail was a hard-packed granular trail that was 135 kms long, Route Verte 8.

The trail was called Le Petit-Temis (the small one). Not very small at 135 kms long. Along the route there are a couple of restaurants, that are open in the summer and on week-ends.

There are also lots of rest areas with toilets and a couple of camping platforms with water. Excellent trail.

We met our first wildlife, birds and goats. At one point we had a stand-off with the goats. They all got together and stared at us, as we moved forward they turned around and ran down the path to their farm.

The route took us along wooded areas and lakes to Temiscouata-sur le-Lac where we had lunch. We also met Daniel another touring cyclist with so much stuff it was unbelievable. We thought he was out for a while, but no, only a month but he had packed for every eventuality!

We passed a covered bridge, which was on the golf course. One of the tees was above us and the green was below us. The golfer waited until we had passed before she took a swing at the ball.

We are beginning to notice more trees changing colour, this area will be really beautiful in a couple of weeks.

When we arrived in New Brunswick and passed under the archway we lost another hour, we are now on Maritime time. This is the last time change we will encounter.

We arrived in Edmundston at 7:45 pm, (due to the hour we lost for the time-change), the distance and the terrain.  Although it was a rail trail we still climber over 500 metres. We found a motel and had DQ (Dairy Queen) for dinner! Both of us were tired, but it was a good ride.

Farewell Quebec we enjoyed your green routes, your history and cities and the people.