C2C XXXIII – Bouctouche to Pictou (via PEI)

(we hadn’t numbered our first rest day in Calgary so we have skipped XXXII to make up!)
Wow, today was a full on adventure… It started early, saying bye to mom at the motel and taking a combination of highways and backroads towards confederation bridge! We couldn’t avoid some sections of highway that were under construction, the grated pavement was like a full body wake-up massage!
Shediac was our break early in the day where they were in midst of their annual lobster festival… It’s a town with an east coast feel, the little cabins all brightly coloured along the rocky shoreline… The biggest lobster in the world and you know what.. It’s STILL French! New Brunswick is truly a bilingual province! As we met back up with the highway at the end of a backroad section, I looked down and saw a Honda pilot go under the underpass… “hey, that looks like Mom!”. Sure enough, mom had gone to fetch fresh fruit and sushi to send with us on the LONG bridge ride! Thanks Mom! It was a 100km section to the bridge deck and that is as far as we were allowed to go! A shuttle for pedestrians and bikes which costs $6 (very cheap relative to the $48 car fee!) pulled up almost immediately! We got that timing right! And there we were, bikes in tow, sucking on sushi, sopping wet (it rained all day!) enterig our 8th province!!!! Woooo-hoooo! And it wasn’t even noon! A very friendly local couple was in the shuttle with us, giving us details of the Taylor swift concert on the island the night before… The line of cars waiting to cross the bridge from PEI was evidence of the event, it was bumper to bumper for a solid kilometer, some cars we turining away and joining us in the opposing direction!
We had a route chosen to cross the island that took us off the trans Canada for a bit… The only thing was that I wasn’t completely sure if the roads would be paved, we figure we’d try anyway! Good fortune again, everything seemed to be hardtopped fine and dandy… The pavement took on a somewhat reddish colour in the distance at one point and as we got closer we found out that it was soil, rich, red PEI soil! And we rode it! Why not?
At the end of the section we had a red line up the back of our panniers and back from the backspit! Our ‘off road’ adventure also took us past the PEI ski hill. While we climbed a very steep hill we joked that ‘this must be the 150m highest point in PEI’ only to crest it and be face to face with a chairlift! Yep, highest point! If anyone is under the impression that PEI is flat, it’s not! Although its max elevation is around 150m, it fluctuates from 0 to 149m VERY often! Beautiful, rolling countryside and wonderful people! We eventually came back onto the trans Canada, saw a woman pull over to ask a police officer (who had his lights flashing and a car pulled over infront of him… Obviously working!) for directions! From there we pleasantly passed through Charlottetown keeping our eyes open for a local PEI restaurant… None really caught our attention and we soon realized we were out of Charlottetown and 40km from the Wood Islands ferry! It was 4:15 and we were hungry! There was a ferry that left at 6:15… Do we rush it and try to get to Nova Scotia early or do we try to find a restaurant and cycle at a pleasant pace to meet the 8:00 ferry as we had planned!? The rain, fatigue and excitement got me going, let’s do it! We grabbed muffins and trailmix, filled our bottles, emptied our tanks and left at 4:30! Dad got a flat 5km later, we thought it was game over but we pushed anyways! It was the hardest and fastest I’ve ridden on this trip and I was ‘in the zone!’, nothing was stopping me! I kept checking the map and pushing harder… 5:50 and WE MADE IT!! The only thing that I could think of for the last 5km was that when we were on the ferry years ago, there was a cows ice cream parlour on the top deck. I’ve been wanting ice cream for about four days now and I knew that if we made the ferry, I’d be the first in line! So pecan in a waffle cone it was! Dad scavenged some food from the cafeteria downstairs and we were both tired but happy people! After 200km we crossed into province #9 (#3 of the day!) followed by a 10km bike to pictou where my mom (again!) is visiting her aunt and uncle! We had dinner, caught up, did laundry and prepared for the FINALE into Halifax Harbour tomorrow! We can’t wait!
Sara

C2C XXXI – Dedication

After a long, wet, hard day in the saddle… Everything comes down to balance
You are taught your whole life how to balance things… Between the day your training wheels are removed to juggling work and family as you get older… We strive for healthy proportions and equity!

Today was a day that we were consistently off balance! But, we worked wih it, redistributed as the day went on and in the end, if we were to repeat today tomorrow… we would be unreal! To start the day, the fact that the only consistent things we do in life these days are; eat, sleep and bike is a little askew but it’s my full time profession right now (that balances work!) and we have thrown in tons of our friends and family (so there adds social!).
After the skewed number of hours a day we spend in a tiny saddle dropped onto our handlebars… Packing was this morning was very unbalanced. We had 150km of nothingness routed out, 8 pitas, costo sized licorice bag, granola bars, 4 bananas, 2 plums, extra water bottles and the whole works… We got up the first hill, and we both agreed that we very frequently did 150km trips on 1 water bottle and 1 granola bar… I dont think for the first hour I climbed a hill in my big ring… It was about 2 hours in that we were dumping ziplocs of trail mix, pitas and even dads licorice… We’d open the bag, dump the contents after taking a baby sympathetic bite from each pita… Dad though, did pour out a little bit of water from his extra bottle instead of ditching all the licorice! It really does prove our light weight strategy helps!!!
After dumping comes the speed; too fast, too slow… I feel like we never actually bike at the perfect speed, we just average the perfect speed!
Then the balance of a sore bum! Too much cream and irritation is initiated.. Or too little that chafing dominates… The balanced seat height so you get power and comfort and the list just goes on and on…
So tomorrow we will try again to balance things correctly… And Lets hope we aren’t throwing food for the fish (weve already fed the mainland animals) overside confederation bridge and that we can find the right balance between being too wet or too warm if mother nature gives us showers two days in a row!

C2C XXXI Plaster Rock to Bouctouche NB

An Epic Day in the saddle
This was going to be the big day. The cross country trek from Plaster Rock to Moncton via 108 E. This has been the “short cut” across the province rather than dip down along the Trans Canada. It saves you 60 to 70 k. The catch is you travel over rugged hills with absolutely nothing for 136 k. So we packed up, and to the shock of our lovely B&B hosts, we packed a lunch and headed off. Think of Peterson road for 120 k without any houses. Just road and trees. Hilly roads that put the Ontario Trans Canada to shame for road conditions. That was until the midway when we hit 5 k of washboard. Ouch. We got though it and made it to civilization on the other side in Renous. We realized that we over packed with food and fluid for our trek. Given the hills and the heat we had to reluctantly toss food overboard. Eight sandwichs was 6 too many and several went
to feed the local wild life. I even discarded much valued licorice in the quest for gram shaving. Licorice isn”t toxic to fauna is it?
The big surprise was Carolyn catching up with us, all the way from Ontario, to provide support and meet us at our Halifax destination. She had a cooler full of food. All is good
Back on the road, we decided that going north via Miramichi made more sense than Moncton. The skys opened and we road throgh rain until the clouds cleared for the last 20 k. One flat about 10 k before our finish topped off the epic ride. Bits of lobster claw in the flatted tire had me thinking that our flat was a desparate attempt to stop our inevitable Halifax meeting with several boiler bound crustaceans. You can’t stop us lobbies!
Our second longest ride of the tour at just under 270 k. Carolyn had more food waiting for us in Bouctouche The perfect end to a great day of riding. It sure beat Trans Canada riding. Given that we didn’t feel the pull of Moncton”s magnetic hill, we will leave the mud flats for another time
Off to the PEI bridge tomorrow morning and onto Pictou NS. The end is near friends, the end is near!