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

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