August 30; 38km; 837M Vertical

St. John’s to Cape Spear and return.
We polished off the formal bit of the tour with a ride to Cape Spear, the most easterly point of North America. True to form the lighthouse and the ocean were invisible due to heavy fog. Five minutes after we arrived another cyclist, just finishing his Cross-Canada tour, showed up. He was accompanied by his wife (in a car) who had a bottle of Champagne. We had a bottle of Screech. We toasted everybody and had our pictures taken by 5 different cameras. Then as we partied the fog cleared for 30 minutes and we got our pictures of the most easterly point before heading back to St. John’s.
The final stats for the trip Victoria to St. John‘s: 8027km distance and 50,473M vertical climbed.

August 29; 96km; 905M vertical

Whitbourne to St. John’s
On this, our last full day on the road, we had one of our toughest days of the trip. We spent all day ploughing into a 25kph head wind. Then as we climbed one particularly high hill we entered the fog which lasted the rest of the day. The fog immediately coated our glasses with water however the road remained dry. The headwind whistled through our helmets which meant we couldn’t hear anything. It was fortunate the Trans-Canada Highway in NL has such a good shoulder as we really couldn’t see anything or hear anything. Things seemed even worse when TimG got two punctures in 5 km. After having only 1 puncture in 12 weeks it was a truly unlucky day.
We arrived in St. John’s at 5:15, cold, wet and miserable. We found the Wades house with no problem and we were met at the day by Sue with towels, and Brian with the beer. It was nice to have a home cooked meal again.

August 28; 103 km, 1173M vertical; 15C E.wind

Clarenville to Whitbourne
Second last day on the road and the bubble burst today. After a week of good road and good conditions, we suffered today. We have taken the Trans-Canada Highway across Newfoundland and we have been impressed with the good road and decent shoulder we had to ride on. Until today I had NL leading the provinces for road conditions but NL took a hit today. We had a strong crosswind or head wind all day. Twice the crosswind blew me off the road. As the big trucks went by we either got hit by a blast or sucked along by a vacuum. All this was made worse by putting a rumble strip on a narrow shoulder which absolutely ruined the road for cyclists. At times we were expected to ride along a 4 inch strip between the rumble strip and the gravel. I’m good, but not that good. At one point when I pulled over for a photo break, I had to confess it was more of a cool off break. I was imagining all the things I would do to the engineer who designed this stretch of road. The narrow shoulder and debris on the road meant we could not watch the scenery, but the TCH did open up today with nice vistas of the terrain around the highway. We finally made it to Whitbourne at 5:30 and the nice lady at the information booth set us up with a decent room and a nice meal.

Note to Don: I carry a Fujifilm E550 digital camera and a 9" Fujitsu Life book. The camera has 6.3 pixels resolution. We take about 10 shots per day and download them to my PC every night. From the PC we upload 3 or 4 to the blog every day.

August 27; 148km, 1437m vertical; overcast

Gander to Clarenville
Three days and 325km to go. There didn’t appear to be anywhere on the map between 90km and 145km to stay at and 90km was not enough so we decided to do the 145km to Clarenville. It was a foggy start and visibility was poor so photo opportunities were rare. We had been warned that the rest of journey would be a lot hillier than the last three days through the central region of the island and it was. Fortunately, it did not rain and the SW winds of the last few days had died down so our progress south was a lot easier than we thought it might be. We arrived at the Visitor’s Centre in good time and managed to get a motel room in town close to a restaurant and a pub which is where we are off to right now for a well earned beer or three. Bye bye.

August 26; 106km; 723M vertical

Grand Falls-Windsor to Gander
We woke up to steady rain so we had a leisurely breakfast and started off at 10. The rain had stopped but the road was wet when we started however we enjoyed a somewhat level road and a tail wind for the first 40km. The road got hillier but the wind helped us out and we got to Gander at 2:30 PM. This is the soonest we had arrived anywhere and it left us with the whole afternoon to site see. We then toured the aviation museum and airport at Gander.

August 25; rest day in Grand Falls- Windsor

August 24: 106km; 533M vertical; 30°C

Springdale to Grand Falls-Windsor
We had a light day planned, with just a short hop to Badger but we decided to head for Grand Falls - Windsor today and take tomorrow as a rest day. The first 10 km of our day headed directly into the west wind as we returned from Springdale to the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH). Our average speed was 19kph as opposed to yesterday’s average of 28. A tale wind does make life better.
At our first stop of the day we met up with Bess, an elderly lady who has ridden from BC to Newfoundland this summer. She will spend the winter in St. John’s and ride back to BC next summer. She camps out most nights and seems to cover as much ground as us each day. We have been meeting her for the last 3 days and we will probably see her again before St. John’s. The TCH has closed in and we see trees, tress, and more trees, with the occasional stream crossing the highway.

August 23; 131km 641m vertical; warm and sunny, strong W. wind.

Deer Lake to Springdale
We stayed at a nice comfortable B&B in Deer Lake and chucking out time was 9:30, unlike the normal 11 or 12am, so we made an early start. It wasn’t long before we were fair whizzing along the highway aided by a strong west wind. After tea breaks at a couple of gas stations along the way we managed the 131km to Springdale at a respectable average of 28.3kph. This may not put us in the Tour de France league but two old geezers flaked out on a motel bed are impressed. There were not many photo opportunities because, unlike the previous days with many scenic views, today was spent riding with dense forest on both sides.
One point of interest turned out to be a crashed caravan on the opposite side of the road and we were travelling so fast we were over 100yds past it before we decided to go back and get a picture. No sooner were we back at the caravan taking pics than a motorcyclist stopped and wandered over to take a picture and while I was talking to him another one had stopped and walked over. TimB is stood 20yds further away and had been waiting for me to get out of the way and is now waiting for a crowd to move. Before any of us have finished a pick up truck driver towing a caravan stops thinking that this is a fresh accident site. He gets going again when he see that this is not the case and the rest of us move off quickly before we manage to stop all the traffic in both directions. It all seemed to be a bit Monty Pythonish. When we got to Springdale we visited the waterfront to see the sights.

August 22; 58km ;499M vertical; warm and sunny

Corner Brook to Deer Lake
Today was a easy day so we started slowly and kept it up. After a leisurely breakfast we went shopping in Corner Brook before heading out for Deer Lake. We had to ride up a rather long hill to get back to the Trans-Canada highway and the weather was hot, so we made our first stop at Marble Mountain - 10km down the road. After chili and chai we carried on another 20km before we stopped at Pasadena for more tea. The owner had just baked some banana bread which she though was not up to snuff so she gave us each a free piece. We both though it was wonderful, so she packed up a bag of banana bread for us to take with us. All we paid for was 2 teas. What a nice tea break.
The whole ride today was along the Humber River valley and Deer lake. We had magnificent scenery all the way. This is what BC was supposed to be like.

August 21; 115km 1193M vertical; cold and wet

Robinsons to Corner Brook
I don’t know if it was the lack of sleep on the ferry or the anaesthetic effects of our supper but neither of us woke up before 9 o’clock this morning. Showing true grit and determination TimB got up and fetched tea and muffins from the motel lobby while I read my book and tried to think of reasons not to get up today. I thought of quite a few but they bounced of TB like water off a ducks back. Despite the low temperature and leaden skies I did manage to drag myself out of bed and we were both on the road by 11. It wasn’t long before the rain set in and we were left wondering what had happened to the warm sunny day that the weather forecasters had promised us only 12 hours earlier. After 27km we were lucky enough to reach a filling station with a small restaurant where we were able to get a late breakfast, after which, feeling reasonably human again, we plugged on against the wind across the hilly countryside. As the weather improved and the sun was able to break through we were treated to some spectacular views of the coast and lakes and the whole day started to look more cheerful. A short break at a small restaurant after 92km for soup of the day fortified us enough to make the final climbs before dropping over 900 feet down into Corner Brook. We paid the price for our slothful start when we found the visitor centre closed and had to start looking for a room in town without expert support. Luckily we found a hotel near the middle of town and we didn’t have to look far for a restaurant. We treated ourselves to tiger shrimps in a curry sauce on a bed of fettucine with a sweet mango chutney (feel hungry yet????). I even found room for an apple, almond and mascarpone strudel with ice cream. It was a hard day. Night night.

August 20; 122km 1099M vertical; sunny

Port-aux-Basques to Robinsons
The ferry crossing was uneventful - thank goodness. We had managed to book one sleeper berth due to a cancellation so TimG kindly donated the berth to me. I had a good nights rest and we arrived in Port-aux Basques at 06:00. After breakfast at the ferry terminal, TimG disassembled and reassembled his crank before we hit the road. The first stretch of road goes through a zone called the wreck house. The wind blows off the table mountain and is funnelled through the twin peaks. We had met a trucker in North Sydney who warned us not to attempt the road if the winds were strong. They weren’t so we rode through okay. The winds were noticeable but manageable. After miles and miles in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes the scenery today was extremely different. The ocean was often in view, the trees were low and the line of hills along the road was spectacular. We are now on the last leg of our journey and the first day in Newfoundland was fun. Near the destination for the day we decided to take a side road called the 3 rivers tourist route. We rode down to the seashore and followed the road through 3 small villages. The landscape is true Newfoundland, however TimG called it very similar to Scotland. It is difficult to find places to eat along the way, even on the Trans-Canada, so we had to content ourselves with sandwiches, crisps, muffins and beer for supper. However we’ll survive.

August 19; 108km 896M vertical; warm and sunny

Blue Mills to North Sydney
Our last day in Nova Scotia and it was beautiful. Sunny and a lovely ride through the Bras D’Or lakes. By 9:30 we were on the road and we had to ride 12km to Wycocomagh for breakfast. Then we left the trans -Canada and went through Little Narrows and Big Narrows and took the 223 all the way to the ferry. The road was 25km shorter than the Trans-Canada and had very little traffic. With fantastic views and a very nice Highland Village Museum in Iona we made several photo stops and still rode into North Sydney at 4:30 pm. We picked up our ferry tickets first. The ferry terminal had a shower and a Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) tourist bureau, so got cleaned up, booked a motel in Robinson Bay and then went to the Laundromat and had supper while the clothes were getting clean. We still had time for tea at Tim Horton’s. We leave NS at 23:30 and arrive in Port aux-Basque at 6:00.

August 18; 148km; 1296m vertical; sunny

New Glasgow to Blue Mills
After a fishy dinner and some liquid nourishment at a nearby sports bar last night we awoke refreshed and were greeted by a clear blue sky and a very warm sunny morning as we made our way over to the motel breakfast room. We were on the road before 10 and headed east on the Trans Canada Highway. With a gentle tailwind, a good road surface and a wide shoulder to ride on we had excellent conditions and made good time all day. After a lunch break at Antigonish (we don’t really know how to pronounce it) we continued east past St George’s Bay to the Cape Breton causeway and crossed over to Cape Breton Island. After the causeway, and 110km, we stopped at the Port Hastings Visitor’s Centre where we were advised to stay on the Trans Canada to Sydney North and not go around the south side of Bras D’Or Lake. One of the staff also helped us book a motel room and the only shadow that was cast over the day was that the said motel was another 38km up the road, provides no breakfast and there is no restaurant or bar for miles around. To ward off any symptoms of starvation later tonight we chose to eat another fishy dinner (lots and lots of seafood on the menus around this part of the world) near the Visitor’s Centre. It was very nice, I had a dishful of sautéed scallops and TimB had haddock but getting on the bikes and getting up the hills to get away from the causeway was a rather slow business. The Scottish background of this region is in evidence all around us so we have put in some pictures for our Scottish fans.
One other thing we managed to do at the VC was to book our passage on tomorrow nights overnight ferry from Sydney North to Port aux Basques on Newfyland (aka The Rock). According to the on-line booking system there are no more cabins or bunks available so it looks like we will have to prop the bar up all night. Well, I guess worse things could happen to one couldn’t they?

August 17; 88km; 654M vertical; sunny

Charlottetown to New Glasgow, Nova Scotia
We started out in overcast conditions from Charlottetown, but within 20km the skies cleared and the sun appeared. We had 60km to the ferry at Wood Islands and we started at 8:30 without a real breakfast and sprinted to the Irving gas station 22 km down the road for coffee, tea and cookies. Fortified by sugar we had headed down highway 1 and then highway 23 to Wood Island. We arrived at 12:00 one hour before the ferry left and finally had a solid meal for lunch. The Wood Island ferry left Prince Edward Island at 1 pm and took us to Pictou, Nova Scotia in 75 minutes. Leaving PEI was both sad and exciting. We only had two days in PEI but we met some great people and didn’t see anywhere near enough of the Island. However we enter a new province and with only two provinces left the excitement is building. We rode to New Glasgow after leaving the ferry and we are safely ensconced in the Tara Inn for the night. But no Sheila, we haven’t sold the tent yet.