8/7/09: Segements 78 & 79: Rt 134 south on the coast of New Brunswick
http://www.4thehealthofit.net/segment_htmls/Segment78.html
http://www.4thehealthofit.net/segment_htmls/Segment79.html Pointe-a-la-Cloix, Quebec to Belledune, New Brunswick: 45 miles.
Check out Barney’s blog on http://www.nwpassage2.blogspot.com/
New mileposts today: I entered my 7th of 10 provinces and the 5th new time zone – Atlantic Time.
Ok, very late morning for both Barney and I this morning. I think the power climbing/headwind-athon from yesterday really kicked our asses. I woke with the sun just blaring through the tent walls at 6:30am, and was praying that Barney was not up. Then I just focused on listening…….quite…….uh…..there it is……snoring! YES. Barney was sawing logs, so I put a long sleeve jersey sleeve over my eyes and went back to sleep. Thank you Barney! Finally got up at about 7:20am to full blown sunlight just streaming through my tent walls. Today was not so hard to roust myself as it was yesterday, so I cleaned up inside and then began the teardown procedure. Again, it was a bug fight – my against the mosquitoes. I wrapped my backpacking towel around my head to go Arab, and then continued with my tent teardown and packing of the bike. The bugs were just amazingly horrible this morning, the same as were the gnats last night. Swat, pack, swat, pack, swat, ^%$%#@ pack. Neverending.
I finished early as a big surprise, and then told Barney I’d meet him at the breakfast house – same as last night’s dinner house – this just to get the hell out of that mosquito infested jungle we were camped in. So I go in to the restaurant, have two cups of coffee and wait for Barney before I order. 20 min go by. Nothing. Barney, where the hell are you? So I finally order, and then Barney arrives, with blood stains on his forehead and neck from the mosquito den. I’m just amazed at how this guy can go about his business packing and not even swat a single bug, while I’m doing the famous Judy Carroll “Fly Dance” whacking at mosquitoes in a near frenzy. Then he comes in with like 10 blood marks on his head and neck. So I asked him if working as a geologist in the Canadian bush for so many years hardened him to the bugs just attacking like pit vipers. And he replied that he just doesn’t let it bother him because he does not have allergic reactions to the bug bites. I mean, I’m freaking counting how many bulldogs I can kill in a day and Barney doesn’t even blink an eye as he’s getting a liter of blood sucked out of his upper torso?
Ok, so we have the same Grand Slam as we’ve been eating for breakfast in Quebec for the past two weeks, BUT I add one more egg and one more piece of toast. Barney does the same. This turns the Grand Slam into a Belly Bomb, and I’m just packed at the end of the meal. Butter and ham-sausage-bacon fat are just oozing out my pores. Just the ticket to ride on! So we head down into the lovely town of Pointe-a-la-Cloix, with its adult movie stores, beer and wine stores and gnarly looking, dilapidated downtown. It’s not the ideal way to leave the province of Quebec, but apparently it’s an Indian Reserve, and unfortunately it reveals the ugly underside of some of the Indian reservations in Canada. Terrible last memories of Quebec, that’s for sure. The bridge over to Campbellton, New Brunswick was pretty uneventful, and not as big as I remembered it. We rode on the pedestrian sidewalk so I could take some pics on the way across. Once over there we went to the information center to find out where Barney might go to get his broken camera looked at, or buy a new one.
He ended up going to a Wallmart, while I went back to the visitor’s center to email and hang out. So by the time we got going, what with our late start, the one hour of time we picked up going from Eastern Standard to the Atlantic time zone, and the camera situation, it was about 12:30pm. But….we had a very nice westerly tailwind to push us into the sunset. Our first 10-15 miles were in the hills, up and down along the ocean. With the tailwind it was a flyer for sure, and I think we averaged about 16 mph on that section. Then we reached the city of Dalhousie. It was a pretty dead city what with the closing of the paper mill. So we’re on Rt 134 south, and follow the signs through the city, and it takes us down on a descent down a street, right down to ocean level, alongside the dead paper mill and a ghost town of a downtown area. And I’m thinking, “ok, we’re going to ride along the ocean here as soon as we get out of this pretty ugly, dead downtown. But what do the city fathers do? They send us up this side road that climbs to heaven. Now Barney thought that it was about 15%. Me……….50 freaking %. I was so floored, so pissed, that I just stopped in mid ride to bitch about it to Barney. So today the “A-hole” award goes to………..the city of Dalhousei for not just letting the road go straight ABOVE town, but to do a U down into town and then climb this inane hill back up and OUT of town. I got to the top of this thing and I was just furious at having to do that stupid climb when I could have ridden straight across the street I started on before the descent, way above the ghost town and the dead paper factory, and gotten to the same place in a quarter of the time, with a tenth of the effort.
So we get through that mess, and Barney is just giggling at me as I was still frothing at the mouth for having to do that stupid climb. But after that the riding got absolutely stupendous, as we were right along the ocean and then out, up on a bluff about 100 feet above the ocean. The bluff section was quite long, and very beautiful. I’d compare it to riding in Mantua way out in Portage County, but you have the ocean on your left hand side the whole time. We were way the hell out in the country, with minimal traffic and this wonderful blacktop road with plenty of room. Awesome bit of riding for a guy whose traveled all the way across the country. I was in heaven for the peaceful backcountry feeling it gave me. Now add the tailwind from the west and it was just glorious. It was undulating with some middle ring stuff, but nothing as testing as the previous three days of riding. If I can speak for both of us, it was just fabulous riding.
By that time it was about 3:30pm, and we found a camping area just outside of the city of Belledune. It had almost all the makings for a great campsite: Ocean setting; restaurant next door; Beer and wine store across the street…….but no internt. And we debated for a minute, but it was just such a good setting that we decided to use my air card to do our email stuff. So we went for it and called it a short day, having gone about 45 miles. Barney, my full fledged “English Beer Bud” got a six of beers and we just sat at our little pavilion and had a few as I let my damp sleeping bag, ground pad, and tent dry in the hot August sun out in the grass. Then it was off to dinner – at a former spaghetti that is now a family restaurant. Our waitress couldn’t even answer the simplest question…….like what kind of fish is on the seafood platter? Nope. We were only one of two parties in there. And for a while we were THE only folks in there on a Friday night at 6pm. Well, the onion soup was very mediocre, and the seafood platter was good. So we finish, and wait for the earth to change polarity as our waitress is busy talking to a friend up at the bar. Finally we go up and pay. Then I had a heck of a time convincing Barney to hit the icecream stand next door……NOT. We had cones and then another beer for a nighter.
I’m here blogging in my tent right now at 9:30 Atlantic time. We’re thinking of going around the Acadian Peninsula tomorrow because we’re so far ahead of schedule, and it’s all along the ocean, so it should be quite beautiful. Hey……this is Backroads Trans Can 09, might as well go bonkers and get more backroads in. Right?
I’m riding on that new tire, and damn, what a difference. That old one had the bead going bad, and it just magnified the wobble in my back wheel…..I mean really magnified it. I could see that tire just blowing on a descent, it was so mangled at the bead. So much for my 85 lb yak! I figure that this new Michelin should last me the remainder of the trip, plus a still have a spare Shwalbe 36C for emergencies. So I’m set in the tire dept.
Heard from Ryan today, and he was back in Hudson for a day or so and is off to So Cal with his daughter to visit the folks and spend some vacation time on the beaches surfing. So I hope you guys have a fantastic time on the beach and enjoy the surfing. Well, that should do it for tonight, all the best…….Pete
No comments:
Post a Comment