Day off in North Sydney

This should (hopefully) be my last “day off” report of the tour! I’m spending the day relaxing, occasionally logging on to check the progress of Hurricane Earl and Marine Atlantic’s website for news of my ferry crossing to Newfoundland.

It looks like I might be lucky with my crossing. It’s still scheduled to leave overnight, slightly earlier than planned. The ferry port is going to shut down in the morning as a precaution against the incoming storm. We’re leaving just in time! Quite a few ferry departures after mine have delays of at least 12+ hours.

As for Earl, it’s still expected to hit western Nova Scotia sometime early Saturday morning. It has weakened slightly, but very strong winds and heavy rain are predicted throughout the maritime provinces during Saturday.

On my walk this morning (primarily to get some travel sickness pills – “be prepared”, I say) I met a large group of cyclists in town. They were the Tour du Canada cycling group. They have also been cycling Vancouver to St. John’s, but on a supported group tour. It was nice chatting to several of them during the morning. They are all on the same ferry as me tonight and due to finish in St. John’s on Sunday. I’m not going to race them, though, as they are on lightweight racing bikes for the most part!

Incidentally, they’d just come off the Cabot Trail. It had been a little windy yesterday, especially on some descents. One said dangerously so at one point. It was a bummer to miss the Trail (one Tour du Canada rider described the exquisite hills they’d climbed!), but I’d not have liked the windy conditions as my loaded bike is much harder to control than a racing bike in strong wind. I’m perhaps happy with my decision.

And so, dear readers, a delightfully long ferry crossing awaits me tonight. Heave-ho and all that! And not too much barfing on board, please…

Day off in Rogersville

After posting my journal yesterday, I had time to look at my remaining riding schedule to St. John’s. I also decided to have my day off here in Rogersville rather than ride one more day to the coast. I needed a stop anyway having ridden every day since leaving Montreal.

Although I’ve covered 7,400km in 75 days since June 10th, I’ve not quite kept up with my schedule. (I’m pretty damn close though). Studying what’s left on my route and weighing the pros and cons, I’ve decided I don’t quite have enough time for the long ride across Newfoundland (from Channel Port-aux-Basques) I’d planned without leaving things tight to catch my flight home.

So instead, I’m going to take the alternative long ferry crossing (14 hours!) from North Sydney to Argentia, Newfoundland and ride in to St. John’s from there. It’s still the same end point, so makes no real difference. This reduces my route by about 750km and gives me time to relax and enjoy these final days without worrying about distances and time left. I should get a couple of days in St. John’s to sight-see as well. 14 hours on a ferry could be a bitch though…

The ferry only runs 3 times a week, so I’ve got to synchronise properly with that. I’m glad I checked the ferry schedule as I had assumed the service was daily! I’m also watching Hurricane Danielle which is currently off the coast of Mexico tracking northwards. It could affect the Maritime region in about a week's time!

I did have time to visit Rogersville’s (only) tourist attraction this morning – the Monument National Notre-Dame de l'Assomption (Acadian National Monument). Some pictures from there follow.

Monument National Notre-Dame de l'Assomption

Statue of Msgr. Marcel-François Richard, considered the Father of Modern Acadia

Statue plaque detail

Statue detail of Msgr. Marcel-François Richard

The Acadian Flag. It's flown a lot in this region.

Flower of the day 1

Flower of the day 2

Some explanatory text of Msgr. Marcel-François Richard

Some explanatory text of the Monument

Two days off in Montreal

First of all, many thanks to my excellent hosts in Montreal – Elisa and Gavin. Their wonderful hospitality under exceptional circumstances (more of that later, I expect) and generosity was greatly appreciated! Thanks again!

Viewing the city from the terrace of Chalet du Mont Royal.

I spent one day wandering around downtown Montreal. First of all I climbed up “the mountain” to Chalet du Mont Royal for the fine views of the city from the terrace. It was quite a steep climb and descent using the steps and it made my legs go all wobbly on the way down (and my calf muscles hurt spectacularly the following day). I’ve obviously been cycling too long…

View from Chalet du Mont Royal. Pont Champlain over the St. Lawrence in distance.

Also from Chalet du Mont Royal (to the left of previous shot)

I continued back downhill wandering amongst the tall buildings and found the Musee D’Art Contemporain in the Quartier des Spectacles. There were several stunning pieces (as usual), in amongst the incomprehensible stuff (as usual).

Pyramidal roof of Le 1501 McGill College

Building Reflections

I continued on, after a pretentious lunch in the museum’s restaurant and ended up at the Cathédrale Marie-Reine du Monde (Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral). It was cool, deathly quiet and dimly lit inside. I had a snooze.

Cathédrale Marie-Reine du Monde

Reflection of Dome of Cathédrale Marie-Reine du Monde and Statue (name?)

It was quite hot by now and looking for one more thing to do I picked the Planetarium. It had excellent air-conditioning, was dark and had comfortable reclining chairs. Perfect. Drifting in and out of consciousness (quite a few people were also doing this), I watched a presentation on Saturn and the Cassini Probe mission. I was a bit sorry when it ended and I had to go back outside.

Skyscraper (Tour KPMG) and sun

Gargoyle on Christ Church Cathedral

I had planned to go back into town the next day and visit Vieux-Montréal (Old Montreal), but my legs hurt as I've already mentioned so I just did my bike maintenance* in the morning and took a short local walk to Pointe-Claire instead. I'll obviously need to come back sometime without a bike and explore the city properly…

*For Bryan: I did the Rohloff oil change and changed the rear tyre for a new Marathon Supreme. I think you could just about swap the original tyres and get to the end (with not a lot of tread left on either) but I had two new spares so it seemed sensible to use one. The existing front will last the distance easily, so didn’t bother changing. I’ve also decided to run the same chain until the end. I’ve put another turn on the EBB and wiped and re-lubed. There’s some mild hooking on the sprocket, but the chainring looks OK. Everything’s running sweet!

Day off in Hanover

Well I’ve packed another 10 days riding in since my last “day off” posting! I’m very close to 5,400km and still in good health apart from being stung in the ear by a bee a couple of days ago! I am tired though, so today’s complete rest has been useful, I’m sure.

It was a reasonably good stretch through the Upper Peninsula, Michigan, (would’ve been nicer if I hadn’t straight-lined it) then a mentally tiring one on the TCH and also across Manitoulin Is. and the Bruce Peninsular with the holiday weekend traffic. In hindsight I should’ve taken a day off over the weekend and sat it out a while. Never mind.

My motel in Hanover is slightly out of town and it’s been hot and humid today, so I haven’t felt like wandering around, so no photos. Sorry about that.

I’ve just been hanging around the room using the internet and making use of the air-con that actually works! All motels have air-con, but you need a reasonably expensive establishment for it to even remotely work, I’ve found. (Incidentally, you seem to also need this level of hotel to expect 2 working plugs for the sink and bath, adequate plumbing, a full compliment of light bulbs, a swept floor, an absence of cringe worthy features, but I digress…).

Coming up I’ve got Niagara Falls in a couple of days before crossing again into the States and riding along the south shore of Lake Ontario and then a scenic mountain passage through the Adirondacks. After that I return into Canada and Quebec and head up to Montreal for some more R & R. It’s only a further 1,000km…

Finally, a special mention to the small spider that’s been riding across with me for the past week. Every night he builds a little web, usually around the left brake lever and every day hides away somewhere from the wind while we’re moving down the road. It’s amusing me no end. He’s called Harry, by the way.

Day off in Ashland

Well that’s another 1,000km done! I’m at 4,250km now. Close to half distance. I’m glad of the rest day as I’ve got a slight ankle strain. It began hurting during yesterday’s ride. (And this after I wrote about having arrived at Lake Superior in good condition. Typical!). Not sure how I picked it up but hopefully a day’s rest will be enough. We’ll see.

(Edit: I ended up spending an extra day in Ashland to allow the complete recovery of my slight ankle strain).

I spent most of the morning looking at murals! Ashland has a really cool Mural Walk around the business district. There were around a dozen large scale wall murals to see. It’s a really fantastic (and ongoing) piece of work. It’s the work of two local artists, Kelly Meredith and Susan Prentice Martinsen. I spoke to “Sue” whilst she worked on the latest one entitled “Oredock”. (One of Ashland’s landmarks is the last remaining of 6 former mineral ore transportation docks). A nice lady to talk to and very talented. Some pictures of my favourite two murals follow.  

Sue Martinsen painting this fantastic mural - "Oredock" (less than half is visible here)

Mural detail

Some faces still to be painted…

Storefront Mural (2002)

Mural detail

Mural detail. Just Brilliant.

Further detail from of above shot

A got of couple of other shots as I wandered down Main St, but the murals definitely stole the show today!

Ashland City Hall

Great cafe interior

But is it art?...

Nice cafe sign

Day off in Minnedosa

Taking another well earned day off with 3,200km on the clock. Just about 10 days straight of westerly winds sure helped to less the potential psychological impact of the Prairies! While out exploring this morning, I noticed the wind direction has changed. It’s started coming from the SE. Either my timing is immaculate, if it’s just a one day aberration, or it’s the start of some payback tomorrow. I’ve got 3 days travelling SE to reached the US border at Minnesota…

Minnedosa is a small town of about 1,500 people, but it has a nice lake and beach area, a trail through a wetland area and a heritage museum of old buildings moved and restored from various locations in Manitoba. It all kept me occupied on my wanderings during the morning. Some pictures follow.

Bridge on the town's nature trail

Rickety bridge through the wetlands area

Agricultural commerce building at the Heritage Museum

Working wind powered water pump. Blades glinting in the sun

Manitoba flag

Detail of old school building

Old church building

Street signs all have this train silhouette

Day off in Canmore

Hey, Canmore’s a really nice town! It’s a pretty quiet tourist town and has got a good feeling about it. I’ve just spent the day wandering around and enjoying the sunshine. Plenty of restaurants and cafes to satisfy a hungry Trans-Canada cyclist too! A very relaxing place to recharge my legs.

I shot a few snaps while out and about. All these were taken within a couple of blocks of my motel which was right in the town centre.   

The Bow Valley Motel is recommended by me.

Stream running through town

Ceannmore (or Ceann Mor) is Gaelic for "Big Head" (as in great leader)

It's "Canada Day" tomorrow

The Big Head and the mountain

Interesting fire hydrant

Looking up 6th Avenue

Boardwalk trail in town

The "Day Off" funny!

Day off in Prince George

Taking a day off in Prince George. This is my 13th day on the road already. It seems like only yesterday I was in Vancouver fretting about what lay ahead. I’ve now done 1,175 km through some pretty hilly terrain and survived! Apart from the aforementioned mosquito problems, I’ve had no other real issues. I am fit and healthy. The bike and gear are performing well, as I expected. I’m yet to enjoy my camping properly, but maybe that will come too, in time!

Picture of a bear (for Martina) :)

I’ve spent some time chatting with Tom, the cyclist also staying in the motel with me. He’s an interesting chap who’s done a fair amount of wilderness based activities. He’s not done any bike touring for a while, though, and we’ve been going through his luggage and streamlining it a bit, as he felt (and I agreed) he was carrying a bit too much. We’ve been taking meals together as well. It’s been good to talk to someone as normally my meal-times are a solitary affair.

We checked out a great local bike shop – Cycle Logic on 3rd Avenue. Chatted with Sullivan who’d just had a good result, despite a mechanical, at the Test of Metal MMX race in Squamish over the weekend. Nice one!

I’ve been trying out several of the coffee shops near to the motel. I read the rather good local paper – the Prince George Citizen in one, the aptly named “Daily Grind”. I liked the cartoon below. (I hope they don’t mind me photographing it off the funnies page…).

Click to expand

I've got a few additional food supplies and added some more remedies to my insect repellent arsenal. I'm about to head out along the Yellowhead Highway to Jasper. It's about 375km of quite remote wilderness riding with only two small service towns (McBride and Tete Jaune Cache) along the way. After Tete Jaune, I’ll climb the Yellowhead Pass and cross the Continental Divide of the Canadian Rockies and enter Alberta. I’ll see Mt. Robson up close around this point, too. After Jasper, I start down the world famous Icefields Parkway to Banff (about 290 km). It should be an interesting week…

And on the 7th day...

Having done 6 quite hard days on the road, I’m having a day off in Lillooet, mostly resting and eating!

Main St. Lillooet

Lillooet’s a quiet town surrounded by mountains and situated on the Fraser River. It has quite a large First Nation population, the St'at'imc. There is a nice museum on the main street that I visited during the morning and discovered the local history.

The climate is strange here too, something of a micro-climate. Lillooet is one of the driest places in Canada, receiving only 40cm of rain a year! The dryness is in contrast to the areas I’ve just come from. Lillooet’s also regularly one of Canada’s hottest places during the summer. 

From my hotel, looking out across the Fraser River

I’m back on the road tomorrow. I join the Caribou Highway (#97) heading north to Prince George which I hope to reach in 4 or 5 days. The weather is set fair for the next few days as well and should be sunny and warm with temperatures in the mid to late 20's. Nice one!