Another morning, another day on the bikes. We rode out of the campground on schedule, but were soon distracted by the big Superstore in Tracadie (we went in for cheese and came out with 2 days of food).
The plan for the day was to ride down the southern coast of the Acadian Peninsula to Mirimichi and then head out due south along the highway and find somewhere to camp out in the wilderness around 20km outside of town. However, unlike yesterday when the coastal road was right on the ocean with pretty scenery, the road today was consistently about 5pm inland. Boo-urns!
Right outside of town we had a first for the trip - riding on a limited access highway. It felt strange cycling up the shoulder of the on-ramp with cars accelerating hard next to us, but the highway itself had a nice wide shoulder and sobriety wasn't any problem. However, with the high speed traffic and a straight road through nowhere, it wasn't a great experience. Really made us glad of our decision to avoid the Trans-Canada and other highways whenever possible, you really don't get the same experience at all, it's just passing the kms and driving on through.
However this was only a little bypass around town so a couple km later we were back to the regular rural highway. And that's what it was for the next 70km - scrubby trees, straight roads, and a constant sting of houses in the middle of nowhere punctuated randomly by a small gas/food store. The settlement pattern here in NB is quite strange and different than we've seen in most other places. There are big towns, but there don't seem to be many/any small "towns" as I recognize them (clustered communities with multiple streets and a mixture of residential and business together). Here, everything is just stung out along the one main road. "Rural sprawl" is a strange term but that's what comes to mind. It's nit the kind if place I'd want to live and it makes me wonder what everyone does out here, but obviously theres some benefit to it because it's growing, and people seem to be happy where they are. Doesn't make for very pretty riding through, just drive on through.
For lunch we took a aide road out to the coast and had a wonderful picnic overlooking the bay. Though the sun was out in force, so was the wind and so combined with a pleasant/cool temperature, some of us got a little chilled. If you didn't know the date, would you have guessed this was August?
So after a nice (bundled up) lunch and snooze, we were ready to go again, until Alan saw the biggest patch of the largest, most amazing wild blueberries ever! Needless to say, l
Leah was in like a shot, and no one else needed much convincing. In fact, what they needed convincing about was leaving - it was 1hr and 3 litres of blueberries latter that we were finally back on the move. What an amazing find though! Sorry to the bear who's had it's wye on those bushes :)
Getting through Mirimichi was pretty easy - except the hellish highway bridge. Narrow lanes, no shoulder, speeding cars and the only place for bikes was a really high and narrow sidewalk. The view must have been nice, but I was totally consumed watching the concrete in front of me because one slight wobble was all that was needed to send us falling into the traffic. The saner ones gave up the pretenses and walked their bikes across. Don't try this at home folks!
Then, after 15km of wilderness we'd reached decision time - where and how to camp. We were stopped on the side of the highway and had just decided to ask for water at the next community when we saw a biker catch up with us from behind. The panniers made us assume he was another long-distance biker, but we were only partly right. Turns out James was on his way home from work (35km each way) in Mirimichi, and lived in just ahead where we were looking to stop. And as soon as he found out we were on the big bike trip and looking to stop soon, he not only offered us water but also his backyard and supper to boot, and wouldn't take no for an answer (not that we really tried). So we pulled into his lovely house and by the time we had our tents up, he and his wife (also a cyclist - did a 3 week cycle tour of Scotland last fall) had cooked us supper and so we sat down to a delicious home cooked meal at a table with all the civilized fixings, and some wonderful conversation. So nice to spend some time with fellow bikers and share stories! It was a night we certainly won't forget - thanks so much! Just goes to show, no matter what a place may look like, there's always amazing people around!
Distance: 110.92 km
Time on bike: 5:46:25
Average speed: 19.2 km/h
Distance from Vancouver: 6904 km
Start: 8:15 am
End: 6:16 pm
Wind: north-west (tail-medium)
Condition: sunny
Cheers
- The Warpotay Team
The plan for the day was to ride down the southern coast of the Acadian Peninsula to Mirimichi and then head out due south along the highway and find somewhere to camp out in the wilderness around 20km outside of town. However, unlike yesterday when the coastal road was right on the ocean with pretty scenery, the road today was consistently about 5pm inland. Boo-urns!
Right outside of town we had a first for the trip - riding on a limited access highway. It felt strange cycling up the shoulder of the on-ramp with cars accelerating hard next to us, but the highway itself had a nice wide shoulder and sobriety wasn't any problem. However, with the high speed traffic and a straight road through nowhere, it wasn't a great experience. Really made us glad of our decision to avoid the Trans-Canada and other highways whenever possible, you really don't get the same experience at all, it's just passing the kms and driving on through.
However this was only a little bypass around town so a couple km later we were back to the regular rural highway. And that's what it was for the next 70km - scrubby trees, straight roads, and a constant sting of houses in the middle of nowhere punctuated randomly by a small gas/food store. The settlement pattern here in NB is quite strange and different than we've seen in most other places. There are big towns, but there don't seem to be many/any small "towns" as I recognize them (clustered communities with multiple streets and a mixture of residential and business together). Here, everything is just stung out along the one main road. "Rural sprawl" is a strange term but that's what comes to mind. It's nit the kind if place I'd want to live and it makes me wonder what everyone does out here, but obviously theres some benefit to it because it's growing, and people seem to be happy where they are. Doesn't make for very pretty riding through, just drive on through.
For lunch we took a aide road out to the coast and had a wonderful picnic overlooking the bay. Though the sun was out in force, so was the wind and so combined with a pleasant/cool temperature, some of us got a little chilled. If you didn't know the date, would you have guessed this was August?
So after a nice (bundled up) lunch and snooze, we were ready to go again, until Alan saw the biggest patch of the largest, most amazing wild blueberries ever! Needless to say, l
Leah was in like a shot, and no one else needed much convincing. In fact, what they needed convincing about was leaving - it was 1hr and 3 litres of blueberries latter that we were finally back on the move. What an amazing find though! Sorry to the bear who's had it's wye on those bushes :)
Getting through Mirimichi was pretty easy - except the hellish highway bridge. Narrow lanes, no shoulder, speeding cars and the only place for bikes was a really high and narrow sidewalk. The view must have been nice, but I was totally consumed watching the concrete in front of me because one slight wobble was all that was needed to send us falling into the traffic. The saner ones gave up the pretenses and walked their bikes across. Don't try this at home folks!
Then, after 15km of wilderness we'd reached decision time - where and how to camp. We were stopped on the side of the highway and had just decided to ask for water at the next community when we saw a biker catch up with us from behind. The panniers made us assume he was another long-distance biker, but we were only partly right. Turns out James was on his way home from work (35km each way) in Mirimichi, and lived in just ahead where we were looking to stop. And as soon as he found out we were on the big bike trip and looking to stop soon, he not only offered us water but also his backyard and supper to boot, and wouldn't take no for an answer (not that we really tried). So we pulled into his lovely house and by the time we had our tents up, he and his wife (also a cyclist - did a 3 week cycle tour of Scotland last fall) had cooked us supper and so we sat down to a delicious home cooked meal at a table with all the civilized fixings, and some wonderful conversation. So nice to spend some time with fellow bikers and share stories! It was a night we certainly won't forget - thanks so much! Just goes to show, no matter what a place may look like, there's always amazing people around!
Distance: 110.92 km
Time on bike: 5:46:25
Average speed: 19.2 km/h
Distance from Vancouver: 6904 km
Start: 8:15 am
End: 6:16 pm
Wind: north-west (tail-medium)
Condition: sunny
Cheers
- The Warpotay Team
Location:St Margarets, NB
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