Managing Expectations: Day 68 - Nicolet to Leclercville - And Then We Pedalled...... Cross Canada 2015

August 9, 2015

Managing Expectations: Day 68 - Nicolet to Leclercville

"It's going to be quite late before we get to the campsite, get set up and showered and then get into St Croix for supper" said Kirsten, "Why don't we grab an early dinner at this Resto-Pub and then do the last 20 km after that?"

Good idea, so that's what we did. As we were sitting on the deck looking out onto the small bay we noticed that there were campers in behind the pub by the bay. That's when an even better idea came into our heads. Why not just camp here and do the 20'km tomorrow morning? Settled, we'll then have that Archibald Mantant lager with dinner.

That's how we ended up in Leclercville.

Our home for the night at the Leclercville municipal campground

Turned out to be a pretty nice spot.

Heart

Comment

Link

We didn't have an ambitious day planned. We were on our way to Quebec City and it would be two short days to get there. Today's initial plan was to get to a campground just west of St Croix, about 100 km for the day, leaving us about 50 km on Monday to get to QC. With this in mind we had a leisurely breakfast with Claude, Jacinthe and their boys, said our good bye's and pedalled on down the St Lawrence on route 132. It was a fine day for biking, mixed sun and cloud, temps in the low 20's, the only fly in the ointment was a fairly stiff headwind from the north.

Very rural on this side of the river, once again a mixture of corn fields and dairy barns, villages with a mixture of old stone buildings and brightly coloured wooden ones. Oh and of course, the village church dominating the skyline.

Classic Quebec stone houses - this one just outside Nicolet

More dairy farms. In Quebec you have a choice of taking pictures of church's or silos. Silos hold feed for cows. Cows make milk. Milk makes ice cream. I like ice cream. Silos win.

As well as having a leisurely start to the morning we also lingered over lunch. It was not just putting off biking into the headwind, we got a few things organized for the remainder of the trip. First, having been shown the English version of the Route Vert website, we organized a bike friendly, centrally located and pretty well priced hotel in Quebec City for Monday and Tuesday. We also put together a rough timeline for when we expect to finish. As we slice of the km's day by day they add up. Well over 6000 so far and the end is now within our more detailed planning horizon. Surprisingly, or not?, we are still within a day or so of our first overall timeline.

Part of our lunchtime leisure however was a reluctance to get back out into the headwind. It wasn't that bad, it's just that we have been incredibly lucky not to have had very many headwind days. We were just being wussies.

When we did get back on the bikes we were then going though towns called St This and St That, all with their fairly impressive churches given the size of the towns. I guess I do have to give equal time to them as well as the silos.

Very interesting roof line and great sun angle on the church at St Pierre les Becquets

Inside St Pierre les Becquets - 177 years old, just middle aged for Quebec

Panorama view of the St Lawrence between Bequet and Leclercville. Beautiful part of the world

Leclercville church set against a stunningly blue sky

Another view of the Leclercville church. You can really see the vivid colours of red and silver ..... And blue of course

The other pillar of the community, the Mayors house in Leclercville

So a slower day than we've had for a while but enjoyable nonetheless. Looking forward to Quebec City tomorrow. We've been there in the winter and have always said it would be a great place to visit in the summer. Well that's happening tomorrow.

Song of the day

Could You Be Loved by Bob Marley

This played in the Resto-Pub while I've been writing this. One of my fave Marley tunes

Historical Monument of the day

The nod goes to the church as Becquets

Today's ride: 84 km (52 miles)
Total: 6,251 km (3,882 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	2
Comment on this entry	Comment	0