Welcome to Newfoundland M'Love: Day 85 - Port Aux Basque to Robinson Newfoundland - And Then We Pedalled...... Cross Canada 2015

August 26, 2015

Welcome to Newfoundland M'Love: Day 85 - Port Aux Basque to Robinson Newfoundland

I don't know why we never came here before. So far it's everything we thought it would be and more.

The ferry docked at about 7 am and we were one of the last vehicles off the boat. We thought we would let all the motorhomes and trucks get well down the road before we would start pedalling. The skies were clear and it was noticably cooler, perfect cycling weather.

And what a place to cycle. Big, remote, rugged and beautiful in a dramatic way. We started near the sea (cause that's where ferry's dock) and followed the coast for a while until the TCH moved inland. Yes, you read that right, the TCH. Unless you want to take a really long time to get across the rock, and use ferry's and other boats for good chunks of it, the TCH is the only show in town. So far though it is very good. Good shoulders and reasonable and polite traffic.

And everybody here is truly friendly. Haven't been called Pumpkin yet but almost every conversation with a female over 30 ends with M'Love.

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The interior along the TCH is quite dramatic but it would be great to get out to the coast. Our weather forecast for the next few days is improving so we might take a short day and a day off the bikes to head out to Gross Morne National park. We hear it's spectacular.

A few pics to give a sense of the day:

Our ride for the night. Pretty nice boat. Didn't get a chance to check it out much though. The sailing was only six hours so we used all of that to sleep, and a good sleep it was.

The Rock is not just some made up nickname... This is the first thing you see when you leave the ferry terminal

As we were riding along his morning on the very quiet Trans Canada Highway ( with nice paved shoulders .... Take note Manitoba and Ontario) we were reflecting on this trip and the whole 'bucket list' phenomena.

We're now in our last province with our remaining distance being measured in three digits. There's still a lot to do, and it looks like it will be great stuff too, but the majority of our trip is now behind us. We've been asked so many times "Was this on your bucket list?". Well yes, but no also. The whole bucket list discussion almost seems like a finite thing.... Here's a list of things I want to do, and that's it.

For us, what this trip has shown us is that although we're going to cycle almost 8,800 km across this country, we have really only seen a fraction of it. Far from thinking that Canada's 'been done and crossed off the list', our thinking is that this trip has been like getting a big box of assorted chocolates. Most of them are very different and most of them we like them very much. So much that we would like to have a full box of specific types to get a much deeper appreciation of their specific flavours. A month around the whole gulf of St Lawrence, as we saw a Quebecois father and son team doing a few days ago, a month touring the interior of BC, a month touring on the Rock, a month around Fundy and Cape Breton, a month or more doing the full Route Verte 1..... This isn't a bucket list, this is an endless chain of discovery.

At the same time, we've been on the road for coming up to three months and we are looking forward to the end. And if the next eight or nine days are like today, it will be a great ending.

Our last province. Note the blue sky and the direction of the flags. They are pointing where we are going! Yeah!

Our final destination now in three digits for the first time!

Scrub trees, rock and water everywhere...

The Twin Hills .... One with a very hipster haircut

More classic inland views ... This is very pretty country, but as one lady told us 'You've got to get off the highway to see the good stuff M'Love'. I believe her .... The same is true of the Rockies where we live... Just means we will have to come back again and 'get off the highway'

Song of the day:

Me & Bobby McGee the Janis Joplin cover of this Kris Kristoferson classic.

To me his is one of the best 'road trip' songs ever done, and one of the occasions where someone does a cover of a song and effectively defines the song. We had another great day (I know this sounds repetitive, but it's true) on what has been a fantastic road trip, so the time for this has come.

Historical monument of the day:

Going to double up on North Sydney. It wasn't all about rum running. North Sydney was the western terminus of the first Trans Atlantic telepgraph cable, and we would have been passing over it just as today was starting.

Today's ride: 109 km (68 miles)
Total: 7,885 km (4,897 miles)

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