July 24, 2016
Nova Scotia: Trip of a lifetime!
There was a thick fog hiding most of the world from me as I crossed my final provincial border and entered Nova Scotia. As with every other border I was greeted with a sign and an information centre. This one was not open, it was too early in the morning, and I was not going to hang around and wait for it to do so - I needed to get some more distance under my belt.
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I hurried along to Amherst, a town where I immediately found myself lost. I had a lot of smaller roads to navigate this day. Almost for the first time in the whole of Canada it was not simply a case of getting on a highway or a bike route and following it all day. I was actually going to have to think about where I was going, and this was not a great start. A man walking his dog saw me looking confused and offered to help. He was no help at all, but he was very nice. I told him I'd cycled from Vancouver (without mentioning the rest of the trip). "Wow! Trip of a lifetime!" he beamed.
Although the man was no help I did find a more detailed map on a board in Amherst and this showed me how to get out of town on a road going towards Oxford. It was a good choice as, although it was hilly, it was very quiet. On the way to Oxford I passed through Leicester, and missed a turn for Mansfield. Never mind New Scotland, this was beginning to feel like England already. At Oxford I stopped at the library and printed my boarding pass and luggage tags for the boat. I was nearly there and it was finally starting to feel like the long slog across Canada was nearing an end.
Later I saw four bears. A mother followed by not one, not two, but three cubs, ran across the road a safe distance ahead of me. It was the kind of cool thing that I was sure going to miss about being in Canada.
Then I arrived in Colchester, and it looked like a kind of ugly housing estate. 'The resemblance is uncanny.' I thought.
It was foggy again the next morning when I woke up, though as usual it soon cleared to another bright sunny day. I'd spent the night in a not-very good camping place amongst thick undergrowth beside electric pylons. I was now very much into relatively more heavily populated country and there were very few other options for places to sleep. That's not to say that there were a huge number of people, but that all the land was privately owned, one large property after another. This also made it very difficult to even find anywhere to take breaks throughout the day. With the sun beating down I became very hot and there was precious little shade anywhere, the roads lined continuously with private land. Eventually, after many kilometres, I found somewhere to sit in the shade next to a driveway. Then a pick-up came along to turn up the driveway, paused, and the driver eyed my up and said "You'll be moving on soon, won't ya?" I nodded, too hot and tired to even speak.
But aside from the heat and the lack of breaks I was going good and making the required process. For most of the day I was guessing as to how far I still had to go to reach Halifax, but then I passed the airport, and I knew I was close. The first time I'd ever entered Canada I had flown into that airport and then cycled into downtown Halifax so I knew for a fact I was only 40 kilometres from my goal, 40 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean.
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There was a beautiful sort of symmetry about things now, with the final kilometres of my ride across Canada being the same as my first ever kilometres in Canada. Still I struggled to remember the way, although I remembered the five kilometres that I had to do on the gravel shoulder of a major highway quite well. It seemed much busier than I'd remembered it and it did not bode well for what was to come. Off the highway I had to cycle on Waverley Road for a few kilometres. This was a nightmare. It was a very narrow road sandwiched between a lake and a cliff and it was very busy, with drivers who drove like absolute maniacs. For most of my time in Canada, thanks in truth to good shoulders on most roads, I'd felt really quite safe cycling. This road, one of the very last, was, by a long, long way, the most dangerous. People passed me at speed on blind corners and I genuinely have no idea how there were no head-on collisions as other motorists sped recklessly the other way.
As soon as I could, I got off the road. There was a park with a gazebo and I decided to stop for a while to see if the traffic would calm down later in the day. I did not want to arrive into Halifax until the morning anyway. I had made great progress over the past few days, and I now had quite a bit of time to spare. So I cleaned my bike, and read my book, and I cooked and ate dinner, and I wrote my diary, and I hid under the gazebo as another heavy storm rolled by.
With the day drawing to a close and the rush hour traffic dwindling I made a dash to find somewhere to camp. I knew that a bike trail into the city started soon and I made it there and pulled off the road to find an ideal place for my final night of wild camping in Canada. There was a little stream for washing, and an area of flat grass to pitch the tent. It was perfect. I set up camp and as I did so I reflected on how the next time I'd do this, I would be back in my own country, having been around the whole world. It was a crazy thought.
Saturday 23rd July - 130km
Sunday 24th July - 101km
Today's ride: 231 km (143 miles)
Total: 55,666 km (34,569 miles)
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