Great Big Sea - "Ordinary Day" - Day 69: Dingwal – Big Bras d’Or

It's a beautiful day, but there's always some sorrow
It's a double edged knife, but there's always tomorrow
It's up to you now if you sink or swim,
Keep the faith and your ship will come in.

Great Big Sea – “Ordinary Day”

Day 69: Dingwal – Big Bras d’Or
135kms / 83 miles

Even though I went to bed last night under a starry, clear sky I woke up this morning to fog and rain. I am losing faith in the ‘pink sky at night’ saying as most of the pink skies we’ve had in the Maritimes have resulted in the worst morning rains..!! By the time my tent was packed and I’d had breakfast the rain had gone from ‘torrential’ to ‘drizzle’. Today was my last official day of cycling on my journey across Canada!! Crazy..!

Andrew’s cleat was broken and we were not in a huge rush to get out today even though there were 3 hills of significance on our route we took it easy getting out of camp. The first hill came in the initial 10kms – it was a challenge to get my legs warmed up but after about 35 minutes I was warm and feeling good again. The initial few kms are always a challenge to get the blood going to your legs and get into the peddling rhythm. Wing, Andrew, Brendan, Ian, Dave and I all cycled together and agreed that it would be a good strategy to try and beat the rain which would eventually fall. Apparently the forecast called for 90% chance of rain so it was pretty much inevitable that we’d be getting a good soaking today. Yick. Even though I’ve been on the road now for 70 days I STILL can’t develop any sort of excitement in getting wet. I have only begun to tolerate it a bit better… ah hem..! Hopefully this new found attitude will last when I get back to 'real life' in London..! My argument is that rain is much more difficult to appreciate when one is wearing patent leather heels and mascara..!

The first hill was not nearly as steep or high as the mountains we climbed yesterday which was a relief. We also had a bit of a tail wind on Route 312 for the morning which made life easier. We took a bit of a short cut over Smelt Brook thanks so some clever navigating on Brendan and Andrew’s part. Our first stop was, of course, breakfast in Ingonish and by the time we reached breakfast I was absolutely starving..! I was looking forward to my breakfast for most of the 40kms that we cycled that morning and had lots of options going through my head:

- 2 pieces of toast PLUS 4 sausages PLUS bacon PLUS beans PLUS orange juice PLUS 2 cups of coffee OR
- 4 pieces of French toast PLUS orange juice PLUS 2 cups of coffee OR
- 4 pancakes PLUS toast PLUS orange juice PLUS 2 cups of coffee OR
- A combination of the above affectionately known as the ‘Hungry Mans’ breakfast – likely because no woman in her right mind would ever consume that many calories in one sitting on purpose..!!

Except for me of course. I am a fan.

I ended up with the Hungry Man and impressed the waitress with my healthy appetite.

Because of the weather it was a bit of a dreary ride and the 90% chance of rain that was in the forecast seemed to loom – the further we could get staying dry the better. We peddled on after breakfast over Mt. Smokey, the second of the 3 hills which we were due to encounter that day. It was a long, gradual uphill which wasn’t bad at all – the scary part came on the downhill coming OFF of the hill. It was incredibly steep with loads and loads of switchbacks and hairpin turns - it would be insane to ride that in a car at high speed. A few cars passed me going down and I could smell the break pads smoking. Yikes..! I was averaging about 58 kms / hour with my breaks on. Thank goodness the shoulder was relatively wide and the pavement was smooth and even.

Wing, Andrew, Brendan, Ian and I continued on for another non-stop 50kms of nice fast riding thanks to a tail wind, some turbo boosters and lots of laughs. As it was my last official day on 'Bicyclette' with TdC I did my best to try and put Brendan, Ian and Andrew in their place by racing past them at a break-neck speed. Unfortunately, just as I have gotten stronger so have they and they still have the ability to kick my butt but they just have to try a little harder now..! Oh well – it’s all fun and I spent a lot of the time on the bike thinking about how fortunate I’ve been to have met such amazing people AND to have been so incredibly lucky to have been able to bike with my three amigos for most of the trip. I could never ever have made it this far without their help and, most of all, patience.

We took a small ferry over to Englishtown – it only took about 3 minutes so it wasn’t particularly scenic but it was great to get off of the bike for a few moments and look at the scenery. Unfortunately there was not much scenery to be seen because a thick layer of fog was settling over the mountains and the wind was picking up as well. It was a pretty dreary, grey afternoon. I was really, really, really longing for a coffee or a hot chocolate and hoped that Englishtown would have plenty to offer as our final hill was coming up – Kelly’s Mountain and then a coast into camp.

Englishtown was not a bustling metropolis as I had hoped… it had one campground with a restaurant which was miles uphill so we decided not to take that detour. Instead, we went into our ‘stockpile of food’ and Andrew grudgingly shared his 2 day old peanut butter and jam sandwich with both Ian and I. Then we managed to glean off some of his Snickers bar. I am pretty sure that I owe him a small convenience store full of food given the number of times he’s had to share his with me because I:

(1) forgot to bring lunch because I was too busy trying to pump up my tires... (um... seriously)

(2) was too lazy to make lunch in the morning (would generally say that I ate it already... because I was so hungry from pumping up my own tires...)

(3) didn’t have time to make lunch in the morning (was too busy pumping up my tires)

(4) ate my lunch in the first 30kms of the day (as didn't want to eat recycled and disguised Touchdown Tuna for breakfast)
(5) couldn’t find my lunch in my backpack as it was squished under my rain gear and broken tire pump…

We took a few pictures of my wheel dipping just outside of Englishtown in the event that I would not have time to dip my wheel for the photographers at the ferry terminal and then continued up to tackle Kelly’s hill. We turned onto Route 105 which was part of the Trans Canada so I knew it wouldn’t be too bad – apparently the Trans Canada can only have a grade of about 8% (not sure if that is true or not). The hill was relatively easy but the worst part about it was the downhill which was long, straight, steep, BUT we had a huge headwind on the downhill against which I fought to keep on my bike. The chilly gusts of wind kept blowing me sideways and into the lane of traffic. It was not an enjoyable downhill and I was very happy to get to the bottom although a bit nervous about what lay ahead – a giant bridge with absolutely no shoulder (as was visible from the top of Kelly’s Mountain).

As I feared, the bridge had no shoulder and I attempted to cross it while holding my breath as long as I possibly could without passing out and falling off of my bike. Behind me I heard a giant 16-wheeler transport downshifting... It was not a comforting sound… fortunately it passed with about 5 cms to spare and I cycled as fast as I could against the wind to get over the bridge. As soon as I’d crossed I pulled off onto a gravel shoulder where BC was already waiting – he felt pretty much the same way about the bridge as I had. Yikes.

We were all so incredibly hungry and realised that it was 2pm and we were only about 10kms away from our campsite and hadn’t had a proper lunch. BUT THEN (tadah!) off in the distance we saw some magical words --- Restaurant / BAKERY!! We cycled up to the bakery and had a fantastic meal – a burger, fries, giant slice of lemon meringue pie and a coke and a coffee… Soooo good. It was nice to be in out of the cold and the wind and to have made it the entire way DRY! The meal was a lot of fun and we were all anticipating the end. There were so many emotions running through me.

We arrived into camp where I got some unfortunate news – the ferry was going to be 2 hours late which would affect my flight out of St. Johns. I knew that it was always going to be tricky to make the connection and decided that I didn’t want to take the risk of missing Melanie’s wedding so immediately called Lear Travel back in Ridgetown and asked them to change my flight from St. Johns to Halifax and take the bus to Halifax tomorrow. The schedule change certainly put a damper on what would have been an evening of celebration but I really could not risk missing the plane as would never have forgiven myself for missing my baby sisters wedding day..!

When I realised that it was all going to end on a damp (literally) note I found it really hard to hold back my emotions. A tearful call was put into my parents and this is when I first realised what we had done –

‘Dad, it’s me… Heather…. I have just cycled across Canada… (silence) Holy crap. I can't believe I did it...’ (cue tears)

By the time I’d organised my ‘life’ into 2 bags and a bike box (well, ok, I admit it... Andrew gets the credit for packing my bike box!) and started to say the first of many tearful good byes it was already 9:30, POURING, POURING, POURING rain and I was exhausted. It was good to crawl into my tent and I fell asleep to the sound of rain coming down over my head – keeping my fingers crossed that I had not put my tent up in a low area, near a drain etc. because a soggy sleeping bag and tent would not be fun to carry onto an Air Canada flight in the morning..!