CA-NA-DA, Betcha never seen a mountain peak?
CA-NA-DA, In the land of the big snowball!
In CANADA, we get to see 'em all.
CA-NA-DA, Have you ever seen a magnetic hill?
CA-NA-DA, Or a lady on a dollar bill?
CA-NA-DA, Betcha never seen the autumn fall
In CANADA, we get to see 'em all.
...I say in Canada, we get to see 'em all.
- Stompin Tom - "Cross Canada"
(Song dedicated to Ian, Brendan and Andrew)
Day 70: Argentia, NS - Halifax, NS - Toronto, ON
I’m sitting on the Acadian bus enroute to Halifax where I will board a plane to head to Toronto to watch my little sister get married..! From the moment that I signed up for this little adventure I knew that I’d have to leave a day early to make it to the wedding and not cycle the final 145kms. I never dreamed it would be this difficult to leave but know that I am definitely making the best decision. It’s funny how sometimes emotional obstacles can be so much more challenging than the physical ones..! This is yet anoth
er thing that I’ve learned on this trip..!
It was very sombre in camp this morning primarily because of the weather – it was cold, foggy and rainy. Grim. No one slept particularly well because the rain started at around 9pm and even when I left at 7:45 it had not stopped. The foghorn from a nearby lighthouse was blowing throughout the night. I can certainly understand why so many songs and poetry coming out of the Maritimes refer to the sound of the foghorn. With the sound of the wind, the waves crashing onto shore and the foghorn it was an eerie sort of atmosphere. I’m not sure how I managed to do it but I actually slept fairly well and was awake and packing a soggy sleeping bag in the darkness in my tent at around 5:30am while the rain came down outside. It’s hard to believe that that would be the last time packing my tent – in a way it seems like just yesterday that I unpacked it and set it up for the very first time at the Trout Farm back in British Columbia about 71 days ago. How time has flown by.
My bike box was a bit soggy but managed to stay in one piece throughout the night. Andrew packed my bike and organised so much for me as I was a bit useless thanks to the first tears I’d shed in weeks and a giant lump in my throat. I’m not sure how I would ever have survived the trip without such great friends..! We loaded the faithful, semi-retired bicyclette into the truck and duct-taped it down and covered it with a tarp to protect it from the rain. I wondered to myself how long it would be before I unpacked it and where that would be..!
I said good-bye to most of the team but unfortunately did not manage to get all of my good-byes in before we pulled out that rainy, soggy morning – we had to make a quick unglamorous exit (although I’m pretty sure
that the truck did spin the tires in the mud!) out of camp as I nearly missed my bus.. It was so sad to see everyone waving good bye and I envied that they were all still outside, near their soggy tents, trying to put their ‘biking lives’ together for the last times that trip... I really have been so incredibly lucky to have met such wonderful, amazing people and they have made this trip so special. I can already picture everyone on the ferry now as they make their crossing to New Foundland and cycle the final 145kms from Argentia to Signal Hill.
It’s strange as I head to the airport as the bus has spent most of the ride ‘backtracking’ over the route we took to get to Bas D’Or. The Tim Hortons are all familiar as are the bumps in the road, the restaurants I looked forward to, the scenery. I must say, it’s much more enjoyable by bike than it is on the bus..! The weather certainly has not improved as it’s still dreary and grey to match my mood – I feel so incredibly lucky and happy but at the same time so out of my element. I am certain that I will be ‘back to normal’ in no time at all but I want so mu
ch to hang on to the feeling of happiness, freedom, good health, and being ‘me’ for as long as I possibly can…!
I keep dozing off and waking up and am in absolute shock as we ‘back track’ over the route we’d cycled to get to North Sydney – we even passed over the Causeway to get to Cape Breton Island – this is where we had our wonderful lunch courtesy of Mick’s family just a few days before… There are two guys who are also on the bus who had biked from Ottawa through to St. Johns and down to Halifax – they’d traveled independently and didn’t seem particularly well organised given that they didn’t box their bikes before loading them onto the bus and they didn’t have a peddle wrench to take off their pedals. They were in pretty much the same ‘zone’ as me. It’s funny how you can tell a male cyclist (particularly a ‘long haul, twenty-or-thirty-something one’) from far away – apart from the fact that many of them have a distinctive ‘cyclist gait’ in their walk (thanks to a sore ‘undercarriage’) they all seem to have decided to try growing facial hair. I am not sure what the correlation is for men doing long distance, endurance sports (eg. Trekking, climbing, cycling, sailing) and the decision to grow facial hair. Perhaps this will always be something that we females will never quite understand. I am sure that they wonder about my obsession with tan lines, particularly the cool one on my hands from my gloves..!
***
I had no problem getting my bike on the Air Canada flight back to Toronto. I felt so hardcore each time I got stares from other passengers waiting to be checked in… I knew they were checking out my bizarre glove tan, the giant, soggy, duct-taped bike box with ‘GELUK’ written in giant calligraphic letters across the cardboard surface… It felt so strange to be back in ‘civilization’ but because I was still effectively traveling with my bike, I still felt a very strong bond to it. I even told the Stewardess who checked me in about my adventure and again, it was one of those moments where I had to speak to someone just to reaffirm that I’d actually done it..! Unfortunately she didn’t upgrade me as I’d hoped! - (it never hurts to try..!).
I am now sitting in the airport after having devoured a delicious pepperoni pizza and am waiting to board my flight and putting down my final few thoughts before the hustle and bustle of ‘real life’ starts to take over. I’m tired and looking forward to seeing my family again and celebrating my sisters marriage to her highschool sweetheart..! The wedding will definitely be worth rushing home for and will make my fantastic, amazing summer complete. I am so happy and hope that I can really ‘savour’ this feeling for a long, long time.
Flying due west over the Maritimes and Quebec and the east part of Ontario, over the approximately 3,000 (?) kilometres which separate Halifax from Toronto, I find it hard to believe that I’d actually BIKED all that distance..! It has never ever felt like that far and the 2 hours in the plane feels a lot longer than any two hours that I ever spent in saddle. As I look down I imagine that landscapes that we’re flying over – I wonder about the campgrounds that we’re passing, the road conditions, the hills, the weather and think enviously of all of those lucky cyclists who are still in the middle of their cross-country journeys.
I can tell that my stomach is still somewhere on the road because I am absolutely starving and wish that Air Canada would serve more than just water on the plane. I feel very decadent and decide to have a glass of wine (!!) around the time I assume that we’re over Quebec… With my ipod playing some Neil Young, I am having a quiet little toast to the rest of the riders still out on the road and imagine that they are all on the ferry right now, enjoying some serious drinks and exchanging their stories and jokes. Hopefully the weather has improved for the crossing and I am so looking forward to their stories..!
er thing that I’ve learned on this trip..!It was very sombre in camp this morning primarily because of the weather – it was cold, foggy and rainy. Grim. No one slept particularly well because the rain started at around 9pm and even when I left at 7:45 it had not stopped. The foghorn from a nearby lighthouse was blowing throughout the night. I can certainly understand why so many songs and poetry coming out of the Maritimes refer to the sound of the foghorn. With the sound of the wind, the waves crashing onto shore and the foghorn it was an eerie sort of atmosphere. I’m not sure how I managed to do it but I actually slept fairly well and was awake and packing a soggy sleeping bag in the darkness in my tent at around 5:30am while the rain came down outside. It’s hard to believe that that would be the last time packing my tent – in a way it seems like just yesterday that I unpacked it and set it up for the very first time at the Trout Farm back in British Columbia about 71 days ago. How time has flown by.
My bike box was a bit soggy but managed to stay in one piece throughout the night. Andrew packed my bike and organised so much for me as I was a bit useless thanks to the first tears I’d shed in weeks and a giant lump in my throat. I’m not sure how I would ever have survived the trip without such great friends..! We loaded the faithful, semi-retired bicyclette into the truck and duct-taped it down and covered it with a tarp to protect it from the rain. I wondered to myself how long it would be before I unpacked it and where that would be..!
I said good-bye to most of the team but unfortunately did not manage to get all of my good-byes in before we pulled out that rainy, soggy morning – we had to make a quick unglamorous exit (although I’m pretty sure
that the truck did spin the tires in the mud!) out of camp as I nearly missed my bus.. It was so sad to see everyone waving good bye and I envied that they were all still outside, near their soggy tents, trying to put their ‘biking lives’ together for the last times that trip... I really have been so incredibly lucky to have met such wonderful, amazing people and they have made this trip so special. I can already picture everyone on the ferry now as they make their crossing to New Foundland and cycle the final 145kms from Argentia to Signal Hill.It’s strange as I head to the airport as the bus has spent most of the ride ‘backtracking’ over the route we took to get to Bas D’Or. The Tim Hortons are all familiar as are the bumps in the road, the restaurants I looked forward to, the scenery. I must say, it’s much more enjoyable by bike than it is on the bus..! The weather certainly has not improved as it’s still dreary and grey to match my mood – I feel so incredibly lucky and happy but at the same time so out of my element. I am certain that I will be ‘back to normal’ in no time at all but I want so mu
ch to hang on to the feeling of happiness, freedom, good health, and being ‘me’ for as long as I possibly can…!I keep dozing off and waking up and am in absolute shock as we ‘back track’ over the route we’d cycled to get to North Sydney – we even passed over the Causeway to get to Cape Breton Island – this is where we had our wonderful lunch courtesy of Mick’s family just a few days before… There are two guys who are also on the bus who had biked from Ottawa through to St. Johns and down to Halifax – they’d traveled independently and didn’t seem particularly well organised given that they didn’t box their bikes before loading them onto the bus and they didn’t have a peddle wrench to take off their pedals. They were in pretty much the same ‘zone’ as me. It’s funny how you can tell a male cyclist (particularly a ‘long haul, twenty-or-thirty-something one’) from far away – apart from the fact that many of them have a distinctive ‘cyclist gait’ in their walk (thanks to a sore ‘undercarriage’) they all seem to have decided to try growing facial hair. I am not sure what the correlation is for men doing long distance, endurance sports (eg. Trekking, climbing, cycling, sailing) and the decision to grow facial hair. Perhaps this will always be something that we females will never quite understand. I am sure that they wonder about my obsession with tan lines, particularly the cool one on my hands from my gloves..!
***
I had no problem getting my bike on the Air Canada flight back to Toronto. I felt so hardcore each time I got stares from other passengers waiting to be checked in… I knew they were checking out my bizarre glove tan, the giant, soggy, duct-taped bike box with ‘GELUK’ written in giant calligraphic letters across the cardboard surface… It felt so strange to be back in ‘civilization’ but because I was still effectively traveling with my bike, I still felt a very strong bond to it. I even told the Stewardess who checked me in about my adventure and again, it was one of those moments where I had to speak to someone just to reaffirm that I’d actually done it..! Unfortunately she didn’t upgrade me as I’d hoped! - (it never hurts to try..!).
I am now sitting in the airport after having devoured a delicious pepperoni pizza and am waiting to board my flight and putting down my final few thoughts before the hustle and bustle of ‘real life’ starts to take over. I’m tired and looking forward to seeing my family again and celebrating my sisters marriage to her highschool sweetheart..! The wedding will definitely be worth rushing home for and will make my fantastic, amazing summer complete. I am so happy and hope that I can really ‘savour’ this feeling for a long, long time.
Flying due west over the Maritimes and Quebec and the east part of Ontario, over the approximately 3,000 (?) kilometres which separate Halifax from Toronto, I find it hard to believe that I’d actually BIKED all that distance..! It has never ever felt like that far and the 2 hours in the plane feels a lot longer than any two hours that I ever spent in saddle. As I look down I imagine that landscapes that we’re flying over – I wonder about the campgrounds that we’re passing, the road conditions, the hills, the weather and think enviously of all of those lucky cyclists who are still in the middle of their cross-country journeys.
I can tell that my stomach is still somewhere on the road because I am absolutely starving and wish that Air Canada would serve more than just water on the plane. I feel very decadent and decide to have a glass of wine (!!) around the time I assume that we’re over Quebec… With my ipod playing some Neil Young, I am having a quiet little toast to the rest of the riders still out on the road and imagine that they are all on the ferry right now, enjoying some serious drinks and exchanging their stories and jokes. Hopefully the weather has improved for the crossing and I am so looking forward to their stories..!
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