Day 60 - Cheticamp to Englishtown

Cheticamp to Englishtown
166 km, overcast, with rain, drizzle, mist, and fog
Winds – some here and there, and all directions again
(even on a straight-away, it would be tailwind, and 500 metres later – headwind).

Sweet. I am a bit lost for words. But, I'll try to get some out to write a little entry.

I am coming back to Cape Breton to ride the Highland Park again. I could consider yesterday (part one of the Cabot Trail) foreplay, today was the “main event”, and part three, from Ingonish to Baddeck (as an example) is the cuddling phase. Sure, part one and three can be done, but we can also skip to the main event. What I do see myself doing (with a few people) is to ride from Ingonish to Cheticamp one day, and ride back the next. Super nice scenery, the hills are nice (uphill not bad at all, and the downhills are something to experience for yourself). Hill one, maybe 3, 3.5 k uphill, not a bad grade (they didn't post the ), but very doable. Just put in your time. The downhill was sweet. It is a nice winding road, nice switchbacks. There are many turns that the signs say “30 k/h max”, and they mean it. Very fun – just lean the bike here and there, with the brakes on for most of the time. Hitting 60 k/h is tough to do.

Hill number two, aka the North Mountain, is a nice 4 k hill. It was a pleasant grind. Again, very doable. Funny stuff happened on that hill. There was a Westfalia having a hard time climbing it, just put-putting along us for a bit. Us, that's the funny story. At the start of the hill, some tri-geek, who was out on a 300 k ride, was behind me. I let him catch up to me (he would of caught up to me anyways). We chatted for a bit, and then he was off. But, he was always no more than 100 metres away. When the hill kicked-up a notch, the gap was slowly decreasing, and decreasing. At one point, he dropped something, and had to do a little turn-around to pick it up. I passed him, and just had fun watching him in the mirror struggling up the hill. To his defense, he only has a double chain-ring (so less gears than I), but in my defense, I have 60 pounds more than him. But then again, he already rode 100 k that morning. We would eventually play cat-mouse until Ingonish (60 k later), where I stopped for lunch and he took off.

The rest of the park is pretty nice. Lots of places to pull over and take pictures. There were very few cars out there, 3 buses that we would play cat-mouse with, and maybe 3-4 transports. I finally did see plates from PEI today, along with Ohio, Idaho, Maine, New Jersey, Florida, and California. The big surprise was that 50 % of the plates were from Ontario.

Now, the start of the day. I was't too motivated to get up when my alarm went off, as I could hear the rain pouring down on the tent. I was hoping it would let off soon, but it didn't. Eventually, I got my lazy ass out of bed, and got started. Everything was packed ahead of time as I wanted to leave fairly quickly. I packed up, grab my food that was hung in the tree (bear country again), and took off. The plan was to eat breakfast outside of the campground. A neat thing – I took down my tent backwards today – I kept the fly on, unhooked the tent itself under the fly (to keep it, and me dry), rolled it up under that little fort thing, then took down the fly. It did keep things dry, but I'm sure with the rain during the ride, it was pointless to do.

Things went smoothly leaving the campground. I found a pic-nic area to eat. Since it was still pouring rain, I ate in the outhouse. Luckily, the smell wasn't bad. I was dry, for the time being. Afterwards, the ride started, and what a ride it was.

Once I got out of the park, where the original plan was to stay overnight in Ingonish, I decided to just keep going. It was raining a bit, I felt good, and there was still a fair amount of daytime left. I figured if I roll a certain number of kms today, and do the same tomorrow, I'd be a day ahead of schedule (from what was planned a few days ago). Things look good for schedule. Things look so friggen good actually, as I have one more day before I am on the Rock – the final phase. Calice je suis excite, c'est fricken weird. Surreal.

I took a cable ferry to Englishtown – the thing is being pulled by a cable that's hooked up to both sides of the river-bank. Neat. Also, I am around 30 k from North Sydney (the ferry to NFLD), but I'll do a long detour of around 150 k to get there tomorrow. Why? Because I'm sometimes a dolt. There's a few things I want to see before hitting the ferry. The big question is: Do I take the ferry to Argentia, or to Port-aux-basques? You can always give me some input on that. Louisbourg, no, I can't go down that far. Maybe some other time. I can't look at my map, as it's drying out. It's actually in 3 different pieces now (ripped, due to being wet). We'll see if I cave in and buy another one. Maybe getting into NFLD, they'll give me one.

Nothing spectacular for food today, except that I purchased a Cloudberry jam. It's some sort of small apple the size of a blue-berry or something. I haven't tasted it yet. It's an exclusive thing from NFLD. The other day, I tasted Merrick at the Glendale Manor (aka at the outlaws). Thanks again, by the way, for letting me crash there and to feed me. Gros merci les MacGillavray's. Oh ya, merrick. Some sort of sausage-ish thing. Very soft, almost like fried mashed-potatoes, little spicy. I think it's also called white-pudding, but dont quote me on that. I dont think it's like blood-pudding, whatever that is.

Alright, off to bed in a little bit, after I just relax for a while.

So, wishing you all a very swell day (Sunday, I believe).

To quote one of the few anthems of the 90's: “I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul. I want you to know, when I'm not around, you're so very special”. So, my parting words of the night – you guys are so very special. See you very soon,

p

(the video - sorry for the quality. i pressed "compact mode" when i was filming. plus, it's hard to film holding the camera in one hand, trying to go fast when it's drizzling and the roads are wet, and winding). (the risks i take for you guys).