Day three, St. John's

Day three in St. John's

Oh my f'n lord.

I saw an episode of South Park one day, where Cartman saw a family that had asses for faces. Seeing that, he basically became catatonic, and realized that nothing will ever be as funny as that. So, he couldn't laugh at anything else, since he saw (what he thought) was the funniest thing on earth. It was an interesting concept, in which I've thought about in similar ways. Could this phenomenon happen with me meeting a woman? Could it also happen with biking certain parts of the country? Or, with the scenery I would take in today?

I dropped so many f-bombs today. They were usually with the words “un.....believable”, “unreal”, “surreal”, “this is a..... different world”. and just plain “holy ......”. Amazing, I couldn't talk at times (except for that one or two words I could muster-up, and could only say that for those minutes I was there). Unreal. More on that later.

So, after 2 hours of sleep (I went to bed after the sun went up), I got up early to get the scheduled 8:15-8:30 ride. I waited. Waited. At 9:00, when the lovely Florida girl (aka worker at the hostel who would be my gopher for the bike box and gift today) walked outside, she realized that the driver hadn't shown up yet. Out goes her cell phone, and calls 'dem bastards. So, 9:30ish, he shows up, and we finally leave around 9:45. We got to the spot (after getting lost, as the guy didn't know where to go) at around 10:15. Nice way to start early. Hopefully I'd be back in town by sundown.

From Maddox's cove, I would hike the Cape Spear path. It is an 11.5 km trail (estimated 4-6 hours, moderate difficulty) to Cape Spear. My gear consisted of close to 3 litres of liquids, bananas, granola bars, some gels as a back-up, the left-over bread I had, with the last of the PB. The kit also included duct-tape. Being limited with hiking gear for this bike trip, I did the hike in my sandals, wearing black socks (what rule does that break – the Jacky-Chan rule? I forget), and duct-taped my feet to prevent blisters. Just 3 km into the hike, one of the straps on my sandals got pulled out of the sole – out comes the duct tape. Useful that stuff.

The hike. The start was quite fun, and I was hoping it'd be like that for the rest of the day. Nice and challenging paths, where you had to occasionally use your hands to pull yourself up or descend (what I call three/four-point contact climbing). The whole hike basically goes along the coast, right back to the city. So, there's some great spots of cliff-side views, staring out at the vast ocean that just seemed to go forever, blue skies with the occasional white fluffy cloud, and drop-offs of up to a few hundred feet just located a few inches from the trail. Beautiful, breath-taking. The second half of the hike was basically on a plateau, where I thought that it would be great to ride a mountain bike in these trails (especially with a 29er). For the first half of the hike, it would be impossible to ride a mountain-bike (especially with a 29er). What was also amazing for the hike was that I was completely alone, and felt completely alone in this amazing world. Great, peaceful and amazing feeling.

Lunch time, at Cape Spear, PB sandwiches were on the menu. Exciting. How was your lunch? I sat on the edge of the cliff, maybe a 100 feet below me was a rocky base, being pummeled by aggressive waves. Lovely sound. I stared-out at the ocean, watching fishing boats coast by in the distance, and spotting whales just bob up and down nearby. The cool breeze from the ocean was nice, and surrouded me with a subtle sea-salt ocean smell. So, how was your lunch?

The second hike was the Blackhead Path. It is a mere 3.7 km path, considered “easy to moderate, 1 to 2 hours”, was nice. But, there was a km that wasn't easy. If this was “easy”, what would “moderate to difficult” be for the last trail of the day? Although short (1 hour), it was quite pleasing.

After stocking up on more water, consuming a fudge Popsicle with an iced-tea just at the trail head of the final one of the day, I trekked on. This was called the Deadmans Bay Path, a 10.6 km, 4 to 7 hour hike. This path would hike along the cliff-sides, then venture into the woods for a while, then dump you back to the cliff-sides at the top. Great scenes. There was one spot, called Peggy's Leg, that just knocked me on my arse (see paragraph 1 and 3 of this entry). I just stayed there for a while. There were many times during the hike that I just stood right on the edge, and I couldn't stay there for too long (got scared). Some cliff sides I didn't even have the courage to get close to the edge. Amazing.

During the first hike, I found that I was taking too many pictures and videos. “Memory Card Full”. Shit. So, I had to delete a few pics and vids to hopefully make it to Cape Spear, where I would hope to buy a memory card there. All the other ones, 3 gig's worth, are full of stuff from when I left Ottawa. But, I had to take videos at times as the pics didn't come close to capturing some stuff. The vids were alright, but can't replace being there. At Cape Spear, I wasn't lucky this time. So, more pick-and-delete stuff. I would definitely make it back to town with a full memory card.

Well, with the views on the 3rd hike, I had to take tons of pics, and a few fast videos of good quality (not compressed). I made up my mind that when I do hit Gros Morne one day (hopefully soon), I will make the detour to come back and hike these trails again (and more trails).

The last part of the last trail was on a plateau full of slanted rocks. The texture is similar to concrete mixed in with small rocks, where their appearance is also multi-coloured (different rocks, some hardened-peat, etc). This could be bike-able. Later on, I guess I had the same thoughts as a few other folks. Four dudes, riding some pigs, were doing these trails. Sweet. I got the big urge to go back to Ottawa and finally ride my new bike – Beckie. What was really making me curious is how they would descend (or at times ascend) some of the long unrideable terrain). Some sections would take me 5 minutes to go down 100 metres, having to grab on to anything and everything to slowly get down. Sweet, excellent hiking.

So, arriving to the edge of town, I took a cab to the hostel. Lazy. I then took a much-needed shower, packed up the bike and my gear. At 10:30, I went out and had supper (KFC). There was still two QB beers I hadn't sampled yet, so I went on a hunt. The QV Ale I found, but the Iceberg beer, I had no luck. I went back to the hostel, where I would get a max of 3 hours of sleep before having to get up to go to the airport.

Rest days, they were.

So, I am finishing the St. John's entries as I am waiting to board on the final flight home, from Halifax.

See you soon,

p
(pics uploaded, finally)
(yes, one more entry left, a little summary of the trip, more stats basically, to conclude this blog).