With our late night arrival into Moncton, and needing to catch up on the photo gallery from Day 57, the night slipped away far too quickly. After the long day, we were both exhausted and once the photos had been uploaded on a very slow hotel internet, we decided we would complete the blog in the morning and get to bed.

The alarm came too early and we ended up blogging before, during and after the free breakfast in the lobby of the Travelodge. The picture uploads were much faster in the lobby because we were closer to the wifi signal.

We had made the decision last night to change our Day 59 destination from Port Elgin to Cap-Pele' so that we could travel along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean (via the Gulf of St. Lawrence) as we rode towards the Confederation Bridge which would take us to PEI on Day 60. This meant that today would be just 60 kms (one third of the distance we rode yesterday) and so we were looking at today as a bit of a "mini rest day". We took full advantage of the 12:00 check-out time and didn't ride away from the hotel until about 12:15PM. We took a scenic route through Moncton which really didn't make a big impression on us. We were only there a short time, but our experience was that the drivers in Moncton seemed particularly impatient with cyclists compared to what we have noticed in most other cities.

Our route to Cap-Pele' took us 35 kms to the town of Shediac located on the coast. We rode through beautiful countryside with forests, farms, old and new houses, cattle, barns, silos.... Cam felt no compulsion to hurry the ride, rather wishing to slow it down. He found himself drawn to look closely at the houses he was riding by trying to take in all of their details while wondering who lived there and what life there was like. He breathed deeply as they rode through the forests wanting to be able to remember the smell of New Brunswick after we are gone, and he noticed that the air began to taste of salt as they moved closer to the ocean. A cycling adventure like this lets you get about as close to our country as you can while you cross it, however, he has found that even seeing it in this way leaves him wishing he could experience it more closely - meeting more people and being able to stop and experience more of the world that was passing by...

He also realized as he was riding along why this blog that he and Ken have so painstakingly maintained is so important. It is great to be able to share our adventure with our family and friends in this way, but it is through these entries that we will be able to remember and to cherish our adventure. They will help us to remember the smell of New Brunswick, the character of Quebec, the characters of Michigan, the challenges of BC, the many friends who supported and cheered us along the way, and so much more.

At about 2PM, the Gulf of St. Lawrence came into view shortly before we arrived at Shediac causing a rush of excitement and a growing sense of accomplishment. We had ridden from sea to sea!

As we rode into Shediac, we got a further rush of excitement to see the world's largest lobster proudly displayed there...! After the obligatory photos, we had a craving for lobster - or at least seafood - for lunch. Fortunately there are several local establishments featuring  seafood on the menu, so we had no trouble satisfying our appetites. In fact, Cam had a double serving, later stopping at McDonald's as we had seen an advertisement for a "McLobster" sandwich and he just had to give it a try. It was quite a treat, but it could have used a little less of the sauce - which is pretty similar to the sauce on the McChicken sandwich...

After lunch, the road to Cap-Pele' followed the shoreline of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, making for plenty of photo stops. It was also in this stretch that we reached another distance milestone at 6,000 kms!!! We once again stopped to mark the milestone, did a high five, and got back to the business of completing the ride. We arrived in Cap-Pele' at about 5PM and stopped at a visitor information booth to explore our accommodation options and to get some supper recommendations. Unfortunately, our accommodation options were limited to Seely's Sandy Beach Motel. Fortunately there were plenty of rooms available.

On our way to supper we rode down to nearby L'Aboiteau Beach! This beach features a beautiful sandy shoreline. According to the posted tide schedule we were there precisely at high tide for today - 7:14 P.M.

We then headed to Fred's Seafood Restaurant for some local seafood, followed by a quick trip to a convenience store for some snacks. This will provide the fuel we need for our late night blogging.

And so, we head to bed on the eve of the last day of our adventure. Tomorrow will be a longer ride at 122 kms and we will need to arrive at Charlottetown by 4PM so that we can get our bikes to a bike shop to be crated for our flights. Therefore, we want to get away from here by 9AM at the latest. This will mean a very early alarm compared to what we have grown used to over the last few weeks.

From the East coast....Good night...!

Ride Details:
- Distance:                 60.4 kms
- Riding time:            2 hours, 57 minutes
- Average speed:      20.5 kms
- Wind:                      Negligible
- Temperature:        22 degrees Celcius
- Cumulative:            6,005.2 kms

Tomorrow's Destination:       Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island - 122 kms

For more ride details see Strava and for more photos from today's ride see our Photo Gallery.

You might recall that in the early days of our trip, our hotel criteria were very clear (price, free breakfast, hot tub), however, over the course of our adventure, these criteria have changed. We found that about 25 - 30% of the way into the trip, the presence of a hot tub became less important to us as our conditioning improved and our muscles were less fatigued at the end of the day. We also found that we wanted to have a little more time to get out of the hotel at night to see a little of the towns we were in while we sought a place for dinner. More recently, we have found that a free breakfast dropped out of the criteria as it has become more important to find a hotel at all... It seemed that over the first 75% of the trip we never worried about finding a hotel - rather, the trick was choosing among a few. Since leaving Montreal, as we've traveled through smaller towns off the main roads, and just finding a hotel has been a challenge - sometimes because of their scarcity, and sometimes because it is summer and they are full.

The scarcity of hotels impacted our ride on Day 58 in a big way. We built our original schedule back in January using the online AMA Triptik tool - which was extremely helpful. We knew that we had to ride 110 kms a day on average through the trip, and so for each day we would look for a town around the 110 km mark, and research it to ensure there was one or more hotels. For Day 58, we selected Petitcodiac, NB, which meant a 140 km ride. However, as we went to book a reservation the other night, we couldn't find any accommodations of any sort in Petitcodiac - or within 20 kms of the town. We researched alternate routes and asked anyone that we could, however, it seemed that the last half of the trip from Fredericton to Moncton (170 kms) was a pretty remote wilderness with the only accommodations West of Moncton being a B&B in Salisbury at about 155 kms.

So we set off this morning with an unusual day planned - we would ride 120 kms and then take the first accommodations that we came upon. Our original route plan was to take Highways 102/105 and 112 - thinking that there was more chance of running upon a remote motel on these back-roads than on the TransCanada.

We knew that there was a chance that we would end up staying in Moncton, which would mean the second longest day of our trip, however, we didn't get on the road until 11:30....! First, Cam had to ride to a nearby bike shop - the Radical Edge - to replace his rear tire. As we have found consistently on the trip, the service staff put Cam's bike at the front of the line. Unfortunately, the shop didn't carry the Schwalbe Marathon tire he had used since Brandon and that hadn't had one flat since then. However, they recommended another tire and Cam was riding away from the shop by 9:20AM. Interestingly, the technician told him that he could probably have made it to Charlottetown on the "blue rubber" as touring tires give a long warning to avoid stranding touring cyclists in the middle of nowhere... Cam feels better having a new tire however as he had enough flats in the first part of the trip and doesn't need another!

Ken had been trying unsuccesfully to upload pictures to our website in the hotel room and sent an email to the support team at Weebly. After getting packed up, we stopped at Cora's for breakfast and then at Tim Horton's to see if we could upload pictures there - which worked just fine. It appears that the hotel wifi was the problem... In any case, this took us to 11:30AM before we were on our way!

We followed Google Gretta (?!) onto a beautiful, freshly paved paved trail for about 5 kms. Eventually, a "trail closed" sign gave us concern. However, using Google Maps we saw that the bike trail closely followed the roads and so we chose to take the roads to get us to Highway 102. This road took us to the Barton Bridge which took us North across the St John River. There, we took Highway 105 about 35 kms to the little town of Jemseg where the road intersected with the TransCanada Highway and where we found the "Turner's One Stop" cafe which served us a surprisingly good lunch. It was there that we had to make a decision on taking Highway 112 or to get back onto the TransCanada. We asked the waitress, and she didn't know if there were any motels on the 112. Having seen very little development on the 105, and based on the lack of any online signs of life on the 112, we decided to take the TransCanada for the first part of the afternoon, but to take a crossroad over to the 112 if we didn't like it.

The TransCanada has been recently re-paved on this segment and had shoulders that must have been 10 feet wide. Although we were once again riding with semi's and monstrous RV's, we felt very comfortable with our broad lane, which was lined with rumble strips along the left edge. The countryside has become less hilly than the stretch from the Quebec border to Fredericton, and so there weren't as many hills as early stretches that we had ridden. When it came time to make the decision whether to move to the 112, we decided to continue on the TransCanada as we weren't comfortable that there would be any better chance of finding a motel on that road.

Today's ride with no specific destination/distance provided a bit of a mental challenge to Cam as he has developed a fairly consistent approach to monitoring his daily rides. He marks each of the following points with mental milestones - 10%, 20%, 25%, 1/3, 50%, 2/3 and 75%. By doing this, it helps to feel that we are making progress each day (and there is a lot of time to think about such things on the road!). Another game that he plays starts as we begin to get closer to the destination. Cam's ride from home to work was 17 kms. When we are 34 kms from the destination, he says "Just a ride to work and back", which makes the remaining ride seem pretty manageable (in spite of it still being about an hour and a half!). At 17 kms, it was just a ride home from work. Some days, this game starts at 68 kms, meaning 2 days of rides to work, but that isn't quite as comforting...!

This day turned out to be a good test of our conditioning. The kilometres passed quickly after lunch and we were surprised to be suddenly 10 kms - and then 20 kms - away from Jemseg. Although less hilly, there were still many hills of 1 to 2 kilometers in length and running grades of 4 - 5%. Several of these came after we had already ridden 100+ kilometres. We both noticed today that we could climb these hills and get to the top without feeling that tired. Thinking back to the beginning of the trip, these types of hills would have left us huffing and puffing pretty heavily at the top. We guess that riding 6,000 kms across the country is good for your fitness!

We continued riding and reached the town of Salisbury at 155 kms at about 8:00PM without having seen any overnight accommodations in over 100 kms! We called the Salisbury B&B, but the number had been disconnected. There were no other visible options (or online options) and so we decided to go another 18 kms to Moncton (that's just over a ride home from work!). Although the day had been very cloudy and misty, we were amazed that we had not been rained on all day and we rolled into Moncton just as darkness was descending. We had about eight hotel options within a 0.5 kilometre radius, however, no restaurant options (?!?) and so we ordered pizza to the room for the first time of the trip. We weren't in the mood to get back onto the bikes to ride 2 - 3 kms for dinner after having spent seven and a half hours in the saddle today! We relaxed in the Travelodge feeling great satisfaction at riding 173 kms and finding that it was an "easy day"!

Ride Details:
- Distance:                 173,4 kms
- Riding time:            7 hours, 35 minutes
- Average speed:       22.9 kms/hour
- Wind:                       Negligible
- Temperature:          18 degrees Celcius
- Cumulative:            5,944.7 kms

Tomorrow's Destination:    Cap-Pele, New Brunswick - 59.0 kms

For more ride details, see Strava and for more photos from today's ride see our Photo Gallery.

Last night was a late one for getting our work done. The WiFi signal didn't reach our motel room so we ended up doing our blog in the motel lobby until we felt bad for keeping the manager up so late (he felt bad about the WiFi situation, so he was very accommodating). We finished the blog sitting on the steps of the motel office at about 1:45AM...! We seem to be in a "death spiral" of sorts lately - we stay up late working on our blog, which means we wake up later in order to get enough sleep. This delays our departure times, which delays our arrivals, which means we get started on the blog late. Fortunately we are almost out of days, so things will work out just fine.

Woodstock calls itself "New Brunswick's Oldest Town", but we must say that we found very little appealing about it. We realize that we were there for a very short time and didn't see all of it, however, we did see as we were heading for breakfast that today was parade day - so perhaps that might have changed our impressions!?! Unfortunately, we'll never know....

This morning, for the first time, we stopped at Tim Horton's for breakfast. The upside is that it's fast and cheap. It was also on our way out of town and Cam needed to use their WiFi. Tim Horton's has a pretty standard formula, however, even the Woodstock Tim's underwhelmed us.

We left town around 11:00AM, and once again took a less than direct route out of town thanks to "Google Gretta". If you read yesterday's blog, you will recall that during the morning we realized that we shouldn't be blindly trusting Gretta and researched the route for the afternoon more carefully. Well, I guess that you wouldn't call us quick learners, as we set out this morning blindly trusting her once again and ended up on a rutted, muddy, dirt roadway. Fortunately, we were able to find a detour back to Main Street.

Once we were finally out of town, we found ourselves on Highway 165 which was a delightful paved road with little traffic that ran along the St. John River. The sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day for a bike ride. Compared to riding the TransCanada Highway, the secondary highways have far more character and allow you to view more closely what life in New Brunswick looks like. Because they run alongside the river, they also usually have far fewer hills.

As we continued riding, the picturesque 165 turned into Highway 102, many sections of which used to be part of the original TransCanada highway. While there were signs of past development, we found a serious lack of services along this stretch, likely due to the building of the new TransCanada far from the river. By 3:00PM, we had ridden over 70 kms but still hadn't found a place to stop for lunch. Finally, the Kings Landing Historical Settlement appeared, and we were able to buy some overpriced sandwiches and drinks from the museum gift shop. While we would highly recommend this route for cyclists versus the TransCanada, we would also suggest that it would be a good idea to pack snacks and a lunch.

It was a good thing we were able to find food, as the final 35 kms approaching Fredericton involved considerably more hill climbing.

Speaking of climbing, those of you who have been following our adventures might remember that on Day 3, Cam was finding that his hill (mountain) climbing capabilities were a little lacking and said that "he hopes to ride the hills of New Brunswick and PEI alongside his riding buddy Ken!" Well, now that we are here, we can advise that Cam's hope is being realized. It is interesting that we now find that our climbing capabilities are very similar. It varies from day to day, or from morning to afternoon, but generally we are very comparable in our hill-climbing - and we are both dramatically faster at climbing hills than when we began...

Once we reached the outskirts of Fredericton, we were able to find a scenic (and flat!) bike path along the river that took us to a Tim Horton's for cold drinks (thanks to Google Gretta...!). From there we were able to book a room in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Fredericton - formerly called The Lord Beaverbrook Hotel! Being downtown will allow Cam to visit a nearby bike shop first thing Monday morning to have a new back tire installed as he noticed yesterday that his tread was wearing through to the blue rubber warning strips which means there is a few hundred kilometers left in the tire. Fortunately it got him to Fredericton! (For those of you who recall that Cam replaced this tire in Brandon, Manitoba. It has lasted for 3,500 kms since then, which is pretty good considering the weight it is carrying.)

After checking in and cleaning up, we headed out for supper at the rooftop patio of The Snooty Fox and enjoyed a very nice meal. We are both getting tired of restaurant food, and Ken has already put in his order for Elaine's signature marinated BBQ Pacific salmon for his homecoming! Cam will have to wait a little bit as he is meeting his family in Chicago to celebrate his fiftieth birthday after the trip is done. 

Our meal was followed by blogging, which has once again kept us up until after 1:00AM! This was in spite of the WiFi not allowing us to upload pictures, which means we are going to have to do that in the morning. (Note that we stopped at Tim Hortons this morning on the way out of town to upload the pictures for the blog. We plan to do the Photo Gallery when we arrive at the hotel tonight.)

Ride Details:
- Distance:                110.2 kms
- Riding time:           5 hours, 23 minutes
- Average speed:     20.5 kms/hour
- Wind:                      East, light to moderate
- Temperature:        24 degrees Celcius

Tomorrow's Destination:        Petitcodiac, New Brunswick - 140 kms. This was the plan, but we were not able to see any accommodations at Petitcodiac and some locals have told us not to expect much between here and Moncton. Our new plan is to ride Highway 105 and 112 towards Moncton, and take the first suitable place we see after we pass 120 kms.... We are hoping not to repeat our Shawville Motel-less experience tonight!

For more ride details see Strava.and for more ride photos from today, you can check out our Photo Gallery (once we are able to get the pictures uploaded...)

We both had trouble getting to sleep last night, but even so Ken was awake before the 9:00 AM alarm went off and turned it off. This was lucky because if Cam hears that alarm one more time it's going in the toilet...! Our complimentary breakfast at the hotel included some kind of bean soup-like concoction. Perhaps a local specialty?

Although the clouds looked threatening, we felt only the occasional drop of rain as we rolled out of the parking lot around 11:00AM - which was just 2 hours after the alarm went off, an improvement from our past couple of days.

Soon we were in the neighbouring town of Grand Falls, and thanks to a missed turn found ourselves viewing a rather impressive waterfall on the St. John River - which is the origin of the town's name.  As we watched a couple of people zip line across the falls to the other side, Cam wondered out loud what kind of shenanigans had gone on at these very accessible falls over the years and how many people might have drowned there.

As mentioned in yesterday's post, our plan was to avoid the TransCanada highway in favour of routes with less traffic - and hopefully less hills. We were relying on the Google Maps bike route navigation application to help us with this. We are quite certain that no one at Google has actually ridden the route that Google Gretta took us down today! We certainly saw the "back roads" of New Brunswick, including many fields of their famous potatoes. It was nice to see more potatoes littering the road than roadkill (which we have seen much of throughout our trip).

Google Gretta was actually trying to lead us onto the "Trans Canada Trail", which is a national non-profit project to build cycling and walking trails across Canada (the "TCT"). We have avoided it on our trip thus far because it the trails have most often not been paved when we have come across them, and this was the case again today, so we stuck to the paved roads running parallel to the TCT. At one point about 30 kms into our day, we were approaching with dread a very steep and long hill on the road. Fortunately, as we approached the bottom of the hill, Google Gretta piped up and signaled that the TCT was just to our East, so we happily chose to detour to the left and to take that route! The TCT in this area is an abandoned railway right of way, and so we knew that it would avoid the large hill that had loomed along the roadway. The trail was not paved, and the recent rains had left large puddles in several places, however, we were happy to splash through them in order to avoid the hill! After riding on this for several kilometres we came to the small town of Aroostook and returned to a paved road. As we road the TCT, we also recalled that we had both made financial contributions to the development of the TCT cycle path system in Calgary about 15 years ago when our adventure was first taking form, and so it was nice to be able to take advantage of the trails now!

Our route took us to the town of Perth-Andover, where we stopped for lunch at a small diner with a long name - "The 878 Waterfront Bistro & Cafe".  In addition to enjoying a most delicious lunch we met the owners - Charles and Shirley - who were most friendly and interested in our adventure. We also met a nice couple from Laval Quebec - Paul and Lorraine - as well as some of the locals, including Terry, the mayor of Perth-Andover! We learned that the town had suffered a disastrous flood last spring and is still dealing with the aftermath, including the demolition of many homes and businesses.

During lunch, we did some research on alternative routes - afraid to continue giving our blind faith to Google Gretta - and concluded that we should continue our journey on Highway 105, a part of the Fiddlehead River Valley Scenic Drive and running along the East side of the St. John River. This turned out to be an excellent decision as the road had good pavement and only moderate hills, but also gave us a glimpse into life in New Brunswick with nice little towns, proudly maintained houses, interesting sites and great scenery.

At one point Cam noticed a small family graveyard off to the West side of the road and for some reason felt prompted to stop and have a closer look. To his surprise, the second gravestone he read was that of a young man named Samuel Orser who at the age of 23 had "met death by by drowning at Grand Falls NB" in 1896... 

We continued riding under cloudy skies and cool (18 degree) conditions, and soon were surprised to see we were suddenly at 80 kms and entering the town of Florenceville, named in honor of Florence Nightengale and home to the corporate offices of McCains. We had noticed as we rode into town that Florenceville calls itself "The French Fry Capital of the World", however, we couldn't find anyplace to get some fries!

The other "highlight" of the afternoon was seeing the longest covered bridge in the world, which is located at Hartland. Although it wasn't on our route, we rode across the bridge and back, just so we could say we did!

We then set off for the final 21 kms to our our destination at Woodstock. It was after 6PM when we were leaving, and so we were eager to finish for the day. Unfortunately, Highway 105 decided to get very hilly for the next 10 kms, so we didn't make quite as good time as we had hoped. However, just as we arrived at Woodstock at 7PM, the sun finally broke through the clouds - a fitting end to a great day!

Ride Details:
- Distance:                127.8 kms
- Riding time:           6 hours, 1 minute
- Average speed:      21.2 kms/hour
- Wind:                      Northwest, light to moderate (!)
- Temperature:         18 degrees Celcius
- Cumulative:           5,661.1 kms

Tomorrow's Destination:    Fredericton, New Brunswick - 105 kms

For more ride details see Strava and for more photos from today's ride see our Photo Gallery.

We arrived late to Edmundston last night, and even later to the Days Inn, which required that we ride an extra 8 kms from our dinner spot. One of the reasons that we agreed to ride that extra 8 kms (rather than take a hotel close to the restaurant) was that being closer to our destination tomorrow would allow us to sleep until we woke up without an alarm. With just 90 kms the next day we weren't worried about a late departure. Unfortunately, when we finally shut the lights out at 2:30AM we realized that the free continental breakfast ended at 10AM and the CFO of the team (Cam) wouldn't approve a paid breakfast when we could get one for free! So we set a 9:30AM alarm and didn't get the extra sleep that we had both been looking forward to.

Speaking of the CFO, it is interesting as we come to the end of the adventure to see how clearly our relative strengths (and weaknesses) have translated into our respective roles on this adventure. It is not that dissimilar to the leadership of a company.

We are co-CEO's of C&K Adventure Corporation, both having had the vision and passion to bring the adventure to life.

Cam is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and the Chief Information Officer (CIO) - responsible for budgeting, cost accounting/reporting, and historical information capture/reporting. (He is aided in these tasks by his amazing memory - he can name, in order, the towns we have stayed in and the accommodation where we stayed!) He has dutifully maintained a detailed spreadsheet on a daily basis capturing all financial and ride information. (For those of you who may have wondered, we take turns paying for the meals and hotels and through this spreadsheet ensure that we have both paid for about 50% of the total costs. By the time we are done, we will be very close to equal in what we have each paid and a small adjustment might be required. The CFO has it all under control!)

Ken is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) - responsible for execution of the plan, attention to the details, risk mitigation, bicycle technology and bicycle maintenance. He is very careful to look forward and ensure that we are proactively managing all details to avoid issues and problems. You've also seen the deployment of technology on his handlebars that provides information required by the CIO...!

Once again, the morning time warp hit us and it wasn't until noon that we were getting on our bikes after a 9:30AM alarm. One of the reasons for the delay was that as Cam was getting on his bike, he did a pocket check and realized his wallet was missing. After a check of his bags, he concluded it must be in the room and went back, relieved to find that an information card had fallen over top of it on a counter. Finally ready to leave, and having taken our "road ahead" picture, we felt the first raindrop...the first of many that would follow on a very wet day. This slowed us further as we had to dig out our pannier covers and cover up our bags.

Finally, we got going with a moderate headwind. We hadn't yet made a hotel reservation and so we decided that we would ride a quick 30 kms to a Tim Hortons in St Leonard and then call for a hotel reservation at our destination, Perth-Andover. This 30 kms turned out to be not-so-quick. The TransCanada Highway gave us plenty of climbing with three hills of about 2 kms and grades of 5 - 6% over that 30 kms in a heavy rain. We arrived at the Tims wet and tired.

Unfortunately (or fortunately as we later realized), the hotels in Perth-Andover were completely full because of a tournament of some sort in town over the weekend. One of the clerks told us that we should try hotels in Grand Falls - which was just 19 kms Southeast from where we sat in the Tim Hortons. We managed to reserve a room at the St. Andre Quality Inn, just outside of Grand Falls. We decided we would have a short day today (about 50 kms), leaving a ride of 110 kms on Saturday - which wasn't so bad. This would give us a bit of a "mini" rest day today and lifted our spirits knowing that we weren't going to have to climb any more big hills today!

One of the unforeseen benefits of this turn of events was that the route to the Quality Inn took us to Highway 144, a secondary highway that follows the St. John River. This highway, about 5 kms Southwest of the TransCanada, was almost empty. It had great shoulders and far fewer and shorter hills than the TransCanada, and we were also happy to see that the wind had shifted and was now behind us. We will be able to follow this , and other secondary highways all the way to Fredericton, which should make for a very pleasant ride. This highway forms part of the Fiddlehead Scenic Drive that follows the St. Johns River from the Quebec border to the Bay of Fundy. We are very much looking forward to following this route as we approach the finish line.

Cam used our "found time" this afternoon to get some administrative work done (yuck!), while Ken was able to have a nice nap and also did our laundry (one of the COO's responsibilities...)! We were able to get everything done, and are heading to bed an hour or two earlier than we are accustomed!

Good Night and Bon Nuit (New Brunswick is 50/50 English/French in our experience so far).

Ride Details:
- Distance:                49.6 kms
- Ride time:              2 hours, 24 minutes
- Average speed:     20.7 kms
- Wind:                     Southeast, moderate. Changed to Northwest after Tims...
- Temperature:        14 degrees and constant rain (there is a rain warning in the area until 8AM!)
- Cumulative:           5,533.6 kms

Tomorrow's Destination:    Woodstock, New Brunswick - 110 kms

For more ride details, see Strava and for more ride photos see our Photo Gallery.

Neither of us are "morning people", but for some reason, this morning it was even harder than usual to drag ourselves out of bed. We then entered the time/space continuum, where from the time the alarm goes off until we have finished breakfast (at the restaurant right next door) and are getting on our bikes, three hours somehow goes by!



We had the option of riding on a bike path today but decided against it because:
a) we didn't know what type of surface we would be riding on,
2) it was approximately 15 kms longer than the 120 km highway route, and
III) we were losing an hour today due to the final time change in New Brunswick.

Although the food was delicious and the service superb, the staff couldn't shed any light on the origins of the town's unusual name. (Cam's subsequent research indicated several possible explanations, but general confusion on the actual source. Officially, the explanation is that it is derived from the name of a nearby lake "Lake Temiscouata", with the "Ha Ha" coming from "...couata"... Cam liked the other explanations which were much more interesting!)

The afternoon featured several stretches of construction involving twinning the TransCanada highway. This made for less than ideal riding conditions. At one point we saw a section of completed highway that was not open to traffic yet, however the pavement ended shortly after we began riding on it, so it was back to sharing the highway with vehicles.

Late in the afternoon we were excited to cross the border into New Brunswick, and into Leg 6 of our adventure - "The Maritimes".  In spite of our excitement, we have fond memories of our time in Quebec and will both miss it. The fact that the province is so different from Alberta has made it a most excellent part of our adventure.

Cam's in-laws hail from New Brunswick and so he called his mother-in-law Sharon as he crossed the border to share his first visit in the province with her. Unfortunately, we won't be going close to St. John, where they were from.

The combination of a late start, numerous hills and a time change meant we didn't arrive in the Edmundston area until about 7:30PM. The town seems to stretch forever along the highway. For the first time on the trip, we elected to stop for supper before checking into a motel and cleaning up. We made a great choice for our meal - Pizza Delight features delicious roasted chicken with a salad/fruit bar and also a bread bar! You could grill your choice of bread and then choose from several awesome butter spreads. The price was also right as our dinner cost us less than breakfast this morning!

We used the time in the restaurant to choose a hotel for the night as we didn't expect it would be a problem to arrive here on a Thursday night and find a room. We underestimated the demand for hotel rooms in this town, however, and found the rates to be quite expensive. We chose the Days Inn, which required us to ride another 8 kms (and several hills) - which is still considered to be in Edmundston!  It was after 9:00PM when we were doing this ride, and so we had to use our flashing taillights to ensure that we could be well seen.  This is by far the latest that we have been on the highways on our trip so far, and we hope it is the last. It was 9:30PM by the time we got to the hotel.

One advantage to the change in our dinner/motel procedure is we can avoid digging out street clothes after showering, and just put on our "night wear".  Perhaps this will significantly speed up our morning routine....!

Ride Details:
- Distance:                135.0 kms
- Riding time:            6 hours, 30 minutes
- Average speed:      20.8 kms
- Wind:                       Northwest (light)
- Temperature:          24 degrees Celcius
- Cumulative:            5,484.0 kms

Tomorrow's Destination:            Perth-Andover, New Brunswick - 90.0 kms

For more ride details, see Strava and for more pictures from today's ride, see our Photo Gallery!

We awoke at 8:30AM to the sound of the waves of the St. Lawrence lapping the shore. This was in contrast to last night's calm, and was good news for us in that it meant a strong wind was blowing out of the Southwest. By about 10:00AM we were saying goodbye to our hostess and were ready for our morning surprise - the bill for our night's stay in the deluxe condo. Cam held his breath as Gilberte passed him the bill and gasped (using his inside voice) when he saw that it was $100 plus tax! The Aux Deux Marees was our best paid accommodations yet and we would highly recommend that if you are going through L'Islet-Sur-Mer, you should stay with our new friends Gilberte and Jean-Marc!

 We could see the dark clouds that had produced an overnight thunder and lightning storm ahead of us in the Eastern sky, but thanks to web weather apps we knew they were heading East and there was no weather following closely behind. The tailwind did not disappoint and was directly behind us as we headed Northeast to find a place for breakfast. We continued about 10 kms down the road to St. Jean-Port-Joli and as we rode we saw many charming art galleries, shops and restaurants.

After breakfast it was back on the bikes under sunny blue skies to take advantage of the strong wind at our backs. Fortunately, Denise and Carole had warned us yesterday that part of Highway 132 was closed for roadwork, and the Innkeeper Jean-Marc had given us a map showing the detour we should take. Unfortunately, we missed the suggested turn South by about 1.5 kms and had to backtrack a little bit. The detour led us back across the TransCanada highway which runs around 5 kms to the South of the 132. As we crossed it, we were reminded of how awesome the cycling has been in Quebec with low traffic roads,  wide shoulders and interesting riding. We certainly don't miss the TransCanada - although it had been our path through almost all of Western Canada and Ontario. The roads on the detour were fine until they turned to gravel for the final 3 kms. In total, the detour cost us about 8 kms - which could have been a lot worse.

We were making such good progress that by the time we reached the town of Kamouraska, we actually felt we were about to catch up to the dark clouds! Not wanting to get wet if we could help it, we paused at Le Bistro Cote-Est where locally produced breads, cheese and meat are featured. While we were enjoying a delicious gourmet grilled cheese sandwich  (featuring a delicious local cheese) something strange was happening in the skies above us. We emerged to find the skies had clouded over, the tailwind had changed to a slight headwind, and the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees! Ken couldn't remember the last time he had stopped to put his riding jacket on!

Highway #132 continues to follow the South coastline of the St. Lawrence River, and provided many opportunities for photo ops along the way.  The further North we rode today, the more we began to see the Maritime influence in the houses and landscape.

We reached Rivière-Du-Loup (Wolf River) about 5:30PM and found a room at Motel Au Vieux Piloteu. Tomorrow we turn South and begin the final leg of our journey into New Brunswick and then towards Charlottetown.

Ride Details:
- Distance:                112.7 kms
- Riding time:           4 hours, 53 minutes
- Average speed:     23.1 kms/hour
- Wind:                     Southwest, strong, changing to Northeast and light for the final 1/3
- Temperature:        23 degrees, declining to 14 degrees after lunch
- Cumulative:           5,349 kms

Tomorrow's Destination:        Edmundston, New Brunswick - 118 kms

For more ride details see Strava and for more photos from today see our Photo Gallery.

We both found that we were trying to stretch yesterday as long as we could as it is our last rest day of the trip - and because we both loved Quebec City and weren't ready to leave it yet. This continued again this morning. Ken gave Cam a little gift by shifting the alarm time from 8:30AM to 9:00AM and once the alarm went, we were both a little slow to get moving. The slow start was then aided by a very slow (but excellent) breakfast at Bistro L'Omelette a couple of doors down from our hotel. All procrastination opportunities behind us, we finally hauled our gear down from the third floor at around 11:00AM and the headed into the spooky hotel basement to retrieve our bikes. With only a single bulb to light the basement and create deep shadows, we both wondered what stories those walls could tell being almost 200 years old...

To cross the St. Lawrence River, we had to take the Levis Ferry from Lower Old Quebec across the river to the town of Levis. We were told that the loading facilities for vehicles were broken, so we had to board by pushing our loaded bikes up an incredibly steep ramp. After disembarking (via the vehicle ramp!) with all of the other cyclists, we took one last sad look back at Quebec City, with the imposing outline of Chateau Frontenac up on the top of the cliff. We are both certain that we will be back again to spend more time in this beautiful and incredibly interesting region. We then headed Northeast along a beautiful bike path that took us about 10 kms to Highway 132 (Le Chemin des Pionniers) that would lead us to the border of New Brunswick.

As they rode Highway 132, Cam admitted to Ken that he was stuck in a bit of a funk. This has been common following rest days as we got back on the road - and we have referred to it as our "Rest Day Hangovers". However, this time, it felt a little heavier than the past. As we continued, Cam realized that this is probably because yesterday was our final rest day, and the trip is coming to a close. While we are very excited to be able to complete our dream and to be able to see our families, at the same time, this is also the end of our dream - and so there are some mixed emotions. In any case, Ken suggested that maybe we should stop for a cold drink - and we did in at a small depanneur (convenience store) in the town of Beaumont.

We picked up some cold Gatorade and Cam quickly downed half the bottle, which started the perk-up process. As we were sitting there, a couple of gals rode up on their bikes with some interesting contraptions mounted under the cross-bar. Cam had seen them on the road a little earlier, and approached them to ask "qu'est que c'est?" (English: "what is that?"). He learned from Denise and Carole that these were batteries for their electric-motor-assisted bikes. Denise spoke a little English, and Cam spoke a little French, so we slowly worked our way through a conversation explaining that we had ridden from Vancouver. They told us about the area - warning us about some road construction on Highway 132 and also giving us advice on hotels and restaurants. By the time that we had completed our conversation, the Rest Day Hangover had passed. We wished them "au-revoir" and got back on the road. Not long after, Cam was ready for the daily "living the dream" high five and began to enjoy being back at it after a great final rest day!

Interestingly, Denise told us that Paul McCartney was performing an outdoor concert in Old Quebec City tonight. We wondered if we might have reworked our schedule for the end of the trip if we had known that was happening?

The Chemin des Pionniers took us away from the St Lawrence River for part of the day, but then brought us back later in the day. As we rode, Ken asked Cam, "Can you believe that we are riding alongside the St. Lawrence Seaway? We are used to riding along the Bow River, and here we are!" It was another moment of realizing the magnitude of the journey thus far and served to further pick us both up!

We had decided our planned destination for today would be the village of L'Islet-Sur-Mer. This was a ride of about 85 kms and would leave a 100 km ride for tomorrow. We had called ahead based on the advice of Denise and Carole and found that the B&B in town was full, but that there was room at the Aux Deus Meree hotel 4 kms further down Highway 132. It turned out that the room Cam reserved by phone when speaking his broken French with the proprietor (who spoke no English) was a one bedroom apartment overlooking the St. Lawrence. It is beautiful, but we still don't know what the room rate is so we are expecting a bit of a shock in the morning,..

The hotel is owned and run by Gilberte and Jean-Marc Cloutier who are a wonderful couple and run a delightful hotel. As the closest restaurant is 4 kms back in town, Jean-Marc acted as our chauffeur and gave us a ride into town. He then came back to pick us up after a delicious meal on a patio with a view of the sunset on the St Lawrence. This saved us from having to ride another 8 kms after a tough day! He then revealed the "Maison d'eau" which houses a delightful hot tub to help us relax our tired muscles. It has been an awesome stay at their fine establishment!

Avez une bonne nuit!

Ride Details:
- Distance:                86.7 kms
- Riding time:           4 hours, 8 minutes
- Average speed:     21.0 kms
- Temperature:        22 degrees Celcius
- Wind:                     East, light
- Cumulative:          5,236.3 kms

Tomorrow's Destination:    Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec - 105.0 kms

For more ride details see Strava and for more photos from today, see our Photo Gallery.

We couldn't have picked a nicer location for our final rest day of the trip. The weather was perfect and the scenery was spectacular! After sleeping in until 10:00AM (!) and enjoying breakfast on a sunny patio (actually every meal here was outdoors!), Ken headed to Cyclo Services in Lower Quebec to have the rear derailleur adjusted on his bike. As he was wheeling it into the service area he noticed the lining of his back tire was showing. So two new tires were in order as well. After over 5,000 km's his old tires didn't owe him anything. In no time Danielle and her staff had everything in tip top condition. Ken found it interesting that the owner, Danielle had to interpret his issues to the mechanic who spoke absolutely no English. Thankfully, nothing seems to have been lost in translation, however, tomorrow we should be able to confirm whether that is the case!

We spent several hours walking around the city, and following an online walking tour. As part of that tour, we enjoyed an informative historical presentation on the history of Quebec City at the Musee du Fort next to the Chateau Frontenac.  It helped us to understand the historical significance of this area, particularly the battles between New France and New England.  As most of you know, New England was the ultimate victor of those battles, however, the Quebecois retained the right to enforce their civil law, and to retain their language. Photos of our rest day can be found on our Photo Gallery.

Tomorrow we begin the final leg of our tour, so we are focusing on finishing strong. Ken uses the analogy of the Tour de France. As is often the case, this year's winner, Chris Froome had built up a large enough lead before the final day that he only needed to ensure he finished the race to win the crown. After proving to ourselves that we are capable of completing this feat, we now just have to finish it. However, it is our intention to finish strong.

If you haven't had a chance to read the comments from some of the students at El Jordan, please take a minute to visit Day 41 and read through them. They serve as an inspiration for us to finish this ride and we are hopeful that if you haven't had a chance to visit our "Donate" page and give towards this excellent organization, these comments might encourage you to do so...!

Lastly, we have received a question about the state of Cam's right hand which had swollen significantly from insect bites. It took about 5 days for the swelling to subside, but it has now returned to normal. Unfortunately, the numbness that afflicted the pinky and ring fingers of both hands has remained (see Day 16) but has not gotten any worse. He is hopeful that this will return to normal following completion of the ride.

Tomorrow's Destination:   Unknown - we want to arrive at Riviere-du-Loup on Wednesday night, and plan to find a hotel somewhere around half way tomorrow, which would be about 100 kms. This varies from our original itinerary which had us riding 140 kms....

Bonne nuit et beaux rêves!

We were both sad to have to leave Trois-Rivieres as it seemed like it would be an awesome place to have a rest day... however, we also knew that at the end of today we would be starting our final rest day in Quebec City - which we also know will be a great place. We agreed that we would love to have a vacation in this area with our wives and travel from Ottawa to Montreal, Trois-Rivieres and Quebec City someday...

We left Trois-Rivieres around 10:30AM and our road continued on the "Chemin de Roy" also known as Highway 138, which is what we had ridden from Montreal to Trois-Rivieres. Once again, Quebec provided us with awesome roads that weren't too busy. There is a freeway between Montreal and Quebec City (the 40) which is where most of the vehicles ride, so the 138 is primarily motorbikes, motortrikes and convertibles, along with quite a few bicycles. We have noticed that Quebec would seem to be the world capital of front-end tricycles as these have outnumbered the motorcycles between Montreal and Quebec City. We have also noticed that the longer we cycle, and the more hills we climb, the more motorcycles (or tricycles) are looking appealing  to us!

Cam also found an iPhone app to listen to the British Open Championship during this leg of the journey. With Lee Westwood and Phil Mickelson both contending when we left the hotel, Cam was very disappointed to not be able to watch today, but ESPN radio did a good job describing the action (or as much action as you can get out of golf!).

Around 1PM, and only 38 kms into our 140 kms day, we both agreed that we should stop for lunch on a nice patio in the town of Batiscan. This was unusual as we were just over 25% of the way through the trip and we generally like to have lunch once we are at least 50%. Conditions were good today with cooler weather (a high of 22 degrees) and lower humidity, however the wind was in our face, and we were both dragging a bit. We had a very good lunch and it helped to fuel us up. (It was also just as they started their lunch that Cam heard Phil Mickelson win his first British Open!!)

The rest of the day was a bit of a struggle for both of us. We were definitely in need of a rest day, and looking forward to getting to Quebec City. The countryside all the way from Montreal to Quebec City was beautiful. It was curious to us that we found that the towns were very charming from Montreal to about 3/4 of the way to Quebec City. However, they began to get less interesting as we got further Northeast. We did move inland from the St Lawrence, which is probably the reason for this, but it stood out to both of us. As we approached Quebec City, our route became more difficult to navigate, and so we decided to use the Google Maps application, with its bicycle-routing feature (in beta form) to navigate for the first time on the trip. Cam used his headset, and Google Gretta gave him turn by turn directions from about 30 kms out to the centre of the city. The app worked like a charm prompting Cam to say "I'm in love with Google Maps" at one point!  It was just after blurting this out that Gretta lead Ken and Cam up a hill that reached a 16% grade! Prior to this, the steepest hill was 9.5%! We were both in our lowest gear, standing to keep the bikes moving, but we both made it to the top of the hill where we had to take a bit of a rest break. Someone had warned us about the hills in Quebec, but so far we hadn't experienced them!

After reaching downtown at about 7PM, we took awhile to figure out where to stay, but Hotels.com lead us to some reasonably priced places within the walls of Old Quebec. We ended up in the Maison du General Hotel, which we are told is on the site of the house where General Montgomery, a US general, died in the 1600's. The hotel was built around 1800. We quickly cleaned up and headed further into Old Quebec to find a spot for dinner. As this is our last rest stop, we agreed to go a little more upscale and found an awesome patio and both had wonderful meals. We are looking forward to doing some more exploring tomorrow as it looks like there is much to see!

But for now....bon nuit!

Ride Details:
- Distance:                    140.9 kms
- Riding time:                6 hours, 21 minutes
- Average speed:          21.6 kms
- Wind:                          Northwest, light. Changed to Southwest light mid-afternoon
- Temperature:             22 degrees Celcius

Tomorrow's Destination:    Rest Day!

For more ride details see Strava and for more of today's ride photos see our Photo Gallery.