Day 56 - St. Andre to Woodstock NB - 127.8 kms
Day 56 Progress to Woodstock New Brunswick - 5,661.1 kms
Grand Falls 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.
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.
The TCT 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!
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!
A wonderful lunch stop in Perth-Andover
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.
A gravestone in the Bishop Cemetery... 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...
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...
McCain Foods world headquarters! 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!
That's a lot of bridge!
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.
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.