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Published: July 31st 2011
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The Morning After
The hills of Argentia, Newfoundland make up the background this morning Today was a roller coaster, emotionally and physically.
As we didn't have sleeper cabins on the ferry, we curled up on the floor under some seats in the movie room. It wasn't bright light, but it wasn't terribly dark either. The light from the halls still shone in our eyes. Therese especially had trouble sleeping, so when they made the one hour until arrival announcement, we stayed where we were for a few extra minutes trying to grab some extra shut eye. As a result, we missed the breakfast buffet by a couple of minutes. There was still some toast in the snack bar, but no peanut butter, and no protein to fuel us up for a long day of riding.
We said our goodbyes to our new friends, and got moving. The first thing we found was a terribly steep hill that was no fun at all. When we finally got to the top, we headed over to the information centre to ask about restaurants. At the centre we bumped into the French couple again, also looking for a place to eat. In the direction of St. John's, there was nothing on the road for 40 km, so
Last Province
A warm welcome right off the boat we had to take a 3 km detour into the town of Placentia for some real breakfast. The four of us headed over together, and found that the town was at the bottom of a big hill. We got to the bakery quickly, but dreaded the ride back up.
After breakfast, we parted ways as the tandem cyclists went further into town looking for a grocery store, and we started back immediately. On a full stomach, the hill was not as bad going up as we originally worried. We stopped once at a lookout to enjoy the view, and in few other places for the first while. Things were finally starting to look good, and we were in good moods despite the cold air and grey skies.
Then we got our first flat tire of the trip. Don't get us wrong, just one flat on the whole trip is pretty great (knock on wood we don't get another today), but it still frustrated us a bit, as it slowed things down, and we were hoping to be able to say we got none. If you've been keeping up, you can guess which one of us got it (Therese).
Seven Islands Lookout
After some tough morning hills, we took a short break to enjoy the scenery We took out our tools, got the tire mostly fixed, and then as we were about to pump it up, the French couple showed up again on the road. They have been carrying around a full sized bicycle pump, which was a lot better than our tiny hand pump, so they pumped all of our tires for us. We do the best we can with our baby pump, but with the cold Newfoundland temperature, and having been lazy for a few days, the tires were quite under-full.
The two of them headed off a few minutes before us, but with our newly pumped tires, we thought we would pass them rather quickly. We never did pass them on the road, and before long we hit some more large hills. Even with these hills, we got a lot more flat sections that we were expecting - we had heard that Newfoundland was really hilly. We stopped for lunch at the side of the road, and then the sun finally came out. We tried eating a few blue berries at the side of the road, but it turns out that though they were blue, the weren't blueberries. Oops. After lunch, we
End of the Day
A nice bed and breakfast awaits (at the top of a hill!) had nice weather and even got some wind at our backs, so we made great time for a while. We stopped at another information centre we found to ask about St. John's accommodations, and though the lady working there was very helpful, it seemed everything was booked up. Looked like camping it would be. While waiting, the French couple pulled up behind us - it turns out that we had passed them after all, they had just stopped in a little park for a snack, and we didn't see them.
Not long after the info centre, the weather took a turn for the worse. The skies got grey, and the temperature dropped. With still 40 km to go by 4:00, we were in low spirits. We tried to stay positive with fun songs and lots of mile-stones, but it's not always easy. Therese especially was tired having gotten so little sleep on the ferry. When we ran out of songs to sing, we searched hard in our memories, and at some point thought of the old song "I'm blue daba dee daba di", but it was too depressing, so we changed it to "We're yellow".
Eventually we made
Riding Uphill Part 1
Therese finishes off the tail of a long uphill it to our planned stop in Holyrood, only about 50 km outside of St. John's. We checked into a bed and breakfast (which was just one super steep hill off the main road), and went to the closest restaurant, a little Chinese place at the foot of the hill. We bumped into a number of other people from Ontario there, and had a nice meal.
When it was all done we got to sleep as fast as possible. Tomorrow will mark the end of the long journey, and with any luck, we'll have warm beds to sleep in.
Stats:
Departure time: 8:30 am
Arrival time: 6:15 pm
Total distance travelled: 98.0 km
Total time on bike: 5h 12m
Average speed: 18.9 km/h
Trip distance: 2169.9 km
- E and T
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Tot: 0.088s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0509s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
mom
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Day 27--a dud!
What a day! No sleep, no brekkie, flat tire, and more uphills, what a dud day 27 turned out to be. But what an achievement! You're almost done. Let your last day be the most memorable. Celebrate! I can't wait to see you. It's been a long month without you. Hugs and kisses, love MOM.