As anyone who has read this blog will know by now, this trip has had some serious highs, as well as some deep lows. For both of us. It’s been an adventure in every sense, which has on occasion left us feeling on top of the world. And sometimes at our lowest.
Of course, life as a whole isn’t all fun and laughter – but it really shouldn’t be too serious and sad either. I guess there is a lesson somewhere in all of that – if you get out and do things there will be times when it’s a struggle, sometimes it might even hurt. But of course, inevitably – happiness and joy will find you. This lesson has been with us pretty much from day 1. And the last couple of weeks of our time away from the UK have been no exception.
Hard Yakka – The Return
Let’s start with the lows – and in particular THE low. THE low manifested itself in a full day of bad things happening, heading from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia – over to a nowhere-ville place called Clyde River.
We had planned out a c.110km day on mainly trails for what turned out to be quite the auspicious day. The distance felt a little optimistic when we set off, mainly due to what we have come to expect from the quality of the surface on the rail trails in Canada, and latterly in particular in Nova Scotia.
It turns out that any glimmer of pessimism we had about the trail surface was absolutely justified. The riding was tough, and very slow. Soft sand, huge rocks, moon-surface-like craters. We just couldn’t get anywhere fast; it was like cycling through a box of marbles.
So we came off the trail onto quiet backroads – and we were chased by dogs on two occasions… what?!? This last happened in the US (we thought Canada was a doggo safe zone).
So back on the trail, Matt has to stop as his gear cable has snapped. Great – a 30 minute job to fix. Meanwhile I happened to look down at the bottom of my leg and spotted a tick merrily burying itself into the top layer of my skin. Uh oh – Nova Scotian ticks are apparently very Lyme disease-y (luckily Matt remembered the appropriate removal technique from when this last happened on the Austrian/Slovenian border).
We get going again and the trail gets a little teeny bit better, but then we’re by the sea and the headwind has picked up massively so we’re not going any faster. I am convinced that 40km in we will never (ever) get to our destination. Matt picks up a super slow puncture which we keep putting air into every 45 minutes.
We decide to join the main road which it turns out is somehow pretty busy in these parts. The shop we stop at for lunch is rubbish, there are trucks rumbling past and experience some incredibly bizarre and unprovoked road rage. We decide to go back to the trail which is bad bad again. Eventually we decide if we plan to sleep that night we need to get back on the main road. So we do and it’s even busier and narrower.
We decide at 5pm it’s time to call ahead to the campsite to let them know we’re coming. No answer. Oh well, fingers crossed. We join an even bigger highway – the actual proper Nova Scotian highway and cycle in the soft shoulder which is somehow a better surface than the trail and finally finally reach the turn off for our campsite.
12km later of actual reasonable riding we reach the site at about 6.30pm. We are greeted by a (sorry) very bizarre Nova Scotian couple and their grown up daughter, as well as Cuddles (real name) the angry little dog nibbling our ankles as we kick it away and try and charm the owners over the counter. They appear appalled to be greeted by two paying customers who want to camp at their (open) site, which had a lot neon “OPEN” sign outside. When we ask if can stay for the night in our little tent, there is a lot of tutting and side glances between the couple who eventually confess that their washrooms are ‘closed’ (we work out this is what they are saying with some difficulty as their deep maritime accents are nearly completely incomprehensible to us). I have also forgotten that ‘washroom’ also means ‘toilet’ in Canadian and so say ‘but there’s a toilet?’ They shake their heads. No.
Hmm. We decide to head 15 minutes back up the road to the other campsite we passed en route which online looked like it was out of action but… maybe? We get there and after being barked at very aggressively by a full pack of dogs, and noting that the black flies (little bitey flies similar to NZ sandflies) have descended on us we hotfoot it out of there and back to campsite 1. ‘We’ll pee in the bushes if that’s OK’ we announce on our return. Then comes a lot (lot) of kerfuffle about what we should pay them given there are no washrooms and we don’t want electric (this in particular takes way more explaining than necessary given we don’t have a motorhome or caravan to plug in). We just want water we can drink, some grass… and a bush. Eventually Matt just hands over $40 in the hopes that the kerfuffling about what to charge us might stop. It does (sort of). We follow the campsite owner at snail’s pace as he drives about another 1km to our accommodation (grass/bush) for the night. By this point the flies have found us again and we’re left (after more electric discussion) to get our tent up whilst trying desperately to evade being bitten (an impossible task).
Unsurprisingly, we do the tent pitching in double fast time. Matt gets his sleeping pad out to re-seal the latest tiny hole which likely won’t dry in time before bed and the emergency rice meal is cooked. We eat in the tent to avoid the flies. I’m washing up when I hear the distant rumble of thunder. Oh really?! The perfect way to round out the worst day arrives soon after (just in time to grab Matt’s mat and throw it in the tent). A lovely juicy storm involving thunder and lightning right above us and heavy heavy rain. By this point I’m over it. Done. I burrow down into my sleeping bag and wonder why I’m here.
It’s not all been like this!
I’ve not recounted all of this for any sympathy. But just because… it happened.
Despite the trails continuing to be very hit and miss on Nova Scotia, and the black flies continuing to find us for a few more nights, things picked up hugely after The Bad Day.
Nova Scotia calls itself ‘Canada’s Ocean Playground’ and parts of it really do feel like they are made for summer holidays involving seaside, fish and chips, amazing camping spots and sunshine. We’ve enjoyed plenty of all four here as well as loads of beautiful fishing villages and latterly an actual really good rail trail (the Rum Runner’s Trail).
We’ve had a couple of lucky breaks – the best being turning up at a small and completely empty campsite and being offered this Canadian 1970s Boler caravan to sleep-in, for the same price as a tent site. Something about it made us giddy with excitement!
Shelburne, Liverpool, Lunenburg, Mahone Bay and Chester were all highlights in the latter stages of our Nova Scotian adventure.
Although, some of our better luck did run out in Lunenburg when an all day rain fest arrived for our day off there. Somehow, the tent survived the solid 10 hours of pretty heavy rain which it was subjected to and we managed to eke out three hours in a cafe, two in the Maritime Museum and a further several in the pub before we squelched back to the campsite.
The real highs
Of course, the best highs need mentioning too. Somehow, despite really getting on with Canadians we’ve found them to be pretty reserved as a rule. Our time so far hadn’t been full of chats with random strangers as we had become accustomed to during other parts of our trip. But this changed in Nova Scotia and we were finding ourselves chatting with all sorts of lovely people who wanted to know where we’re going and where we’re from. At this stage of things they’re kind of tricky questions to answer. So we’ve taken to doing a mini summary of our trip in response. Which has received a few ‘wows’, ‘right-ons’ and ‘are you crazy?s’ (well yes, of course). This has been really truly lovely. A highlight was meeting Ron, a local who was doing a bit of impromptu trail maintenance when we bumped into him. We stopped and Matt helped him for a few minutes before the usual chat ensued. We enjoyed talking and were even more surprised when he caught up with us shortly afterwards and bought us both a coffee. Just because.
We’ve also had the pleasure of staying with two sets of WarmShowers hosts on Nova Scotia – Roland and Claudia in Shelburne, and Tony and Deb in Prospect. We had such a lovely time at both – more proof of the generosity of strangers, the deliciousness of home-cooked food and the comfy-ness of a real bed, in someone’s home. Thank you all 🙂
At one with nature
The best of the best? Well, it’s been the great outdoors. Being outside, hearing the birds, breathing fresh air. Letting your eyes look far into the distance and not always knowing what is there. We’ve had this in buckets on this trip and particularly in Nova Scotia, facilitated by the cycling but also the nearly non-stop camping here. Yes, there’s no home-cooked food or real beds. But it’s hard to put into words how this feels…
(Nearly) the end…
Before we knew it, it was our penultimate riding day and we were at famous Peggy’s Cove.
And then we were rolling into Halifax – our final destination in Canada and where I am writing from now! We’d made it. We arrived at the harbour – squeezed through the crowds in attendance for the Sail GP event, found a pub that served us both a beer and did a deep exhale. There was no big fanfare of course. Just us, sheltering under a pub garden umbrella as it started to rain and the wind picked up.
Three nights here has whizzed by – we’ve strangely really enjoyed staying at Dalhousie University’s summer-time accommodation (separate single rooms with a bathroom in between, how romantic!). We’ve wandered the city, watched more of the sailing and enjoyed a delicious ‘last’ meal in two parts (scallops, followed by Japanese food).
And most importantly of all – sourced the biggest, sturdiest bike boxes yet for our precious cargo. We’ve even made it to the airport (actually touch and go as the taxi arrived and was really not that XL as advertised… somehow we fit).
So here we are… 1.5 hours to take-off. Ready to return? Sort of. Ready for new highs? Definitely.
What’s next?
Well it’s not over until it’s actually over. So there is a little bit more cycling to come… UK-style!
PS
For those who like the more random photos – here’s a few:
Leave a Reply