Saturday, June 16. The last day of the trip. I woke cool and comfortable in the room Bruce had provided the day before. I would have liked to have slept longer, but the sun was bright (Why wouldn’t it be? It came up at 4:30 a.m.!), and I heard voices below. Even though it was only 6:30 a.m., I feared I was the last one up.
I could have rested a bit longer, because only Bruce and Bryan, the tandem dad, were up.
Bruce asked about my ankle. It was still stiff, but a few hours of icing it and elevating it during the night seemed to do it some good. Only time would tell if I would make it the remaining 53 miles without problems.
We talked and drank coffee while we waited for the others to awake. Breakfast was on our minds.
Bruce offered a rest day to let my ankle heal. I told him I wanted to push through since we were so close. Plus we were driving up to see Jon’s aunt and partner the next day. I didn’t want to mess up those plans too. My ankle felt Ok, so I declined.
Eventually the other two woke, and Bryan started cooking eggs. Bruce took toast duty. Bruce also put out a sampling of his homemade jellies and jams: rhubarb/ginger, crabapple. The crabapple jelly was my favorite, with crabapples harvested from Bruce’s daughter’s tree.
Before the trip I made an assortment of bike-related keychains. I thought I might sell them along the way, or that I might give them out as gifts. At dinner the night before I let everyone choose one of the leather keychains as a memento of our meeting. Bruce had gifted a fossil or two to the tandem teenager, so the gift giving felt appropriate. Before I left, Bruce gifted me a geode and the fossil of a small brachiopod.
Everyone started getting ready. The father/daughter duo was planning on making Matapedia that day, 15 miles further than Campbellton. We had to make sure to get a picture before we parted ways.
Soon enough we were ready to follow the tandem duo. We wondered if we’d catch up with them along the way. We had rolling hills ahead of us, and with my speed on hills I doubted it.
Gorgeous scenery kept us company on the last leg of our trip, as it had for all the rest. The wind was in our faces during the morning, but it changed direction for the afternoon. At first I thought the wind might want us to stay in the Gaspésie, but it realized our determination so it relented.
This area was one of the first areas that gave us a direct reference to native cultures. The names of towns sounded native, and we were even treated to a roadside wigwam attraction, associated with the MicMac tribe (pronounced Mig-Maw by Bruce). We saw shops that boasted products made by First Nations citizens.
The Gaspésie has something for nearly everyone in terms of interacting with nature. There are rolling hills to appease (torture?) the cycling community. There are beautiful forests and mountains for hiking. And with all of that water, there’s also room for kayaking. Though the guy in the below picture must have gotten his fill.
We rode steadily through the day with few breaks. My ankle wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t paining me as much as it had the day before. I think both Jon and I felt the end coming nearer. Part of me didn’t know how to feel about the end of the trip coming. I felt a little weepy thinking of all the trip had brought with it. Yet part of me wanted the end of the trip.
At nearly 6:00 p.m. New Brunswick time (5:00 p.m. Quebec time), we entered Campbellton. The big, green bridge welcomed us back. Well, sort of.
You see, this bridge is a two-lane bridge with no shoulder. It is crappily patched asphalt. The speed limit is too fast for cars and bikes to coexist. Yet there’s no way around. I tried to keep the straightest line I could, and I pedaled as hard as I could without having to stop. Some cars passed way too closely. I kept trying to ride that white line without wavering. You try keeping a 35 lb bike with 50 lbs of gear on it straight! It ain’t always easy. Particularly with guts from cars and the wind coming along for the ride.
I made it across, but it was not my favorite thing. I didn’t remember it being that bad coming across when we started the trip. Maybe traffic wasn’t so bad, or I was just naive and excited to get going…
Jon navigated us through town, as he had the entire trip. He seemed to find the absolute steepest hill, le fin collines de la Doom, to get back to our Warm Showers hosts’ place.
But we made it.
WE MADE IT!!
Nearly 500 miles, two time zones, two Canadian provinces…
WE DID IT!!
Once we got a bit settled, we decided we needed celebratory beverages. We walked to the grocery. My celebratory drinks of choice were cider and a bottle of mead.
Our Warm Showers hosts were out when we arrived, so mostly we sat, chilled out, drank our beverages, and social media’d. We chatted with our host a bit when he arrived, but he had to have an early night. Soon enough we followed, since we had a long drive ahead of us the next day.
WE DID IT!!