Day 33: Sussex, New Brunswick, Canada

Day 33: Sussex, New Brunswick, Canada

July 15, 2016

Miles:  52

Moncton to Sussex


Both Steve and my alarm went off at the same time this morning at 7:00a.  Steve set his alarm to see the Tidal Bore at 7:29a and I set mine to ensure an early start today.  We managed to do both.  We were waiting by the river for the Tidal Bore at 7:20a and we successfully managed to leave the hotel this morning by 9:15a.

So, we got the time wrong for the Tidal Bore; for some reason high tide had already come in so we missed the wave. That is me below at 7:29a waiting patiently for the wave that never came.  Actually, it came much earlier this morning.  Either we had the time wrong or the earth was rocking and not rotating this morning.

Me sitting with one eye open

So what do you do when you miss the event that had you rise early to see.  You google it!  So that is what we did.

Steve watching the Tidal Bore on YouTube

So this picture below is breakfast.  I really enjoyed my oatmeal, but Steve has grown bored with continential breakfast selections.  He is really missing his blueberry pancakes.  Unfortunately, most continential breakfast options do not offer pancakes. Steve and I discussed this and decided to find a way to have more of our favorite, blueberry pancakes.  Pancakes are just perfect breakfast food for the long rides.

This is breakfast with me cut out of the picture.  It just wasn't happening this morning.

We had 52 miles to ride today.  The front 26 would be easier than the back 26 as I figured out by examining the Garmin maps, but mostly because Costi told us so last night.  Costi has a motorcycle and he often rides the back roads.  He said it would be very hilly, but a gorgeous ride given the scenic roads we would be taking.  We didn't want to be riding the  highway today, so the tradeoff was to ride roads with lots of hills.  And it wasn't just the hills today; pairing the hills with a strong headwind (15 mph), well lets just say it was a tough day riding.

We saw this type of scenery all day

Let the hills begin

Steve taking a picture, then turned the camera on me

Steve's beautiful picture

At the 25 mile mark, we stopped at Chumley's for lunch.  This restaurant is owned by Chumley, the star on Pawn Stars that airs on the History Channel.  No it's not, just kidding!

Steve preferred and me too, to ride another 10 miles before getting lunch.  A woman we had ran into earlier this morning said there was a nice cafe in Cornhill, which was at the 35 mile mark.  We really did think about continuing to Cornhill before eating lunch, but we didn't. We get a lot of directions from people on the road, some really good directions and others not so good. Something told me in her description and tone of her voice that she may be wrong, so we decided to eat here at Chumley's.  As it turned out, Chumley's was the last restaurant that we saw until we arrived in Sussex.  It's a good thing we didn't take that lady's advice.  I want to say though, this lady was very nice and had good intentions.  She just seemed a little confused where the towns were and the names of the towns too.  A real sign that her directions may not be reliable.

We has a good lunch, which we needed for what was ahead.

After lunch we waited for the daily train to pass - what timing.

The sky opened up and the sun was glowing.  The day turned very hot, but this felt good given the recent cold stretch.   The scenery was certainly beautiful today.

Rolls of hay

The hills were brutal

Did I say, the hills were brutal

 

Just brutal

And not just for me

Steve too

It isn't often that I am in front of Steve when climbing a hill. Oh wait, this isn't a hill!

Steve taking a little rest

July Sky

Here is a picture of a pasture of all light haired cows. 

Community of cows

Arrangement of hay rolls

I just love horses

 We were on the home stretch and it felt good.

And so did the sun today

We arrived at the hotel at about 5:00p.  We made good timing considering the terrain and the wind.  Although it is hard to take pictures to accurately represent the wind, the wind made today more difficult tenfold.  It's like only going up hill because when you are actually going downhill you have to pedal just to move.

So we are in the hotel room, both showered and ready to go get dinner.  Though, we both weren't moving.  We just talked about it.  Then we started talking about calling a place that delivered.  Then we started saying, perhaps we can just go to the restaurant across the street and do take-out. Well, we finally got our lazy bums up and walked over to the restaurant to eat.  To our surprise they were still serving breakfast and no one happier than Steve.  He got his pancakes!

Stack of five blueberry pancakes

I was very tempted to order the same, but I decided on a chicken breast dinner.  In hindsight, I should have order the pancakes too!

Steve's happy face

We have a short day planned tomorrow - about 32 miles to Evandale.  It's because it will be very hilly riding to Evandale, and the next town after Evandale is another 20 miles also hilly.  The forecast is a 40% chance of rain all day as well. Given all this, we decided to break up the hilly sections across two days, making tomorrow a short day.  Sunday will be a long day, 56 miles to Fredericton with hills only in the front 25 miles, so the final stretch into Fredericton should be relatively easy.  At least we hope so!