Day 39: Great Falls, New Brunswick, Canada

Day 39: Great Falls, New Brunswick, Canada

July 21, 2016

Miles: 61
 
Hartland, NB to Great Falls, NB

Tonight’ s blog is going to be short due to the fact that the pictures took over two hours to load because the Internet service is very slow and unrealiable.  I even had to reload half the pictures a second time because during the initial load, the computer locked up and I had to restart.  So, I am going to give you all the highlights and then let the pictures tell the story tonight.

We started our day by having breakfast at Tim’s.  That’s what the locals call it (Tim Hortons).  It was a ½ mile from the motel that we stayed .  We needed to eat well given the 60+ miles we had to ride to Great Falls, so we ordered breakfast sanwiches.  We left Tim’s at 10:00a and we arrived into Great Falls at 7:30a.  It was another long,  hilly and windy day.  Today we met a lot of  nice people along the way.

Hey, who cut off my head - Nannie!!!

Hand shot taken from this morning

The scenery was gorgeous along the way like the prevous days, and some of the hills were grueling as well.

A scene from today

Steve foreground to the St. John River

St. John River again

This hill was tough.  We hit it right after lunch and it went on for 3 miles.  I thought it would never end.   Although, the descent that followed was awesome! 

That's me

That's me again still climbing

We met Zoe, a fellow bicyclist, who has been on the road for 2 momths.  She started in Vancouver where she went to school for her graduate studies.  Zoe said she was moving to Halifax and that there was no better way then to ride to Halifax on her bike.  Before settling in Halifax, Zoe still plans to visit Newfoundland and PEI, and so much more.  Although we have seen many other bicyclist  touring, Zoe was the only single rider and the only one who pulled over to say hello.   Zoe averaged over 100 km each day, so she has certainly covered a lot of ground coming across Canada.  She was enthusiastic and committed to traveling for as long as possble before she landed in Halifax.

Zoe and Steve

We stopped at a farmers market today just after 1 hour of riding.  Steve finally tried poutine.  He really loved it.  While at the farmer’s market we met Jessica who was working at the use book table.  Steve traded Anne of GG book 2 and 3 for Legends of the Falls and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  The farmer’s market was great and we could have spent so much more time there, but we had another 50 miles to ride and it was already after 12:30p, so we needed to get a move on.

We also met Joseph at the farmer's market, an older gentleman, who has written a historical fiction novel, as he put it, about his great, great, great grandfather who fought in the American Revolution on the side of the British.  Joseph was very enthusiastic and proud of his book.  He read excerpts from his book to us.  He was very cute, laughing and amused by what he had written.

That's me posing

Steve and his poutine

Steve going to town

Steve and Jessica

Joseph and his book

We rode through a town named Florence-Bristol, home of Florence Nightingale. It was a beautiful little town with the St. John River running through the center of town.

Nightingale Plaque

Me in the town of Florence

Steve in the town of Florence

At the 35 mile mark we stopped for lunch in Perth-Andover.  We met Charles.  Unfortuanely, we didn’t get a picture of Charles, but he made us feel at home as he took our order and served us our food.  Very personable and attentive.  He wanted to make sure we had enough to eat and if we were hydrated well.  He filled up our water bottles before we left and made sure we had the right route telling us the details of the hills and grades on the way to Great Falls.

Chicken breast salad for me

Second breakfast for Steve

When we rolled into Great Falls it was about 7:30p.  Great Falls looks like a great little town; it is too bad we arrived so late because it would be nice to have spent more time here.  Right in the middle of town is a statue of Secretariat because Great Falls is the home of the jockey, Ron Turcotte, who rode Secretariat to win the covented triple crown in 1973.

Secretariat and Ron

Town of Great Falls

We had dinner at the motel restaurant.  It closed at 9:00p, so we went to the restaurant right after we finished taking showers.  It was nothing special, but we were glad to eat anything at this point.

Hill Top Motel (and was it ever on top of a hill)

Dinner

Well it’s late and I am spent from today and yesterday’s riding.  Tomorrow is a shorter day, but no less hilly or difficult.  We are headed to Edmundston for about 38 miles.