Today: 110 km
To date: 7,452 km
To go: 348 km
We saw New Brunswick for the first time yesterday and today as the amount of water separating the two provinces slowly dwindled, my excitement rose. Almost there!
But before I could actually get there I had to get another flat tire. I think somewhere I forgot to tell you about one of my flats because I definitely had 3 flats within 24 hours – a sure sign it was time to replace the thin bandaid of a back tire. I was sitting on the side of the road changing my tire and when I was kindly offered a ride to the next town – he was a cyclist and had a rack ready – but I declined. I had, perhaps unwise, faith I could make it to a town for a new tire – and more tubes. I was onto my last new tube – but I still had a patch kit and a couple holey tubes I could patch. To be safe I changed the tire boot patches on my tire – these are the thick slabs of… something… that you use to fill in the various holes and weak areas in the rubber. I again silently thanked Luke at North Park Bikes back in Victoria for making me take these handy things.
As I rode off on my fresh tire, I suddenly got panicky. Today was a sunday. It is often hard to find anything open on a sunday, let alone a bike shop. But I got lucky in Carleton-sur-Mer – an InterSport was open. I bought myself a $20 tire and two new tubes… and an ear warmer.
It was another day with a notable headwind but this was offset a great cappuccino & chocolate pastry in New Richmond.
Coming into New Brunswick was exciting! A new province – and not only that but we could switch back to English – well sort of. It turns out New Brunswick has a large French speaking population – especially in the Acadian areas… but I am getting ahead of myself.
We had a good Vietnamese dinner and camped under a bridge. We took the next day off and did errands – laundry at the Super 8 (they let non-guests use their machines for a fee) and a shower at the Civic Center. Alex put my new tire on for me while I worked on the blog. I discovered a really upsetting fact today – the ferries to Newfoundland have switched to their winter schedule…. and this means the one I was hoping to catch is only running once a week…. and this in turn means there is no way I can get there in time for my flight to New York – oh no! This is why planning ahead can come back and bite you!
