John Berry's

Thursday, 10 June 2004, 13:02:05

Dear Friends:

Now in the library at Grand Bend, ONT, on the storm-tossed shores of Lake Huron: yesterday all libraries in Kent County were closed, except for the one at Shetland, which had no power. As it turned out, there was no power for the next 50 miles, but more of that later.

Restarted in Huntsville (Madison) AL, at 4.00 p.m. on Thursday, May 27, and did 50 miles due North into TN before dark and exhaustion caught me miles from anywhere. An old couple were sitting on their porch just North of Fayetteville, TN, and when I enquired allowed me to use the field in front of their barn for a camp site. It rained during the night, the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend that brought 270 tornados to the Ohio Valley.

The following day I rode completely across Tennessee (Shelbyville-Murfreesboro-Lebanon-Westmorland- Scottsville, KY), hoping to get north of the predicted severe thunderstorms before they hit. The day was extremely hot, and there were no motels or camp-grounds for the last 40 miles. The terrain was quite hilly,but I achieved 121 miles.

On Saturday I continued North across Kentucky, to Glasgow (where a Highland Games was due to begin the next day, in this 90-deg humidity), and then North on Highway 31E, which turns out to be along the route of an extension of the old Natchez Trace from Nashville to Louisville. In order to find accomodation I turned off this to 31W, where I found an excellent 2ndhand bookstore in Horse Cave, a city otherwise dead and decaying away. The owner had successfully used the internet to grow his business, so perhaps the internet may yet help save America's microcities!

Sunday morning brought the predicted rain, but I rode on, stopping for Church at the Methodist Church in Sonora, another dying community, but one that is charming enough to be capable of restoration for the tousits. Here I was on the Bicentennial Bike Trail across America. I followed it East to Hodgenville along a beautiful country road, and visited Abraham Lincol's birthplace in Hodgenville. From there on the weather was clearly threatening, and at every stop people warned me that there were tornadoes ahead. I got to Brandenburg, KY, on the Ohio River just ahead of an enormous downpour, fortunately choosing to stay in a two-story Motel. I had just finished showering and cleaning up when the manager came round and ordered everybody out of their rooms since a tornado had been sighted less than a mile away. We all sat there for about 90 minutes looking like Londoners in the Underground during a WWII air-raid. On Memorial Day morning I waited until the rain was over and then proceeded against a nasty headwind from the NE into Indiana, where all the fields were flooded and the streams bank-full, and there were plenty of tree-branches across the road. North of Palmyra a bridge was out, diverting me onto a little country road running up hill and down dale eastward to Indiana #60 at New Pekin, which had been hit be a tornado that day, shortly before I got there. On the last steep switchback into Pekin I pedalled too fast and something went in my right leg - my strongest, since my left knee has been "messed up" since a cycling episode in my teenage years. In great pain I made it into the city limits of Salem, where a lady in a pick-up recognized that I was in trouble and gave me a lift a couple of miles to the only motel in town. There I rested for a day and caught up on business necessities.

Salem was the first of a series of delightful and apparently thriving little towns in Indiana and Ohio: the most beautiful by far, though, was Versailles, OH, a little gem.

On Wednesday, 2 June, I continued, in cooler weather but with a Nor'east breeze reaching 15-20 mph to Scottsburg and Vernon, Indiana. Between Vernon and North Vernon I nearly got seriously injured while trying to make a left turn into the Chamber of Commerce offices. The highway here is narrow and curvy as it runs along the ridge in the inside of an incised meander of the local river. Nobody would slow down and let me turn, and I finally wobbled off the tar, which was very high above the ground, and slipped off the bike with my legs under a crash barier and my body in the path of oncoming traffic. My panniers were scatttered across the edge of the road. Nobody took the least notice, and so I staggered into the C. of C. to get a directions out of town and recover.

The fall had further injured my right leg, and so I staggered the last 20 miles into Greensburg, Indiana, using only one leg and in great pain. Especially since the road was busy, shoulderless, and there was a strong cross-wind.

The next morning (Thursday) was more of the same: pain, traffic, crosswinds blowing me all over the road, but I got as far as New Castle, IN, where the C. of C. had a cyclist on their staff who gave me a good road eastward out of town and then North up to Mooreland on old US Hwy 36. Near Milroy, IN, I passed through Old Order Amish country, beautifully tended farms, and a lady in Victorian styles turning her hay with a horse-drawn machine. Hwy 36 was a delight - beautiful surface, shoulders, and light traffic, with a tail wind. Right away I met two cyclists, the Lambert's going in the opposite direction. They were long-distance riders, but on this occasion just out for an evening spin from their home up the road. A few miles later I stopped to take a Tylenol, and a young lady in a car stopped and startred asking all about my trip. She invited me to meether in the restaurant at Modoc, her hometown 4 miles up the road, and to stay on her front lawn if necessary. I demurred, but I had taken the Tylenol too late, and by the time I got to Modoc I was in extreme pain.

The young lady was Mary Nipp, a two-time survivor of breast cancer, long-distance rider, cycling activist, and bundle of energy. Mary insisted on hearing all the details of the trip, on paying for my dinner and breakfast, and on giving me things that I lacked (my lock had broken, for example). Mary and her Mother and Brother were wonderfully kind.

On Friday, 4th June, I travelled with less pain as far as Fort Loramie, OH, and stayed at Lake Loramie State Park, a most delightful place. The evening and small hours were, however, spoiled by a group of 4 latwe-arriving youths at the next camping-place. These kids proceeded to get very drunk and rowdy, and then went off to smoke marijuana. They returned still drunk and brawling. I had to get up to goto the bathroom, and this suddenly sobered them up, since they could not be sure that I had not talked to the Park Ranger, so they hurriedly left at about 1.45 a.m., leaving a lot of litter and parts of their tent. I hope they got home to Dayton safely.

Saturday, 5th June brought me to Upper Sandusky, where the only Motel had a pool and whirlpool, so though my wallet was in pain, I was able to considerably reduce the [pain in my right leg, which was now clearly a damaged achilles tendon.

On Sunday I cruised downhill and with a tailwind to Sycamore, where I arrived just as the service was beginning at the local Catholic Church, so I attended Mass, and listened to a fairly good sermon. Then on to Bellevue, where I did my laundry at the fanciest Laundromat I have ever seen. At Castalia I found that I could not get across to Port Clinton to take the ferry to the Bass Islands in Lake Erie, since no bikes were allowed on the freeway (Ohio 2) and the old bridge had been torn down. I checked anyway, and found the situation to be true, so rode on into Sandusky, where I found that the boat for Canada would be leaving in three hours.

I had crossed the USA from South to North, Houston to Sandusky, Ohio, in 22 days and 45 minutes riding time, covering nearly 1800 miles ( I haven't my notebook here in the Library - more exact numbers later). This is long enough, and so many things have happened in my few days in Canada that I will finish now, and save those for later. I wish you all a wonderful time. Please let me know if there are other things you would like to hear about, or whether I am spending too much time on the mechanics of the trip and not enough on the human interest.

Bike Ride to Labrador - Instalment 3

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 14:16:18

Dear Everyone:

I am now in Collingwood, on the southern shore of Georgian Bay, a couple of hours north of Toronto. This town suffered a fate worse than death in 1963: a 17-year-old boy burned down the library, a Carnegie Library no less, in order to conceal his break-in and theft of $10. I have had an interesting first week in Canada.

The ferry ride from Sandusky, OH, to Pelee Island is quite beautiful. As the sun sets one leaves the dockside in downtown Sandusky, whose aging factories show hopeful signs of a rebirth as classy condos, and glides by the world's largest collection of giant rollercoasters - skeletal constructions which cast, to me, the same kind of spell as a museum hall full of reconstructions of massive dinosaurs - groups of gargantuan arches and catenaries gathered in silent community. In the gathering dusk one passes the islands of Lake Erie, one of which is dominated by the thrid of America's giant "constructed obelisks" - the memorial to Commodore Perry and Monument to International Peace (or something like that). An hour later one arrives in Canada, where one is greeted by two very young female customs officers who are somewhat non-plussed by the idea that one might be staying for several months.

Pelee Island is one of those communities that attracts plants, animals and people who are odd and far out of place. The woods on Fish Point, the southernost point of Canada, are dominated by hackberry, a tree that I associate with Texas. There are giant and very black box turtles, and a Blue racer snake that is unique to Pelee. Then there are at least two organic farming endeavours on the island, at one of which there is also a large solar generator and a small wind farm. The swimming is delightful at Pelee.

I met a young lady there who was half Irish and half Italian from Ronda in the Mugello, a place well- known to Ingrid and I, and who had grown up in Bermuda. She was there for the organic farming. Then there was the crew of Educators from Windsor University who were there for a retreat: two Welshmen, a Dorsetman, a Nigerian and two West Indians, a Nova Scotiaman and a couple of good average Canadians. And the group of truckdrivers, regulars to the island, with their frightening tales of driving from the lower Rio Grande Valley through to Toronto in 30 hours straight, so as to have fresh veggies at the market at opening time on Sunday. Three sets of logbooks. Someone asked the truckdrivers "How was the fishing?" The answer was "Oh, we were having such a good time we forgot to launch the boat, eh!" They'd only been there for 4 days.

After a day (Monday, June 7th) of R&R on Pelee, I found that a spoke in my rear wheel had gone - a predicted occurrence. Also, I had a flat in the front tire as a result of the island's gravel roads. So on Tuesday morning I fixed the flat and cycled off to the other end of the island to get the fast boat to mainland canada. This turned out to be a Volkhov hydrofoil built for high-speed travel on Russian rivers. Long and narrow, with the inside very bus-like.

It was beautiful weather, but I soon found that the wind was against me, which gave me time to admire all the perfectly groomed unimaginably green and varied in their shades of green-ness yards along the road between Kingsville, where I landed, and Leamington, site of the nearest bike shop. There were also dozens of stalls where local people were selling strawberries and asparagus.

I got the spoke fixed in Leamington, and also a link taken out of the chain, which had grown too long with use. Then set off along the north shore of Lake Erie into the teeth of a rather hard nor'easter. Just as in the US, there is little access to the lake in Canada: although no-one can own the foreshore, they CAN own all the land behind it, and there seems to be little idea of the right of public access. In any case, the north shore of this part of Lake Erie is mainly cliffs developed in soft and shaly lacustrine sediments which are, where visible from the road, eroded into weird and wonderful pillars and spires. These cliffs are obviously quite dangerous.

As the sun set I was a long way from anywhere to stay, and so turned off the main road to go into the town of Erieau (pron. Eeree-oh) which, being on a spit, seemed likely to be a tourist place. On the way in, the road was lined by hundreds of summer cottages, whole blocks of which would have German names on their mailboxes, then Dutch, then French, etc. Behind the road were reclaimed marshes, whose drainage ditches were lined on both sides by masses of blooming phlox - solid walls of purple. I finally got into Eriau, to find that the owners of the first two motels had closed the office and gone out of town So I ended up both eating and dstaying at "Molly & OJ's" - a little expensive but a great meal of fish and chips and a nice room. Went for a swim in the morning (Wednesday, June 7), but the onshore wind had made the water murky and blown in paper cups and other human flotsam and jetsam.

After my swim, and after having been given a Canadian frlag from his garden by OJ, the owner, I set off to cross the peninsula to the shores of Lake Huron. I really wanted to see the huge Greta Lakes freighters steaming up and down the St. Clair River, but the adverse wind ruled that out, thankfully, because Moorestown, ONT, on the river, was hit by a tornado at about the time I would have been there. I was actually about 20 miles east of where the tornado hit, and the storm there was interesting enough: the day turned from muggy and Houstonly hot to dark and sullen, and then the wind got up from the west in violent gusts which lifted tons of yellow soil from the fields and turned the whole sky yellow. At this point I found shelter under the eaves of the nearest house, just south of the little vilage of Shetland. The trees around me were being bent over horizontally, and dust was everywhere. The family at the house turned out to be Mennonites or Amish, and the adult women were obviously ill-at- ease speaking to me, though the kids were all excited to see a stranger. They invited me in, but I elected to remain outside, and placed a tarp over the bike.

After the storm was over I cycled off into the rain: on the south side of Shetland a whole line of huge ?cottonwoods had been blown over and lay parallel on the ground. The Library was open, whereas those in all the larger towns of the are were cloed. As I went in to enquire about getting on the internet, the lady said "Oh, it's no use, I was just leaving, the Hydro's out, eh!" i.e the power was gone. As I rode north for the next 40 miles, getting wetter and wetter, I realized that the only electric devices working were the traffic lights. I stopped to eat in one little town, but none of the restaurants were open because they had no power. There were no Motels in sight, and I was beginning to get worried about where I would stay, and then realized that I was better off than the natives, because I didn't need electricity. Therefore, I stopped at a Supermarket that was open because it had an emergency generator, and bought some food. So, eventually, I came to Kettle Point on the shores of Lake Huron, pitched my tent, and had quite a decent meal of Ramen noodles, sardines, and bread. Even managed a shower. When I fell asleep at about 10.00 p.m. the power was still off.

On Thursday morning the rain started in earnest just as I got all my stuff packed - I managed this by carting it into the Campground's Laundry building. Stupidly I decided to cycle up to see Lake Huron at the end of the street - this was into a strong headwind and resulted in everything in my panniers getting wet again. I dried myself out by eating breakfast at the local restaurant, which was apparently owned and run by the local band of Ojibways, with a bilingual menu, English-Ojibway. Had an interesting conversation with an Indian about my age who had spent 20 years in the US army. I asked him "Why not the Canadian army?" "I thought I'd see more of the world with the US forces."

Bike Trip to Labrador - Instalment #4 Preview

Thursday 1 July 2004 08:02:44

Dear Everyone:

I am at the new Brunswick Welcome Center, just north of Edmundston, NB, close to where Maine, New Brunswick and Quebec come together. Therefore, I have achieved the first goal of the ride: reaching the Maritime Provinces. I am about 2800 miles or 4500 km from the point of beginning in Houston. I have had a very interesting and easy, but uneventful, trip down the St. Lawrence from Thousand Islands to Riviere du Loup, Quebec. Along the way I experienced Le Jour de St.Jean-Baptiste (St. John the Baptist's Day) in Montreal. This is the most important holiday of the year for the more Nationalist among the Quebecois. Also spent more than a day in Quebec City, and visited the Bic National Park, near Rimouski on the St. Lawrence. Here I couldn't help reverting to being a geologist again because of the classic exposures of anchimetamorphic sapropelic shales, showing an axial plane cleavage and very strong deformation on the limbs of major folds. The bedding could be recognised from sporadic occurrences of conglomeratic and sandy channel fills at various scales. There were also classic evidences of fluid expulsion along and across the bedding.

I don't have the time today to write up a full report, because it is Canada Day, and then Monday is July 4th, so any shopping and mailing that I have to do, I have to do today by crossing the river into Maine. The same with telephone calls. However, as soon as I can, I will.

Happy 4th of July to everyone in the US, Canada Day to everyone in Cnada. July 5th will be Tynwald Day in the Isle of Man, but I don't think I have a Manx person on this list!

John

John Berry Bike Trip to Labrador– Instalment 5

The Canadian Maritimes

It's difficult to know where to start this report – I have let too much tar pass under my wheels since the last one!

SUMMARY OF ITINERARY:

Edmundston, NB- Grand Falls, NB.

Two-day interlude for bad weather, during which I rented a car in order to see part of the Gaspe and the Acadian Shore of New Brunswick. Highlight of this trip was getting a flat as I entered the Gaspe during a spectacular thunderstorm, and therefore having to change the wheel of an unfamiliar car while getting more than soaked!

Grand Falls, NB, to Monckton, NB.

Bad weather caused another day trip by car, during which I visited some of the famous Bay of Fundy geological sites (Joggins, Parrsborough: as well as Fort Beausejour, at which the British deportation of the Acadians started in 1755).

Monckton, NB, to Prince Edward Island, to Les Iles de la Madeleine, back to Prince Edward Island, then on to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Bad weather caused another 3-day car trip, during which I made the circuit of the southern part of the Nova Scotia peninsula. I visited Peggy's Cove, Mahone Bay, Shelburne, Liverpool, Cape Sable Island, Yarmouth, Digby, and Annapolis Royal. Returned and spent one day in Halifax enjoying the Tall Ships Rendezvous.

Halifax – Antigonish – Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. An average of 70 miles of short steep ups and downs each day.

Statistically, in the month that I have been in the Maritimes, I have ridden 1250 miles, a slower rate than previously, but this has been the "Tourist Heart" of the trip. I have now ridden a total of 4,130 miles.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE TRIP:

Edmundston: stayed at a B&B converted from an old Catholic Boys' Boarding school, run by a truly wonderful couple, in a beautiful setting. (Mont l'Assomption)

Grand Falls, NB: The waterfalls here are truly spectacular, and the geology even more so. The visitor center sits on the crest of a thrust-faulted anticline, the rest I will not bother you with.

Across the river from the visitor centre is an inconspicuous monument to the "Sons of Martha", the workers and engineers who built the hydro-power plant at the site. This has engraved on its four sides a poignant poem contrasting the "Sons of Martha", who strive for control of nature and organization and physical betterment of mankind, with the "Sons of Mary", who are content with worshipping the wonders of God's world. The latter are assured of Heaven, whereas the fate of the "Sons of Martha" is much less certain, as they risk not only their mortal lives but their souls in their strivings for control.

All down the St. John River, Union Jacks flying from buildings and flagpoles in yards. When one old chap who was flying one stopped in front of me to check his mail, I took the opportunity to ask him why he was flying it. "Because, young man, that was the flag I served under, and nobody ever defeated it. So that is the flag that I will always fly." (Apparently, the "old" Canadian flag that I remember from my youth, was never "official"). Loyalty seems to be a Canadian characteristic.

Perth-Andover, NB: Coming across a little take-out restaurant in the middle of nowhere just as it was beginning to rain hard. Being offered a lift by the owner up to the TransCanada Highway so that I could get to the nearest Motel before the rain came back again. (The only time I have "cheated" – saved me a steep 1-mile climb).

King's Landing Village, NB: A wonderful collection of old buildings representing pioneer days in the area. Some of the buildings were from the 1890s, which means that the house I grew up in is now a Museum piece. They have orchards of traditional apple varieties, and they grow buckwheat, gooseberries, and rhubarb. There are several similar villages in the maritimes representing the pioneer cultures of the different ethnic groups: the British Village at new Richmond on the Gaspe, and the Acadian Village at Caraquet in NB. Also an Acadian village at East Pubnico in NS, and a Loyalist Village at Shelburne, NS. At each one I visited I spent a lot more time than I meant to. The mosaic of cultures and settlement histories that make up this area is fascinating: imagine, for example, after the American Revolution, several thousand United Empire Loyalists arriving with their slaves in tow, at the same time that several thousand free Black Loyalists were arriving. The tension was so great, and the land the Black Loyalists were given was so poor, that many of them eventually left to help found Sierra Leone.

Moncton, NB: Arriving in town just in time to see the tidal bore go past the visitor center, and then finding a wonderful B&B for the night. Joggins: finding a fossil palm stem in the cliffs, then seeing the tidal bore on the River Hebert, and then catching the same tidal bore on the Maccan River a few miles further on. And at Maccan – a strange collection of life-size painted figures in someone's yard.

Prince Edward Island: meeting up with, and traveling for a day with, some cyclists from Montreal. All 3 of us getting into the campground at Cavendish ("Anne of Green Gables") for the price of one. Then our car-borne friend Benoit, arriving after the park was full, being smuggled onto the same site for free. Singing Acadian songs at a campfire in the park; meeting the musicians and getting invited to hear them in Cahrlottetown. Being in Summerside for the annual lobster festival and street party, and hearing some incredible young musical talent playing and singing Celtic and Acadian music. More musical talent in Charlottetown and Cavendish.

Passing a girl on a scooter being towed by two huskies. Visiting the site of the annual MicMac Pow-wow at St. Ann's on the north shore. Racing to Souris to catch the Ferry to the Madeleine Islands. Getting there 10 minutes late but getting on the Ferry anyway.

The Madeleine ferry being almost completely full of bus parties of Madelinots returning to the islands from vacation, and them keeping the band going long after the official gig, and then several accomplished islander musicians jamming with the band members all the way into the harbor. Feirce mozzies and beautiful island scenery in the Madeleines. Instant thick fog at Shippagan in NB and in the Madeleines. The spectacular geology of the Madeleines – each one is a "hat" of Mississippian sandstone, gypsum and volcanics sitting on top of a salt dome.

White-water rafting (really "red water rafting") on the Shubenacadie River. Here the tide comes in so fast after the bore passes that it sets up huge standing waves, and the Zodiac drivers drive through them over and over. I am sure that the effect is increased by the soupy consistency of the water, which is really a suspension of red Mississippian mud. After the standing waves we all went mud-sliding.

Halifax: All the Tall Ships in Port, but I didn't stay for the parade.

Murphy Cove, East of Halifax: the campground offers free steamed mussels, as much as you can eat (as long as you let others have their fair share), harvested from their own rocks. We all sat around the campfire eating and watching fireworks. And in the morning, free coffee.

Antigonish: the Ceilidh in the pub, and the very odd local outside with his accent that sounded Irish and his greeting: "the fiddle now, that's the Devil's instrument; but I like it, I do".

Halifax to Cape Breton: rode in company with a French Canadian couple for three days. The Cabot Trail was as spectacular as the advance publicity: two 1600-foot climbs with views out over the ocean all the way, and on top views across the high plateaux.

My apologies to everybody for the unpolished and episodic style of this missive – it's the best that I can do at the moment. I'll try to do better next time.

Good luck to you all.

BICYCLE TRIP TO LABRADOR - Instalment 6

Well, everyone, it's been a long, exciting, and wonderful time since I have been able to write up my experiences. Yesterday I achieved the last of my major goals, and I am now on the way home. I am in L'Anse-au-Clair, southern Labrador, with a couple of days to spare before the ferry leaves for Rimouski, Quebec, at midnight on Friday. Outside the weather is as you would want Labrador to be: there is a strong wind and a low overcast, and it is, as Pytheas said 2500 years ago of Ultima Thule, impossible to tell where the sea ends and the sky begins. On Sunday (Sept. 5th), I was at the Viking site at L'Anse-aux- Meadows, on the northern tip of Newfoundland, and there was a frost warning for the night – it's a little warmer now, but not much.

The goals I have achieved are: I have ridden from the southernmost point of Canada to the northernmost bit of tar road on the East Coast. I have visited the easternmost point of North America, Cape Spear near St. John's, Newfoundland, and every provincial capital in Quebec and the Maritimes. I have seen the Viking site at L'Anse-aux-Meadows, and have traversed the south coast of Newfoundland, which is impossible except by bicycle, since the ferries are not cat ferries, and I have visited St. Pierre et Miquelon, the last piece of France on the continent. And, most of all, I have seen the most wonderful scenery and met the most wonderful people all the way along the road. I will break up the following into chapters, for ease of reference for those of you who want to use an atlas to follow the goings on.

NEW BRUNSWICK:

I crossed over into Edmundston from Quebec on Canada Day, July 1st., and made a brief visit to Madawaska, Maine, to mail home the bumph that had accumulated since Iroquois, ONT. Then I cycled down the St. John's River valley to Fredericton, the Capital, and Monckton. In Monckton the weather was awful, so I rented a car for a day and toured the geological sites in the vicinity – the various tidal bores and the fossil cliffs at Scoggins. Then on into Prince Edward Island.

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND:

I crossed the Confederation Bridge from New Brunswick in a van provided by the bridge authority, since bicycles are not allowed on the bridge, and then proceeded to the Provincial Park near Summerside. Summerside is a delightful town on a broad bay, and their Lobster Festival was in full swing. The first night there I bought fresh mussels from the harbor side and steamed them, sharing some with the young Quebecois at the next camp site, Benoit. Benoit, who had seen me buying my ticket, drove me to the evening performance at the College of Piping. This was a show of Scottish dancing and piping by the students, and was excellent.

The following day I toured the west end of PEI and returned to Summerside in the evening. On this day trip I heard the older generation in one town holding a conversation in mixed French and English, saw a young lady riding a scooter pulled by a pair of Huskies on the biking trail (she was practicing for the winter dog-sled races), visited the ceremonial center of the Maritime MicMac Indians, which was very interesting, and also toured a house in which Lucy Maud Montgomery had lived. These local museums of ninenteenth century life, which are all over the Maritimes, always make me feel a bit spooky, because many of the objects are the same as those that existed in the Victorian house in which I grew up! This is true because, almost until World War I, the trade and cultural connections between the Maritimes and England (or, sometimes, Scotland) were closer than the connections between the Maritimes and Danada or the USA. For example, all the windows in this particular house were made in England.

On my return to Summerside I made friends with several other cyclists who had arrived during the day, and then went off to the Harbor for a Lobster dinner, courtesy of the local Lions Club. The following morning, Daniel and Richard, two Quebecois, and myself left for Cavendish, the center of Ann of Green Gables country. On our way through Summerside we caught a performance of Gaelic music in the muiddle of Main Street, which was closed off for the Festival, by two extraordinarily talebnted teenage sisters. Unfortunately, the Prince Edward Islanders have mad quite an industry of L.M. Montgomery, and her part of the island is somewhat spoiled by touristic developments. However, the way there was through some charming countryside. We all camped on one site in the National Park, and then went off to dinner: on ouir retun we encountered Benoit being told that there was no room left in the park for him,

so we invited him to share outr site, and had q uite a party that evening with the people from Quebec in the next site.

The next morning it was raining, and Daniel and friends decided to ride back to where their car was parked and cut short their holiday. I pedaled on alone towards Charlottetown on a road that turned out to be extraordinarily hilly for a generally flat island. About half way along, a man came out to empty his garbage as I cyclewd laboriously uphill past his house, and casually remarked that I had "chosen the hilliest road on the island"!

In Charlottetown I stayed at the University dormitory, where the peace of the first evening was somewhat disturbed by the presence of dozens of Rugby teams from all over Maritime Canada, there for a tournament. I walked down to the center of town and did the usual touristic things, including touring the Province House (Capitol). Here I discovered that Newfoundland had been an independent dominion until it went bankrupt in 1923 and returned to being a British colony, a status it retained in my childhood and until it joined Canada in 1949. I also spent the evening at a pub listening to, and occasionally joining in with, the band, which included someone I had heard perform at the Park Service campfire at Cavendish.

The next morning I set off against a headwind to go to Souris, from where the ferry leaves for Les Iles de la Madeleine, which are a part of Quebec lying in the Gulf of St. Lawrence north of PEI. About 10 mioles out I realized that, if I really hurried, I could catch the ferry that day, instead of having to spend the night in Souris. So I piled on all speed, and, totally exhausted, reached the ferry terminal about 15 mninutes after departure time. However, the boat, which I had been warching anxiously for the last ten miles, had not left,and I got on board. I immediately realised that I had ridden her before, I think from Sodertalje in Sweden to Visby in Gotland.

LES ILES DE LA MADELEINE:

Woderful place – each islabd is the cap on a salt dome thousands of feet high, and salt is mined underneath the sea from the northernmost island. However, the weather was terrible, and I abandoned the attempt to see the northernmost islands. The islands are hilly and the villages sometimes resemble those in the foothills of the Swiss Alps.

NOVA SCOTIA:

Pictou is where the Highland Scots landed, and also where the ferry from PEI comes in. The Scots arrived in the Hector, a vessel which seems to have been a very old converted Dutch barge, never intended for an Atlantic crossing.

At Truro I went White Wwater Rafting on the standing waves generated by the tidal bore in the Shubenacadie River: this was quite a thrill.

In Halifax I caught the Tall Ships, and then cycled up to Cape Breton along the east shore.

There I met a young French Canadian couple with whom I cycled for 3 days, crossing into Cape Breton. I did the Cabot Trail in the rain and cold, and then wrote my last very sketchy report while held up by rain on the east coast of Cap Breton, having completed the Cabot Trail the day before. The rain continued for two days, during which I was under canvas, and the second day was the only entirely "wasted" day of the whole trip. However, that morning two other very bedraggled cyclists rode into camp: a Scottish girl, Lucy McNee, and a young French Canadian who was crossing Canada from east to west, an unusual ride because it is against the prevailing winds. Both he and Lucy were wearing open sandals to ride in the rain: their claim was that this was better because one's feet dried once the rain stopped, whereas sneakers like mine remained wet for the entire day or longer. I later bought a pair of open sandals and found this to be true, but I had left the purchase too late in the year, and the temperatures had become uncomfortably low to be riding with exposed feet. The young French Canadian left early in the morning with the rain still pouring down: Lucy and I waited until the next day, Sunday, and left together. We visited the Gaelic College at St. Anne's together, and then parted, Lucy riding towards Halifax and me towards North Sydney and the boat for Newfoundland. The Gaelic College was sad in that it only functioned as a museum and a center for short language courses during the summer: it did not have the funds to remain opren as an institution of learning all year round.

After leaving Lucy I struggled across Kelley's Mtn (240 m/760 feet) and then cruised on into North Sydney, casually stopping in at the ferry terminal to enquire about sailing times. On finding that a boat was due to leave within the half hour, I made a quick decision to get on it - that blew any opportunity to visit Louisbourg (Ah, well, there's next time....).

NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR:

The ferry arrived lan hour late, at half past midnight, in Port-aux-Basques. I have no good lights on the bike and it was moonless and drizzling. I managed to make it 3 miles to the local all-night Tim Horton's (a Canadian chain of coffee shops), and on enquiry there it appeared that there was nowhere to stay that was both affordable and accessible, so the lady on night shift at the Tim's offered me the back seat of her car till 6.00 a.m. I spent a cramped and uncomfortable night, but slept OK.

When awoken at 6.00 a.m. in "the cold grey light" of a drizzling dawn I looked around and thought, "God, what have I got myself into here?" Dark rock, black rock, and then some more rock, with not a blade of grass or any other living thing in sight. So I cruised on into town and looked around: the "town" was a series of little peninsulas jutting out into an angry sea, with huge breakers crashing in from all sides to almost meet each other, separated only it seemed by fragile wooden houses. Eventually a grocery store opened and I bought some food, got some cash from an ATM, and headed out to Rose Blanche into a big headwind. Hills, rocks, moorland. :In the middle of nowhere a friendly fellow with what seemed to be a speech impediment who came out from digging in a precariously perched graveyard to inquire of me my business. Threatening rain. A head wind. Not looking good. But I finally got to the isolated ferry dock at Rose Blanche, with a 3-hour wait for the boat to leave. Since there were no houses there, I 0set off on the steep footpath over the hill to see the actual village. Half-way up was another precariously perched graveyard, with all the stones leaning downhill due to soil creep, and I walked through this only to see an old lady covered from head to toe in clothes and a mesh veil picking something out of the sphagnum bog on the other side.

Before I was half-way over to ask her what she was harvesting, I knew: cloudberries, although she called them "bakeapples" when I asked. Ah, Newfoundland had taken a sudden turn for the better! Although the lady didn't seem pleased that I had encroached on "her" cloudberry bog, and she also had this curious speech impediment. No consonants at all, and sudden bursts of a few words separated by pregnant pauses. Where had I heard this before? Oh, yes, on the Iles de la Madeleine! I found out gradually that everyone on the South Coast speaks like this - it also comes out as a growl, so that they often sound like Captain Hook in "Peter Pan". I think originally it was a Devonshire accent of some kind.

The boat, a 41-year old converted coastguard cutter, got as far as Grand Bruit, popn. 32, that night. The name comes from a waterfall in the middle of town, whose sound can be heard all over town. An older couple returning home from shopping in Port aux Basques offered me a room in their home for the night - there was nowhere else to stay. There was, however, an old fishing shack labeled the Crammalot Inn, where the entire population of the village gathered that night for a birthday party, drinking Newfie Rum and beer and listening to Newfie songs. I got enmeshed with the Ancient Mariner, a grey-bearded fellow from "out away" who was younger than I, and nailed me with "and after this trip, what is the meaning of it all?" And wouldn't let me go: no matter how banal I tried to make it all seem, he kept saying "Finally I connect with someone, someone who knows what the important questions are". In some people, rum talks that way!

The next day an Italian couple, who had spent the night under canvas behind the church, materialized on the quay, and off we all set on the "Sound of Islay", a vessel that I think I had ridden on across the Kyle of Lochalsh back in 1962. She was going out of service for a refit in St. John's, so she missed several ports but did the whole trip to Hermitage in one day, normally a 2-3 day excursion. Quite a group of people riding on her were going back to reunions in or near the communities they had been born in: the whole coast is littered with abandoned places - the government carried out a series of resettlements into larger communities in the 1960s and 70s.

This coast is glorious: a series of cliffs up to 1400 feet high form a wall which is broken by the mouths of fjords, some wide, some so narrow you can only see them from a certain angle. Nothing grows near the sea and the swell was breaking 70 feet in the air. Every so often the boat steers into a narrow opening and there is a small community of brightly-colored houses built on the bare rock, sometimes on rock faces so steep you'd think it impossible. Each is a gem, but the best were Grand Bruit and Francois, neither accessible by road. Neither has streets, just boardwalks wide enough for an ATV winding between the houses.

The Italians, Mariella and Perluigi, and I rode across the next peninsula to Pool's Cove, where we spent the night in the abandoned school's playground and then boarded a ferry converted from the Sir Wilfred Grenfell Foundation's hospital ship. This was handy, because at our first stop we picked up a lady who was well into labour, and the vessel still had a sick bay offering her some privacy. We then piled on all steam (all 9 knots of it) to Bay l'Argent, where the ambulance was waiting and whisked her off to hospital. Never did find out what happened, but I hope that she and the baby were all right.

We three set off down the Burin Peninsula, another wild and treeless expanse of incredibly beautiful moorland. Just before Marystown we passed a drill-ship under construction in Mooring Cove – the only sign of heavy industry that I saw in Newfoundland.

We spent a night in the only hay field I had seen to date, near Winterland, and then separated, since I was going to St. Pierre, and they were not. I went round the Burin Peninsula in a clockwise direction, stopping at the mining museum in the town of St. Lawrence. There had been fluorspar mines here in the 1920s-1960s: these had, for the most part, been undercapitalized and therefore ill-ventilated. A very large number of the miners had developed silicosis, and then there had been a large number of lung-cancer cases, which were eventually traced to a high radon content in the mine air. Whole families had died early from the disease. A sad tale.

I camped in Fortune, and the next morning took the Ferry to St. Pierre, a nice little boat, but they stashed my bike where it got soaked with salt water for the first time. St. Pierre was interesting: a real town - row houses, not individual homes. The result, of course, has been a series of disastrous fires through the years. It also was taken and retaken by the Brits and French 9 times between 1696 and 1814, and the town burned and people carted away each time. However, it is beautiful, and the French Government is pouring money in, and I had a great French meal.

On the boat back I met an older German chap from Ontario and his New Zealand-born wife. He specializes in photographing geological material, especially fossils, so we visited the world type site of the Cambrian-preCambrian boundary at Fortune Head. We didn't have a guide and didn't know exactly what we were looking for, so it was a bit of a bust, but very interesting anyway.

Then up to St. John's, which I think is one of the three most beautiful cities in North America. It surrounds a gem of a harbor whose fjord-like entrance is only a couple of hundred feet wide. From the top of Signal Hill at the entrance the view is spectacular, and the walk up is an entrancement. Cape Spear to the south is the easternmost point in North America, and is formed very appropriately of a late Precambrian conglomerate with the appearance and hardness of a "super-concrete". Again, a thing of incredible beauty, looking from it or towards it from St. John's. St. John's, like St. Pierre, is built of abutting rows of brightly-painted wooden row houses, and has similarly suffered a number a disastrous fires through the years. A walk through it is a continually changing kaleidoscope of colored fragments of streetscape, especially after a late-night visit to George Street, which has 20-odd bars in a few blocks, like Austin's Sixth Street. The Johnson GeoCenter in St. John's is the best Geological Museum I have ever seen, and I spent several hours there in the company of one of their enthusiastic assistants making discoveries on the bare rock face along one side of their main hall.

I rented a car in St. John's and drove the perimeter of part of the Avalon Peninsula: an experience not to be missed, from Petty Harbor, which is reminiscent of a Manx fishing village, to the Puffin Islands off Bauline East, to the exquisitely beautiful Brigus, where I heard a concert of Newfie music, and the ancient settlements of Cupids (1611 - got to be the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in N. Am.) and Avalon (at Ferryland, founded by Lord Baltimore in 1621 and apparently extremely wealthy in the late 1600s - the archaeologists have found more than a million artifacts there including gold and imported fine pottery, etc.). However, because of the driving rain and thick fog I was unable to see much of the countryside, and unable to visit the Precambrian soft-bodied fossil site at Mistaken Point.

After a week of sight-seeing, regrouping and reorganizing based at the quaint Downtown Hostel in St. John's I set out for Gros Morne and L'Anse aux Meadows, reluctantly having to retrace my inbound route for 120 miles to the quaintly-named community of Goobies because there is only one road across Newfoundland, the TransCanada Highway.

On the way into St. John's I had stayed at Whitbourne, where I had noticed that my rear tire, the Kevlar one, had completely worn through. I replaced it, and bought a new spare in St. John's. As luck would have it, I stayed in Whitbourne on the way back, and again noticed a problem with my rear tire. Investigation revealed that the casing had split and it was ballooning, and so had to be replaced. Also on the way in, my Odometer had failed, apparently due to an electrical problem caused by the heavy rain that I was cycling through. The same on the way back. So, on the way west I stopped at a sports shop in Gander to buy a new tyre and check the odometer. I took the battery out of the odometer to test it, and lost all my data. The battery was good, however. I was crushed, but fortunately had written down my mileage that morning, so really nothing was lost. The odometer worked sporadically until I got to Sheppardville, near Dear Lake, so I stopped at Dear Lake, where there was a brand-new bike shop, and we checked everything and found that the odometer sensor on the front forks was loose. We fixed that and there has been nop trouble since.

In Dear Lake I was again stuck for a day due to continuous heavy rain and very low temperatures (2 deg. C), so I caught on my e-mail, and did some souvenir shopping, and sent off some mail. Then on to Gros Morne, again in the rain. Just before the entrance to Gros Morne National Park I was run off the road by a logging truck overtaking another one on a steep uphill grade on the two-lane road. I was forced to dismount and get off onto the shoulder.

I arrived at Woody Point, in the Gros Morne park, completely saturated, and stayed in the hostel there, which was a gigantic ex-Community Center, of which I was the only occupant. Since it was now cold enough for the heat to be on, I had no trouble dsrying everything out but my tent, which I had left packed on the bike and could not reach without getting soaking wet again myself. The next day dawned sullen and foggy, but I had to see the Tablelands, a large area of peridotitic oceanic upper mantle which had been pushed up and over the edge of North America during the closure of the Iapetus Ocean 240 million years ago. Here nothing much grows, due to the presence of toxic elements and lack of nutrient elements in the Peridotite, and there are extensive boulder fields. I took a bus up to the beginning of the trail, and spend an enjoyable two hours there photographing geologic features and botanical wonders such as group of carnivorous pitcher plants.

Then I came down and took a boat tour of Bonne Bay – this had been highly recommended to me, and indeed we saw a whale, cormorants, bald eagles, and magnificent fjord scenery.

Woody Point was settled by people sent out by a fishing company based in Sturminster Newton, Dorset, and the people there still have a Dorset accent. It is amazing to me that such tiny communities in England had such far-ranging trading activities, and I am sure that today they have been mainly forgotten in that part of England.

I stayed the next night in the hostel at Rocky Harbor, and went out in the evening with the Japanese post- doc with whom I shared a room to here a band, "Anchors Aweigh!" perform at the local hotel. Two of the four band members turned out to be the captain and mate of the boat on which I had toured Bonne Bay, and they were a very good band. A good time was had by all!

The next morning I set out up the west coast of the Northern Peninsula toward L'Anse aux Meadows, into a strong headwind. However, I made 85 miles and was again rained on heavily. The next day another 80 miles to Flowers Point, where I stayed at a wonderful B&B, again wet through, and was thoroughly dried out by the hostess. Then on for the last leg to L'Anse aux Meadows. However, in the middle of a very heavy rain about 40 miles short of my final goal, disaster occurred: I felt a slight jar on the bike and almost immediately realized that a spole had broken. I twisted the spoke, on the cog side of the rear wheel of course, around a neighboring one, and kept riding. A couple of kilometers further along a pickup stopped and offered me a lift into St. Anthony's, and I agreed. These wonderful people took me all around St. Anthony's looking for a place to repair the spoke, but all were closed, since it was the Saturday of labor Day weekend. So they dropped me off at another nice B&B, where I thawed and dried out and pondered what to do. I decided to keep going: the nearest bike shop in Newfoundland was in Deer lake, 300 miles away, but I only had about 200 miles of riding to finish my trip. So early next morning I was up in the near-freezing temperatures truing the wheel, removing the broken spoke, and lubricating the chain, and then off towards L'Anse aux Meadows. I intended to go to church in St.Lunaire-Griguet, but I had not left enough time to get there, and the head winds ensured that I would not bem able to make it up. So I hid the bike in some roadside bushes and hitrch-hiked back to the Anglican church in St. Anthony, and enjoyed a very nice service and a fine sermon. Then the Minister's husband drove me back to the bike, and off I went to L'Anse aux Meadows, arriving at journey's end (noo.1) at about 2.30 p.m.

The Viking settlement was well worth the struggle through rain and cold and broken spoke to get there: the interpretation center is very well done, and the guides very knowledgeable. The site has been reburied but the outlines of the Viking buildings are clear, and the reconstructions are well done. A few things strike one: the unspoken fact underlying the saga accouynts that it took about 80 days to reach this area from the Greenland colony (at least, that is what it took a replica knarr a few years ago, and I am sure that the Vikings would have taken the same amount of time. Therefore they HAD to winter over, and

when the natives proved hostile it would have been clear that only could survive. Then there is the absolute paucity of the material remains: they amount to a lot of wood chips from boat repair, a few nails made in Europe (based presumably on trace-element analysis of the iron, a few pieces of carved wood, including one that is definitely of European pine, a few needles of bone and spindle whorls, and a solitary bronze pin of Viking type. There are no bones of domestic animals, even though the sagas say that the Vikings brought cattle with them. On the other hand there is a butternut shell which must have come from near the mouth of the St. Lawrence, since that is the furthest north they have ever grown, even in better climatic times. The present thinking is that this was a base camp, used for wintering over, for ship repair, and for expeditions further south. But even so, the lack of material remains to me is astonishing, and suggests that Snorri Sturlason was not quite the rich merchant that the sagas say he was. Incidentally, a forge was one of the main things found and a small smelter for smelting bog iron, which is abundant locally: this iron was again used for ship's nails.

After spending the night (for which there was a frost warning, appropriately enough) at another delightful B&B, at Hay Cove, adjacent to L'Anse aux Meadows, I started back towards Flowers Cove and the ferry to Labrador. I managed to ride all of the road that I had missed due to the lift I had been given, with a head wind that gusted up to perhaps 40 miles an hour, and occasionally brought me to a complete stop. Eventually, with heavy rain threatening and falling temperatures, I flagged a lift the rest of the way into Flowers Cove. After checking into the same B&B I set off on foot to see the local geological sight – an occurrence of large Cambrian thrombolites or stromatolites. Wrong decision: the rain came down in wind- driven sheets and saturated me in seconds – once again Maggie at the B&B had to dry out all my clothes and my shoes!

The next morning, Tuesday, I was on the 8.00 a.m. ferry for Labrador, and by 4.00 p.m. was in Red Bay photographing the bike at the end of the road. I had ridden up gingerly, because the road was rough in places and very hilly, but no more spokes broke, and I spend the night there. The weather was very appropriate – 2 degrees C, rain and fog. But the scenery up here is spectacular, and today the wetaher is sunny and I can enjoy it.

Tomorrow night I will board the ferry from Blanc Sablon to Rimouski, a three-day trip. In Rimouski I will have the spoke fixed and the the derailleur adjusted and everything cleaned up, and then head for the USA. I will go to the nearest town with a bike dshop and a bus station, box up the bike, and head back to Texas. See y'all!

John Berry's

BICYCLE TRIP TO LABRADOR

Instalment 7

STATISTICAL SUMMARY:

Dates: April 30 – Oct. 1st

Total Elapsed time: 155 days (5 months and 2 days)(includes a break of 14 days)

Total time in Saddle: 101 days

Total Distance: 6,332 miles ( 10,131 km)

Average distance per day: 62.7 miles (100.3 km)

Southernmost Point: Sabal Palm Bird Sanctuary, Texas (Southernmost point in TX)

Northernmost Point: Red Bay, Labrador (Northmost blacktop road E. of Manitoba)

Easternmost Point: Cape Spear, Nfld (the easternmost point of N. America)

Westernmost Point: Kingsville, TX

Latitude Range: 25.90 – 51.82 N = 25.9 degrees

Longitude Range: 52.65 – 97.87 W = 45.2 degrees

Red Bay, the northernmost point, is at the latitude of Clacton or Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, England, seaside resorts 25 miles from where I grew up in Ipswich, and frequent destinations of cycle rides in my teen years.

Nights Camped out: 46 (33%)

Nights in Motel: 46 (33%)

B&B, Hostel, Ferry: 49 (34%)

Weight Loss: 45 lbs, from 230 lbs to 185 lbs.

NARRATIVE OF LAST SECTION OF RIDE:

My last report was from L'Anse-au-Clair, Labrador. On my last night at the Bed and Breakfast there the cod fishing season opened for a day, and the son of the owner brought back two huge crates of cod, which had to be gutted and packed away that night. The next morning the Moose season opened, and it seemed that everyone in southern Labrador was off to "Get their Moose". This is not a matter of sport: the people of the area buy no protein – they live on the fish they catch and their one annual moose and caribou. This is true of a large part of Newfoundland and Labrador, and gives rise to some humorous songs by local musicians such as "Buddy, Wha's 's Name, and the Other Fellow" . It also means that there is little need for supermarkets, and between that and the low population density, this means that there are no supermarkets over an area about 500 miles across.

From Blanc Sablon, which is just over the Labrador line in Quebec, I took the ferry to Rimouski, Quebec. This ferry, the Nordik Express, connects many of the little settlements on the North Shore of Quebec, including Harrington Harbor, the scene of the movie La Grande Seduction (The Seduction of Doctor ___? in English, I believe). Almost all of these settlements are Anglophone, and there is no road that connects any of them east of Natashquan. The ride takes 3 days and nights, and at each stop we spent an hour or two off-loading containers and on-loading others, since this is the only connection with the outside world.

The eastern part of the coast is beautiful, with high hills and bare rocky outcrops: the settlements are few and far between, their brightly-painted wooden houses perching on the bare rock or, in some cases, nestled in little lush coves. On the first morning we woke up at St.-Augustin, and then proceeded west through a straight, narrow channel like those in the Stockholm skargard. At La Tabatiere most of the passengers got off and walked into the village, or in the cases of three of us, rode our bikes in, and explored: we did this at each opportunity. This area is outside the area of really rich cod fisheries, and so is infamous as the locale of the baby seal hunts – sealing was a means of sustenance and provided the only cash income. On the ferry we were shown an old documentary (in French) about seal hunting – in this case hunting of adult seals, their transport across the ice by sled dog team, and their rendering.

At Tete-a-la-Baleine we hitch-hiked the few miles from the harbor to the village with the sister of one of the crew members. This lady had lived in Montreal and as a consequence was very bored with the village, and felt trapped in the summer because you can't go anywhere without a boat. Winters are better, because then people can go all over the countryside on their snowmobiles, and across the ice to neighboring settlements as well.

We reached Harrington Harbor in the late evening – it was a large settlement and very beautiful indeed, but when we woke up the next morning the mountains had receded from the coast, and soon afterward we stopped at Natashquan, a small Francophone village, and most of the passengers got off to drive home to Quebec.

There is no way to convey the stark isolation and beauty of this rocky shore: the bare grey granite scantily clad in patches of moss and low shrubs, the isolated brightly painted houses (used mostly in summer) scattered far from any settlement, and the tight little coves running between rocky cliffs. The light (when the sun is shining) is bright and clean, and in the valleys the low shrubby vegetation is luxuriant with a dozen kinds of berries.

After Natashquan we stayed further out in the estuary, and by evening could see the north coast of Anticosti Island, a place I had very much wanted to visit. However, we stopped at Port-Menier on Anticosti after midnight, and the dock was so far from the village that I didn't manage to walk all the way in. It is

impossible to visit Anticosti for less than 4 days, or a full week if you want to continue in the same direction, since this ferry is the only connection. The whole island, which is about as big as Connecticut, was owned in the late nineteenth century by Henri Menier, a Swiss chocolate magnate who used it as a private hunting preserve. He introduced White-tailed Deer and a variety of other animals, and the unique flora of the island is now under extreme stress, primarily from the huge populaion of deer. The island is now a national park, and people pay dearly to hunt. The scenery, according to another of the ship's documentaries, is apparently spectacular. The island has a relatively mild climate, and I still can't figure out why it was never settled and farmed.

On our last morning we awoke on the approach to Sept-Iles, where we had a long stop, since it is the largest town on the north shore. I rode my bike into town and found a bike shop where my spoke was quickly repaired. The port for the Labrador Iron Mines was quiet because of a long-lasting miners' strike. We spent the rest of the day steaming obliquely across the estuary towards Rimouski, watching the coast of the Gaspe Peninsula grow higher and closer. I was sort of glad that I had not attempted the ride around the peninsula, although cyclists that I met later all gave it rave reviews: this was the ONLY thing on my original loose agenda that I did not do – it would have taken eight days, and I knew already on the 27th June when I had to make the decision that I was running out of time.

We arrived late in Rimouski and I spent the night there, and then set off south-westward along the south shore of the St. Lawrence. At Trois Pistoles (lovely name!) I had lunch and did a load of laundry in a Buanderie (Laundromat) that, like most of those in small towns in Quebec, was hard to find. Everyone knew where it was, underneath the Cinema, but neither that nor the Buanderie had any signs indicating their presence. From Trois Pistoles I crossed the St. Lawrence again by ferry to Les Escoumins, an Innu village. I never did get clear the difference between Innuit (Eskimo) and Innu (Montagnais in French). The latter are apparently considered Indians, in spite of the similarity of their name to that of the Eskimos, and the fact that this coast used to be called the Cote des Esquimaux. This village appeared well-cared for and prosperous.

I had crossed to the North Shore again with some trepidation, but to continue along the south shore would have meant retracing my steps from Riviere-du-Loup to Quebec City. Also, Tadoussac, which I reached the first night out from Rimouski, is the whale-watching capital of the area. But I was forewarned that the riding on the North Shore wa rough in terms both of topography and heavy traffic.

Tadoussac is at the mouth of the Saguenay fjord, in a truly spectacular setting. One day I would like to take a boat up the fjord. At Tadoussac I went on a whale-watching cruise, and saw plenty of Beluga and one large fin whale, and then proceeded to St. Simeon, a distance of only 30 miles but a ride that tested my stamina with huge long hills and lots of logging trucks, with no shoulders to ride on.

The next day was more of the same – gorgeous country, but huge hills, but I got as far as St. Tite, which is just before the descent into the lowlands around Quebec City.

From St. Tite I rode down a long hill to the Canyon St. Anne, which is a tourist trap but well worth a visit. The St. Anne river has eroded a steep gorge, with many waterfalls, along the fault separating the Canadian shield from Paleozoic limestones. In St. Anne-de-Beaupre, about 25 miles from Quebec, I was stopped by a musician as I left a drugstore and offered a lift through the city. I accepted, with some misgivings, as it would save me at least half a day and a lot of riding in heavy traffic: St. Anne is already virtually in the suburbs. This musician, Jean, was small and round and bald and quite weird. He had been born in the Romanian part of the Banat of Temesvar. He was driving a very beat up van in which he clearly slept most of the time. He pressured me to buy a CD by his wife, and whgen I did so immediately stopped to buy gas. I think he offered me the lift because he needed the money to get home. The CD turned out to be quite good: mostly sung in Yiddish, with a little French and English. Oy vay!

That night I got as far as St. Georges, where I had my second puncture of the day outside a campground. Very convenient! The rear tire that I had put on new at Whitbourne, Newfoundland, had worn out in only a thousand miles (what do you expect for$8?), so the next morning I went to a bike shop and bought and installed a new one. The road (Quebec 173) follows Fleuve Chaudiere and one does not realise that one is climbing steadily all the way. From St. Georges to the border was only about 25 miles, and an easy ride, but once in Maine is was downhill for a long way. I stopped for lunch and to get on the internet in Jackman, Maine, and then had a tremendous climb for about 6 miles to recover all the altitude lost since crossing the border. At these altitudes the Fall colors were already quite advanced – they had begun to appear on the North Shore of Quebec a couple of days earlier.

I stopped at The Forks, Maine, for my first night back in the USA, and was made quite a fuss of by the people in the hotel bar/restaurant. This is a center for whitewater rafting on the Dead and Kennebec Rivers, and I was persuaded to spend the next day rafting on the Kennebec. This was a load of fun, more especially so because four of the people on the raft were visitors from the Sudbury, Suffolk, area of England, about 20 miles from where I had grown up. They were on a two week holiday in new England, and were having a great time, which was catching.

From The Forks I rode down to Augusta, Maine, through gradually more and more farmland and lots of picturesque villages and a few rather decayed old mill towns. And then on into Freeport, Maine, where I stopped at LL Bean to buy a cycling jersey before cycling the last few miles to Yarmouth, Maine, and the offices of DeLorme Mapping, where my old remote sensing friend Jonathan Pershouse works. Jonathan gave me a great welcome, and I spent two nights with him before taking the train from Portland to Boston, MA, where I stayed with an old college friend, Julius Levin, for three days, and boxed the bike up for shipping to Texas.

I had intended to take the bus from Boston to Brownsville, TX, but when I got to the bus station with Julius we found that all buses down the East Coast were canceled from Fayetteville, NC, because of Hurricane Jeanne. The alternative was to go through Albany, NY, and this would take a day longer. By this time I had committed myself to be in Church in Houston, and the added transit time would not allow for that. I also realized at the bus station that I suffer some degree of agoraphobia: the noise and crowds really upset me.

Julius helped me find cheap tickets on SW Airlines from Hartford, Conn., to Harlingen, Texas, and the following morning drove me out to the airport. Good old Julius!

On arrival at Harlingen I found that the ride to the Motel I had reserved in Brownsville would be expensive and involve quite a wait, so I booked myself into the Motel 6 in Harlingen and took a taxi. That evening I put the bike back together again and re-packed.

The following morning I rode down to Brownsville, got some immigration officers to photograph me at the International Bridge – it is forbidden to do it yourself, and then rode on Southmost Road to the Sabal Audubon Bird Sanctuary at the southernmost point of Texas. From there I rode another 25 miles to Boca Chica, where Texas Highway $ runs into the Gulf of Mexico, the southwesternmost access to the sea in the eastern USA.

On the way back to Harlingen I got very dehydrated – the warmth of south Texas caught me without enough water on the bicycle. I left Harlingen early the next morning and made the easy run up to Houston in 3 days, averaging 110 miles a day, and taking care to carry enough water, especially for the empty 62-mile crossing of the King Ranch. The wind was with me, the sun was pleasant, there was a nice shoulder, although it got a bit rough around Victoria. There were no incidents, except for a puncture near Rosenberg, and two occasions, both on Dairy Ashford Road in Houston, when drivers rolled down their windows and yelled at me to get off the road and ride on the sidewalk.

In Houston I stopped briefly at the Arendts' for water and photographs, and at Shell Woodcreek, where I had really begun the trip 4 months and 2 days earlier, to say hello to Allen Scardina and Mike Cooper. I arrived at the Dolds' house, the official point of beginning, almost exactly 4 months, 2 days and 2 hours after I had left it.

SUMMARY

All in all, it was a wonderful trip, and along the way I met some wonderful people. The scenery in Eastern Canada, especially in Newfoundland, was spectacular, but there was also great scenery in Maine and in the Midwest.

I found much to admire in the Canadian way of life, which seems to be deliberately less stressful than our own. I was able to watch the final run-up to their elections, and also a Federal-Province Conference of Premiers (Prime Ministers) on the subject of how to pay for the health care system, and was struck by the collegial, non-adversarial approach taken in their politics. Canadians seem, to a person, to value their health care system highly, and to want to see it continue to succeed.

I was struck by the loyalty of Canadians in general to the "way things were", an innate conservatism. You still see the Union Jack everywhere, and even sometimes the old Newfoundland flag (a tricolor) from the days when it was an independent dominion, before it went bankrupt in 1925 and reverted to being a colony. Everywhere there are deliberate attempts to preserve heritage buildings and heritage skills. The preservation and repeated updating of old buildings means that in many houses and hotels there are doors and floors out-of-kilter due to poor foundation work in the original construction. There is less hurry to adopt new forms ways of doing things just because they seem better at the moment. However, there is an emphasis on efficiency, and groups of towns are gathered into new, larger municipalities in a way that is inconceivable in the US: Miramichi in Nova Scotia, for example, was created by amalgamation of the old towns of Napan, Chatham, and Newcastle, where Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook) was born. Interestingly, a Prime Minister of the UK, Bonar Law (Conservative, 1922-23), was also a New Brunswicker, from Rexton, near Richibucto.

There is acceptance of different groups within society, so that there is much less emphasis on the idea of a "melting pot". Unfortunately, though, there is little attempt on the part of the vast majority of either Francophones or Anglophones to be fluent in each others' languages. Since Anglophones are the majority, this still results in the main burden of learning the other language being placed on the Francophone population, especially if they work in the tourism industry. Francophones were continually amazed that I speak French as well as I do, which is not perfectly by any means. I kept having to explain that I grew up in England and learned it there. Unfortunately, it was quite a way into the trip before I was able to understand Quebecois as well as I spoke French. The breakthrough came when someone explained to me that the "t" and "d" sounds of French are disappearing, and being replaced by German- sounding "ts" and "dz". The "oi" sound of French approximates English "oy", and the "ere" (carriere, derriere) sound is replaced universally with "are", as in the Swedish a-umlaut-r. This is analogous to the English sound shift from Derby and clerk to "Darby" and "clark". Eventually I was able to recognize various dialects: in the Maritimes a dollar is generally a "piece" and a penny is a "sou", which in old France was ten cents.

In the USA, in Ohio in particular, I was amazed to see the prosperity and pride shown in the centers of small towns that were not on the freeway system – Norman Rockwell's America still survives there. Also, in Ohio, Indiana, and Ontario, the neatness and cleanliness of the Amish/Mennonite farms stood in strong contrast to those surrounding them: an observation that has often been made.

I also found out that I have no problem being alone with myself for several days at a time, but that I do enjoy the encouragement of others in my efforts. In addition, on the way back I found that large buildings full of people and noise disturb me greatly, whereas crowds in the open air do not. I found that no hill is so steep it cannot be climbed, and no rain and wind are so cold and wet that they cannot be endured. That bicycles are generally more robust than the horror stories of other cyclists would have us believe – after all, a story would not be a good one were it not for the bad things it relates! Again, that once a Geologist always a geologist – somehow I always seemed to end up stopping to look at, even sketch, interesting rocks, or making a diversion to see some famous locality.