Distance: 119km
Elevation: 1,330m
In the night, I woke up several times to a noise that sounded like a phone on vibration mode. My phones were off though. Danny told me next day that this had been a fog horn that warned ships of particularly shallow waters.
While packing up, I was chatting to my new neighbor Dan who was vacationing together with his 8 year old daughter. He seemed like a nice guy.
He lived and worked in Toronto. This is where my tour started 2,600km ago. He found it hard to believe that I cycled all of this by bike. Me too, actually.
I was in the saddle by 9am and a bit nervous because the next stretch had allegedly zero infrastructure for 120km except for one shop.
My supply level was “red alert” though. So, this one shop needed to be open.
There were no trucks due to the weekend which was nice.
After 20km I passed a campsite which had a tiny convenience store. I pulled over and was very relieved. They did not have much but exactly what I had needed.
I thought “Again, coincidence beats planning”.
When I was having a little break there a guest chatted me up. He was a teacher who had moved from PEI to Nova Scotia.
My immediate response was “Why?” since PEI is so beautiful. He replied that it was only beautiful for 2 months of the year. The rest was a very long winter were everyone would hibernate.
The water around the island would freeze over and that would keep the air colder for way longer than here in Southern Nova Scotia which faced the open ocean.
I shared my observation with him that people in PEI were more open and friendly to strangers than here. He confirmed that. He also confirmed the cultural norm on PEI to be friendly to others. Matter of fact if one was not, then this got talked about by the neighbors.
He mentioned that this eastern part of Nova Scotia was the poorest part of this generally poor province. People here lived mainly from fishery and forestry.
As I drove on, I could see what he meant. Many houses were rather wore down huts, cars were old, there were no gas stations, no shops, and there was even no cell reception for hours.
It reminded me of Swedish Lapland, way North of the Arctic Circle.
The only exception was Sheet Harbour where I completed my grocery shopping and several locals came staring at me and Rosinante, full of disbelief why one would cycle here all the way from Vancouver.
Also, I had an early lunch. Again not because I was hungry but because there was food.
I had a Hamburger and a Greek salad in this case. And a nice view. Perfect!
The sun was out, I had tailwind and each corner of the coastline looked more stunning than the one before. It was gorgeous.
The rolling hills were tough though. The last 20km had the toughest climbs in them.
Whenever I was complaining to myself I couldn’t help but think of my friend Thorsten.
We had studied together, worked together, and had stayed close throughout all the years.
Mounty, as we called him, had been a competitive mountain bike cyclist since I got to know him some 30 years ago. He had competed several times in the worlds toughest Mountainbike events like the TransAlp or Cape Epic in South Africa.
In May of this year, he has had a severe accident when cycling a standard situation during a vacation ride in Italy and was now paralyzed from the neck down.
I was very scared when I visited him in hospital for the first time. How would he be? Depressed? Bitter? I would have fully understood that.
Thorsten had always been a “happy go lucky” kind of guy. He was the source of laughter and lightness at every party.
And, to my amazement, he kept this positive fighting spirit and his sense of humor also now with this tough burden.
For him the hospital was a training camp and every physiotherapist loved working with him due to his positive spirit.
His new “killer move”, after many weeks of tough rehab, was that he could move his left index finger by a little bit. Enough to eventually control a computer – which was his ultimate goal: To be able to work again.
And he was now able to use WhatsApp again with voice control.
For him, he had been millimeters away from being dead. So what he now had was not a loss but rather a second chance for a new, yet totally different life.
So, whenever I wined to myself about how tough a climb was or how cold or rainy it was, I always thought of how Mounty would have taken each hardship with a joke or smile.
Anyways, eventually I reached Sherbrooke and found a nice campground directly by the river Weir.
I had a light dinner and planned my next days, especially what I was going to do once I was in Newfoundland. More to come.
All in all, another great day that I was very thankful for!