Day 18 - A new province (New Brunswick!) and into a rest day

miles today: 73 total miles: 1,165
km today: 117 total km: 1,874

After the challenging day yesterday, we were looking forward to an easier day today. The plan was to descent along the Matapédia River valley, cross into New Brunswick, and then head into our rest day in Campbellton, NB! We were originally going to camp one more night and move to an AirBnB for the rest day, but we changed plans to have two nights in the house to really rest as much as possible. The storm proved to be a big one last night! Lots of rain, but thankfully, Chandra’s idea to line the tent floor with a tarp (which we bought back in Montreal) kept us dry. The seam sealer probably helped keep out some water as well, but when I went to take down the tent, there was standing water beneath the tarp but inside the tent! What a bummer! This is our second iteration of a high-quality tent. The first had for sure more than a hundred nights of use in many conditions including some huge storms. This one, not as much, but we concluded that the floor is leaking catastrophically. Not a big deal for the rest of this trip, as the tarp did what we needed. But, it’s the end of the line for a piece of gear we have, until now, been able to trust and depend on. We are going to have to do something different for our next trip. #sad.

So we yard-saled the tent and other gear to make sure everything was totally dry before heading to the road. These 5-day pushes, especially with the hard day yesterday, mean our legs are pretty tired, our butts are a little sore, and with a shorter day ahead, we didn’t want to hurry onto the bike :). But, that time in camp meant the oatmeal was wearing off before we loaded up, so we supplemented breakfast with a little Canadian specialty - Ketchup chips. They are ….. interesting. They definitely hit the spot as we needed some snackage before going.


We finally got going pretty late but after 10 km had to do some route-finding. Chandra noticed an ice cream stand nearby so we stopped there - and had another little junkfood boost - early in the day for ice cream, but wow! The soft serve here is way more creamy than the whipped corn-syrup from DQ etc. Granted, it’s probably sweetened with corn here too, but still so much more rich and tasty somehow!

Then it was the road. It was a grind with the persistent strong headwind killing our speed again most of the day, but alot more descending punctuated with a few short steep climbs. And the scenery along the river was stunning! Such a nice contrast to racing the clock with a storm heading in!




By early afternoon, we crossed a bridge into New Brunswick and made the last few (mostly) downhill kms into Campbellton with a slight tailwind.


Rather than check in directly to the AirBnB, we stopped at Artisan Brewing company for a couple celebratory beers, some “healthy” poutine (look closely and you see the green salad made of green onions - healthy!), and a game of cribbage.



One final stop at the grocery store and Chandra set up a truly healthy meal of salmon and loads of veggies. We took full advantage of having a kitchen (and oven) and she even found fresh figs which, with cream, is maybe my favorite dessert!


Warning….random story from the past here :). I’ve loved figs and cream since the first time I had them while visiting the Soviet Union in high school. Basically, with a bunch of American high school students, we were served dinner in a Moscow Hotel and dessert was fresh figs with cream. I’d never seen a fig before, nor had most of my classmates, and most of the kids got up from the table and left the figs. I was slow to get up for some reason (with another couple kids) and quickly caught the vibe that these figs were a huge luxury at the time (people were lining up for bread in those days in the Soviet Union) and not only were they available for us, the serving staff would probably not get the leftovers. They were clearly shocked and a little angry seeing all these privileged American kids walking away from something they wanted but couldn’t have. So with the couple other kids at my table, we tried them, and were amazed that such a simple fruit with cream could be even more delicious than some complex baked cake or cookie or pie. The old women serving saw us eat them and, with some relief, started bringing more untouched bowls from the other tables. We ate ourselves sick and had to pry ourselves away from the servers when we couldn’t eat any more. It was an important lesson about equity and privilege and I’ve savored figs at every opportunity ever since! I do hope the servers were able to sneak a few bowls for themselves!

So now - for a rest day tomorrow. There are no particular sights to see, and no social visits here. We are committed to really just resting our legs, fueling up. There are almost no bike maintenance issues so we will spend the day focused on recovery so we are strong starting into our final 5-day push to Halifax!