Baddeck to Yarmouth (nearly) – 273 miles of cycling!

As I passed back through Halifax airport on the bus a few days ago, I thought, ‘I’ve made it!’ Literally, I’d already travelled from Halifax back to Halifax as I’d set out to. I could easily just hop off the bus, buy a flight, and make my way home without losing too much face. ‘Hey guys, I’m home!’ But why on earth would I have done that?!

There comes a stage in every cycle tour, I’ve found, in the third week usually, when things start to feel a bit tough. Relentless. Like more of an endurance challenge than pleasure. When I was cycling from Wellington in New Zealand back to Auckland a few years back, it was around about this point that I decided I could just as easily chill out for a few days in Coromandel, drinking endless flat whites and visiting craft shops, and then take the ferry rather than throwing in a last few days of high mileage! When I cycled from Salford to Athens, I’d made it to the north of Italy by this far in, and realised that I needed to stop taking quite so many detours in my route to just blooming get there! And it’s been the same over the past four days of cycling. The good thing is that I know it does get better, not least as I get fitter. As I adapt. It’s just a stage.

I caught the bus first from Wagmatcook, a Mi’kmaq community just south of Baddeck, at the southern end of the Cabot Trail. I was impressed how easy the bus company made it – buy a polythene bike bag to protect the other luggage from my bike oil (fair enough, and available at all bus stops), pay a smallish premium for the bike, and off you go! The UK could learn…It was my first ‘cheat’ of the tour, but I was glad to save what would have taken me five days hot-footing it down the main highway. There are other adventures ahead upon which to spend the time saved, and the landscape down the main road was nothing worth dwelling over…so instead on the bus, my attention turned to my fellow travellers. I could have sworn that the man who got on at St Francis Xavier University in Antigonish was a university lecturer. He had all the hallmarks. Open necked shirt and smart trousers. Particular mannerisms. Gentle. Positively dorky – can I say that? Sorry to my many male academic friends…but how wrong I was. Nope, as his conversation with another passenger clarified, he was in fact a security guard, which only goes to prove that Nova Scotia has less security issues than Britain! I couldn’t have imagined him confronting a chipmunk. And that also showed me for generalising. Look, even the shag in the picture below was embarrassed at me for my assunptions. And as any bird will tell you, any creature named shag needs a thick skin when it comes to embarrassment to survive a day in the avian kingdom.

I had the pleasure in Dartmouth of revisiting the Warmshowers hosts who had let me stay in their house in their absence when I had first arrived. It was slightly odd to find people in ‘my’ house, right enough, but a real delight to spend the evening with Matt and Zoe, enjoying wonderful food, sipping on the craft beers from the Two Crows Brewerry that I’d wobbled across town transporting, and most of all sharing tales of bike and other adventures. They aren’t from Nova Scotia, hailing from Ontario and Saskatchewan originally, but when I asked them why they had chosen to make it their home, they didn’t hesitate. ‘The people.’ Yes, the people. The people.

Getting going the following morning after two days off wasnt entirely appealing as the rain began to fall; I spent far longer plotting routes at the breakfast table than was strictly necessary. And I’m sure that Halifax is a great city, but I’ve mainly seen it in the pouring rain. I’m generally not a great fan of cycling in cities while on tour anyway. Even with Komoot to assist, it was complex making my way out of town, and the roads were fairly busy and wet all the way to Peggy’s Cove – one of the key tourist attractions in this part of Nova Scotia. Yet I didn’t even make it as far as the lighthouse atop the rocks above the bay without pulling in at the very first bistro. I was already wet through, a little cold, hungry, and a steaming plate of Macaroni Lobster Cheese sounded just the ticket! The waitress, bless her, made little fuss about the puddle I created while stripping off at the door – ‘just hide your things over there, in the corner’. I even treated myself to a beer with my meal, since by that point I’d convinced myself that I was going no further that day. 30 miles was respectable, Yet Peggy’s Cove was far too touristy for a subtle wild camp, so on I continued, managing to keep going another 25 miles until I found a lovely spot in a local park above the wharf, even with my own picnic table (to lean my bike against as I jumped straight into my tent and didn’t emerge, apart from having to pee, until morning).

The next day was the first time so far this trip that I’d awoken in a wet sleeping bag. But it was a fine day, and forecast to keep improving, so instead of packing up wet I eased into a gentle morning while I let my stuff dry out. One coffee. Two coffees. I even did some reading for the first time all trip – the opening couple of chapters of Elizabeth Jane Burnett’s Twelve Words for Moss, whose combo of writing about grief and the natural world really struck me bearing in mind my own current collection-in-progress about the death of my Mum, trauma and ‘woods’. The only problem with ‘lazy’ mornings is that they don’t get you anywhere! Having stopped off early the previous day, by the time I left at 12.30pm I still had 61 miles to ride. By 2.30pm, after stocking up at a supermarket (it was Sunday, and I wasn’t taking chances after one Outer Hebridean disaster when I’d had to survive a whole Sabbath of riding on one packet of biscuits) I still had 50 miles to go. Yet still, I sat sunning myself on the pavement. Refiling my water bottles. Eating cherries. Messaging a friend who is on a sea kayaking holiday in Ireland.

‘I was wondering when you’d begin to relax!’ she said.

It was a stunning day of riding once I did get going, although the sun was already setting by the time I reached my destination. It being a Sunday, and within reach of the main population centres, I saw more cyclists than I had all tour. The road wound in and out of bays peppered with houses that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Grand Designs. It was already late when I passed through Mahone Bay, which I preferred to the more renowned Lunenburg, where the numbers of people enjoying a drink and a meal quite frankly intimidated me! The process of going feral is coming along apace. Yet perhaps I’d have enjoyed a drink there myself if I hadn’t still had ten miles to cycle to a ferry across the La Have estuary, and another five miles after that. Yes, the sunset above Crescent Beach was beautiful, but I still hadn’t eaten / cooked…

It’s funny. In retrospect, no matter how stunning the above day was scenically, the increased level of tourism and people made it far less memorable than other parts of my trip through Nova Scotia. People were less interested. Less open. Welcoming. The ferryman pointed me to where I should put my bike on board and told me to stay by its side, while he headed indoors, so unlike the chatty ferryman on the Eastern Shore. The most interested person was a female Canadian cyclist who swept into a grocery on whose deck I was enjoying a coffee. She owned a bike shop up in Lunenberg, she said, which sounds like the life. The only other bike shop I’ve seen was on a remote stretch yesterday, named after one of the awesome craft beers hereabouts. Kitchen Party Bike Shop. Unfortunately I was 15 minutes late to pop in and say hi, because I gather it has quite the following, remote location or not.

The last two days until now have been dictated by my inability to get into my chosen campsite once I get to Acadia National Park in Maine. I’m strict about rest days. Without them I’ll simply get injured and this will all be over. Halifax2mylocalphysio.com. So even though 20 miles isn’t far to cycle once I reach Bar Harbor in Maine on the ferry tomorrow, it’s far enough not to count as ‘rest’. This meant that yesterday and the day before I had to get a shifty-on so that I could rest up today. Out were the lovely detours down peninsulas, including to Kejimkujik seaside national park. In was blasting down the main highway, into a full-on headwind. Ok. Maybe ‘blasting’ is an exaggeration! But at least it was dry. Sometimes sunny. Warm.

My friend Hana, who was so kind to deliver me to Gatwick at the start of all this, asked me how I’d cope with the solitariness of the trip. Me being a ‘people person’ as she put it. The funny thing is, I’ve had so much more human interaction on this cycle tour than I’ve had on many days working from home (and living alone) over recent years. The first time that I felt lonesome was on highway 103. It’s such a vehicle landscape. Designed to travel fast and direct inside your bubble. The views of trees either side were dull and repetitive, and sadly at times burnt. The roads straight, which at least allowed trucks travelling at speed early sight of me. I will need to have days riding like this, where I focus on just ‘getting there’. But it was so much less fun. The first day’s headwind lasted 65 miles. The second day at least mixed things up a bit. Highway and lesser highway. Half into the wind. Half crosswind, with a touch of tail, as I passed into the Acadian (French speaking) heartland of Nova Scotia.

Of course, the Mi’kmaq peoples have been here for centuries, but the French were the first settlers to arrive. If Cape Breton had been all McDonald and Macleod name boards at the end of driveways as a result of Gaelic speaking settlers at the time of the Highland clearances (the man I sat beside on the flight’s family originated from Morvern), then now the names were Francophone. The flags are French (blimey do the Nova Scotians like their flags, even the rainbow one which I’ve found hanging from most population centres for Pride month. On an aside i read a terrifying article about some Nova Scotian teenagers being filmed burning their school Pride flag a couple of years back while laughing and dancing. The resultant public outcry seems to have only strengthened the pro-Pride spirit, at least superficially). Back to France. Carl’s shop wasn’t French. But it was French in spirit in terms of the quality of food! Mais oui. I stumbled around the locally grown veg and other delicacies in a trance. Ca alors!

The landscape down here is also different. More estuarial / marshy. Bigger skies, although as much water as ever, which I even finally jumped into this afternoon at the lake by the campsite. (The sea here is bloody cold and gave me an ice cream footache just paddling in it!) In fact, I even suddenly felt like I was more abroad yesterday, since everyone would be speaking French. Bloody ridiculous. I hadn’t even spoken to anyone! Not that my French is much use anyway. I speak it in a broad Spanish accent apparently. Even my English has sometimes needed translating hereabouts. It took me and a supermarket attendant a good few manoeuvres to translate my waste bin query into a trash can discovery.

Your mind can go funny places on the more ‘boring getting-there days’. I set up a sweepstake the other day for the footie Euros based on me and my bike kit. I’ve got three teams (Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia hmmm), Spike the bike has England and a couple more. Portugal are going to win, simply on the basis that they are ‘food’s’ team, and food always wins when it comes to cycle touring. My poor water bottles have ‘Scotland’. Hardly in it for the money. A friend on social media expressed concern when I posted something on facebook about this! ‘Was I delirious?’ Nope. Just entertaining myself, in ways I should perhaps keep to myself! I’ve also enjoyed sitting listening to the birdsong and using the Merlin app for recognition. Black-capped-chickadee. Hermit thrush. Cedar waxwing. Red Headed Vireo. The bloody American Robin, whose breast is far more muddy brown than red! Using the app hasn’t helped me to recognise birdsong as such, especially not here where it’s all so new to me, but it does make me appreciate the soundscape more. Like another dimension to inhabit. While talking birds, I also noticed the other day, with surprise, how many Canadian geese there were around here. It took me a moment to figure…

So tomorrow I will arrive by catamaran ferry in the USA. Country number 2. Where I’ll very soon reach my first milestone of 1000 miles. As if numbers count. It has felt a little bit like I’ve been on a small training holiday before the real business of cycling around the world begins these last 2.5 weeks. But I’m already onto working out how to make my journey through Maine as holidayish as possible (involving at least one detour down a peninsula, as well as a day exploring Acadia National park where I hope to finally dig out my fellrunning shoes). Would I recommend Nova Scotia as a cycle touring destination? Based on the people, definitely. Landscape-wise, a few people have commented that my pics look like Scotland. It actually doesn’t. There are too many trees. Not as many hills. The light is different. The scenery less varied. It feels more like New Zealand, but perhaps that’s the clapboard houses. And it’s unfair to compare any scenery to NZ. But the scenery is oftentimes stunning, and oftentimes repetitive, and both of those grow on you. If I were to come back I’d spend a month here. Cycling down peninsulas. Keeping off the main highways. Preferably travelling with someone so as to lessen the cost of campsites (they charge per pitch, so I’m paying the same as a 6 person family in a tent-mansion) and to share meals out. Oops – I’ve just re-read that. What I meant to say was ‘travelling with someone for their ace company, yes?!’ Although, I guess that if I were travelling with others I wouldn’t have had so many of the wonderful interactions which have made Nova Scotia feel special.

So, slainte Nova Scotia. Sante. Wela’lin. You’ve made a real impression on me, and I’m going to miss you. I’ve only one last thing i must ask of you. Considering how badly the old Scotland team fared in their Euros football opener against Germany the other day, we could be doing with a bit of the new Scotland spirit today, please. Ok? It’s the least you could do after the mauling your mosquitos have given me (I counted 25 from last night on the top of my feet, bitten through my socks).

And now where was I? Off around the world back to the old Halifax, which doesn’t even have an airport to catch a bus to, I guess. Just that. I’ve got a little further to go still until i get there it seems.