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| Ted's
House - Motorcycle Trip Reports Canada, 1996 |
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The wake up call came at a painful 6:30 am, I looked at my watch and asked why they were an hour early.
Amazing what 3 miles can do, another country, another currency, another time zone. As I headed out on towards Halifax I started to notice a few things. Texas has great hamburger joints, Maine tons of chowder houses, and Canada has a love affair with the donut. There are not one but several national chains, and one even serves as a quasi bank for exchange rate purposes. Now they are not slow up here, you don't get the 30 to 35% exchange rate unless you ask, and a lot of times not even then. I picked up the free map of eastern Canada (don't go five feet into Canada without it, ala Greg Pink is invaluable) and decided on St. John NB as the first stop, straight up Route 1. The ride was uneventful but for the great trucks that suck you out of your lane into the middle of the road as they pass. Scary. The Macadam Tires I had mounted the day before leaving were finally beginning to really shine. As Sean at Bob's had commented when mounting them, "Wow, these tires are really round" meaning the tire tread profile was much rounder than the more oval K591 that was coming off the rim. This has the result of allowing the bike to truly smoothly roll over into curves. There is no "shoulder" or peak to "fall over" when going into a curve. Well at first this really bothered me, but now I have come to appreciate the smoothness of cornering with these tires. St. John was a town a lot like many others I had visited, but for the wonderful park in the middle. The park is about 75 yards square and covered by great shade trees and lush grass. I bought a Cuban cigar (a "troya") and headed across the street to nestle myself between the twin statues, one for Sir Samuel Tilly, "One Of The Fathers Of The Confederation" and one honoring St. John's war dead, labeled "Great War 1914-1918, Great War 1939-1945, Korea 1950-1953." Well after the cigar had expired it was getting close to lunch so I wandered down to the ferry dock to buy a ticket on the ferry across the Bay of Fundy to Digby only to find that I had literally just missed the boat, and another wouldn't be leaving till 5:00 in the afternoon! Youch! Well I looked at the map and decided to run the land route instead as the ferry would put me in Digby after 8:00pm and I wanted to be in Halifax that night. The run to Halifax was one of farm after farm, small hamlet after small hamlet. It reminded me a great deal of rural western Virginia, though there were a lot more pine trees... ;-) I finally made it to Halifax around 8:00pm and after becoming thoroughly lost finally found myself in front of the Halifax City Hall. I had the number of Halifax Denizen and fellow IBMWR President Bob Edgett so I gave him a call. He recommended staying just across the McCay bridge in Dartmouth. I looked around and decided that a big city was not what this trip was about so upon Bob's recommendation I ran down to Peggy's Cove to look for a motel there. No luck, so I ran back to the cheap motels in Dartmouth only to find that the international rowing championships were being held in Halifax and NO rooms were available anywhere. I was just about to pull out the MOA anonymous book when I remembered the Provincial Park at Porter Lake, only about 30km west of Halifax. I hit the road west and was there in no time (though I was beginning to get hypothermic!) I was greeted at the gate to the park by a redhead who despite my best attempts at charm through my chattering teeth charged me the whopping sum of $14. It took me all of 50 yards to find a nice secluded slot (the place was empty) and 5 minutes to have my tent up and sleeping bag and pad unstuffed and rolled out. As I drifted off to sleep I could have sworn I heard a Loon off in the distance. Two Provinces, lots of miles, Next
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All Photos and Text Copyright©1996,
Ted Verrill |
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