Sunday, September 1, 2004, 66 miles: We had a mostly restful night, even with the wind. We packed up, loaded the bikes and headed for McDonald’s for coffee and free wi-fi, and to check out the weather report for the day. Didn’t look like there were going to be any downpours, but we might have rain for our morning ride to the Confederation Bridge.
The weather report looked promising as there were some showers that were passing to the north of us, so we got on the bikes to ride the remaining 20 miles to the Confederation Bridge. We followed Google maps to a dead end (yes, there WILL be a road there in a year or two, but it wasn’t built yet, but Goog happily routed us to a construction zone). After that backtracking, we finally were headed out of Summerside only to have the rain start. Not a hard rain, but more than a drizzle. Not so bad, we thought, 8 days on the road and this was the first precipitation we’ve had. We were glad it was Sunday morning because the traffic to the bridge, while not heavy, was more than we expected. A lot of campers and fifth wheels, too, and the road was without shoulders. The rain stopped, though, and the rest of the morning (and day) was cloudy, but dry.
When we arrived at the Confederation Bridge, we were prepared to wait a while for the shuttle. Cyclists and peds weren’t allowed on the bridge, and with good reason as we later experienced. We followed the signs and pulled up to the waiting area for the shuttle. There was a nice little lobby and when we walked in a pushed the button, a nice ladies voice came on and said, “Oh, you’re the bikers. Two right?” “So you’ve seen us already?”, Dana asked. “Yes.” Well, small talk aside, she told us the shuttle would be there in a few minutes and to unload our bikes of anything detachable and it would be right there. Wow, we thought, what great service. When the shuttle driver showed up in his F-150 Lightning and opened the frunk, I went inside with him to pay while Dana started loading the bags. He only charged us for the bikes (it’s supposed to be $4.25CD for each bag, too) and in a minute we were back outside watching Dana looking for where to put the bags in the back. No, dear, in the frunk. “What’s a frunk?” “That place in the front with the hood open!” “Ah hah! Never heard that term before.” Anyway, we loaded up and climbed into the shuttle, replete with a taxi-like plexiglass shield for the driver.
On the way over the bridge, we learned that our driver was a retired Canadian Navy man who lived in NS. He asked us where we were going and we told him Amherst. “Great steak place there.” “Well, we don’t eat meat. Seafood is OK.” “Well, I’m not much of a fish eater.” He gets on the phone and calls his wife, since she was a seafood lover, got a recommendation for Duncan’s Pub. When he dropped us off at the small building that serves as the shuttle lounge on the NS side, we offered him a tip for all his help, but he refused, saying he wasn’t allowed to accept anything. So, we just heartily thanked him, reloaded the bikes and headed out on the “Great Trail” towards Amherst.
The Great Trail is the renamed Trans-Canada Trail. It started right at the end of the Conf. Br. drop-off lot. It was great. Hardpacked gravel and some overgrowth, but certainly navigable. For 1.5 miles, anyway. Then the trail became so overgrown that you could barely see that there was a path. Knowing we had 30+ miles to get to Amherst and not looking to bushwack our way there, we crossed the Trans-Canada Highway that was 30yds away and got on that. It was actually pretty good: a two-lane road (single lane in both directions) with almost 10′ wide shoulders. Other than the high speed traffic, it was a pretty nice ride for the 10 miles we had to be on it.
We got off the highway at Port Elgin, stopped for a bite to eat and Dana secured some water at a house next to the park (Sunday of Labour Day weekend, nothing was open in this little town). The rest of the ride to Amherst saw us crossing the border from New Brunswick back into Nova Scotia, and a mostly quiet and flat road to Amherst.
As we approached Amherst, our plans to camp south of Amherst were faced with the reality that heavy thunderstorms were expected that night. I managed to get a reservation at the Travelodge outside of Amherst, so we were on to Plan B. We rode in to Duncan’s Pub and were immediately underwhelmed. First, we weren’t allowed to park our bikes on the empty porch, and once inside, saw it was a very dark and dank place. We ordered a beer, but no public wi-fi sealed the deal that we didn’t want to hang there. In the course of having our beer though, the skies opened up and when we left Duncan’s a hard rain was falling. We moved to the bikes to a close-by overhang and got the directions to the hotel on my phone, dug out rain gear and headed to the Travelodge about 3 km miles away.
We made it through rain to the motel and got checked in, and found out we got the last room they had available that evening! We got the bikes up to the room, carrying them up the stairs, got showers, dried off and changed to warmer clothes. In the meantime, the rain had stopped and we were back to mostly cloudy. We found an Italian restaurant that looked like a good place to land for the evening and trusting Accuweather’s “No rain for at least 120 minutes,” headed there on our bikes.
Frank & Gigi’s was a nice little restaurant, much lighter than the pub, and with a very interesting cast of characters. There was Brooklyn, our bartender/server, and her, as near as we could tell, male companion, ???, who told us her whole story of being a divorced mom of two girls with a nasty ex who engaged her in a drag race where she ended up totaling her car. So, ??? was driving her to different places. The story goes on, but suffice to say that Brooklyn was fine and had a great attitude about “her life” as she herself called it.
After refueling on pasta, seafood, and happy hour wine, we rode back to the Travelodge for a restful sleep.
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