Signal hill walk!
Cleaning and disassembling the bikes.
d
Mushroom picking!
Hahahah. Looks just like the days leading up to leaving Victoria. (:
Waiting in line at the airport… Huge lines because of failed computer systems. Eek! Made it on the plane though. (:
Last days in St John’s (August 2-3)
Our last two days of the trip were spent relaxing, packing up bike boxes, eating, walking up signal hill, chatting, mushroom picking, sleeping, drinking tea, writing postcards, checking out souvenir shops, and just generally enjoying our last few days of vacation. (:
Thanks so, so much to Volker for letting us stay with you, for cooking such delicious food, for taking us mushroom picking, for meeting us at Cape Spear, for driving us to the airport, and for making us laugh so many times.
Thanks to Mikael and Cecilia, for all your support (and everything you lent us) these last three months. We couldn’t have done it without you.
Thank you to all the friends (new and old) and family who have put us up across this incredible land, and for all the love and support (and food!) you have given us.
And thank you to everyone who has followed this blog, and sent us support via comments, Facebook messages, texts and thoughts.. We love and appreciate you all. ❤
We'll be trying to get one last, summary post up in a few weeks, but until then, farewell. And thanks! Times a billion. Sending out so much love to all of you! (:
Mile Zero of the Trans Canada Trail.
The ride out to Cape Spear.
Heading to the signs. Surreal to actually be there!
“Canada begins here! … Or ends, depending in which way you are going”
“The most easterly point in North America”
We made it! (:
Cape Spear Sign… This guy was so impressed, he wanted to shake all out hands!
Stunning ride back to town!
Champagne, crumble and ice cream. Great end to a great day. (:
Day 97 (Aug 1): St John’s to Cape Spear
Day total: 30 km
Trip total: 7542 km
Random numbers: 2 hills walked (Victoria and Annika), 6 friendly barmps, 1 cheering squad, and 30 jumping photos.
Our morning was exceptionally lazy… We napped, read, and sat. It was pretty strange actually, because it felt like we were done the trip, but we still had to ride out to cape spear!
We finally got ourselves ready by 12, but then it was lunchtime, so we had to wait a while longer for our food to digest lol. In the meantime, we walked down (literally downhill) a few blocks to a bike shop that had said they had bike boxes when we’d called previously. The guy at the shop was not all that helpful… He was eating his lunch, and therefore refused to get up or move whatsoever. Instead, he said we’d have to come back in a while to pick them up, once he’d done the incredibly difficult job of bringing the boxes up from the basement. (He may not have said those exact words haha… But you get the attitude). He was also charging 10 dollars a box. But we weren’t sure if we could get them elsewhere, so we said we’d try to make it back in time before they closed, as we were going to Cape Spear. He was altogether unimpressed that we’d biked across Canada, and said we should drop out stuff off at a place before biking out there, as the hills were much too big for us to climb fully loaded (again, I may be adding a few words… But that was seriously the way he was talking).
We therefore checked out another bike store, Freeride, and the guy there was super nice, but sadly did not have any bike boxes. He offered that he might get some in the next day if we wanted to call then, and that they’d be free. We definitely suggest going to this bike store if possible. Awesome staff.
We headed back to Volker’s, and loaded up our bikes (we wanted to finish the trip off right), then headed off the three of us towards Cape Spear. Cecilia headed off running at the same time (Mikael and Volker would be picking her up and meeting us out there).
The ride was definitely hilly… Like, super hilly. But we’d climbed mountains, so it wasn’t so bad (take that, bike shop guy). Victoria and Annika walked two super steep hills, but the rest were peddled, and we slowly chugged along the uphills while racing down the downhills. So much fun. We actually hit some of our fastest speeds – 65 to 67 km/h.
We met Cecilia six kms down the road (she’s a ridiculously fast runner), and shortly after we were passed by her, Volker and Mikael in the car. We kept at it, and before too long we made it to Cape Spear! Seeing the ocean and the lighthouse as we turned that final corner… Simply incredible.
Greeting us at the finish line was Cecilia, Mikael and Volker who took lots of photos and congratulated us endlessly. At one point, a tourist congratulated us for having completed the ride from St. John’s and Volker turned to him and said “Can you guess where these girls started their journey? … Victoria BC” and the man just stared blankly at all three of us. Speechless was the word to describe most of the people at Cape Spear when they found out about our trip. One young guy, who had just overheard our story, even came over and shook each of our hands in turn and said he was amazed and that we should be proud of ourselves. For ourselves, it was exciting and nice to be at Cape Spear but it was a fairly surreal moment. It was also kind of difficult or weird to accept all of the praise directed at us. For us, we just felt like we were doing what we did everyday – biking. Putting one pedal in front of the other and enjoying every minute of it – together.
After a bazillion photos and enjoying the incredible view, we put our bags into the car and started biking back to town. So much easier without bags! We all were pretty much lost in our thoughts the whole way, and it was a beautiful ride.
After that, we just hung around Volker’s for the night, with Annika’s cousin Colin coming over for another delicious meal (With champagne!). We’d been planning on hitting up George street, but it was sold out, so instead we treated ourselves to a looong sleep. Can’t believe we’re done!
Peanut butter jar, before and after.
Victoria sure does love her sunscreen..
Beautiful!
!!
We were tired… Haha.
Not our favourite sign.
The hill we walked up.
Welcoming committee!
Day 96 (July 31): Neil’s pond to St John’s
Day total: 107 km
Trip total: 7510 km
Random numbers: 1 flat tire, 1 surprise welcoming party, 8 sandwiches, 10 extra kms, and 1 hill walked.
The sound of rain in the morning meant that we got to sleep in a bit and see if it would stop…and it did! We still decided thought that we’d try and find somewhere shelter down the road to have breakfast in case it started raining again. Sadly, before we could get on the road though, Victoria discovered that her back tire was flat, Grrrr! With Mikael’s help though they had it fixed in no time!
We got riding and stopped about 5 km down the road at a convenience store slash motel. We purchased some toasty beverages and settled in to eat our breakfast of delicious sandwiches (from Chris and Larry’s again) and read. We noticed a sign in the store that said you weren’t allowed to bring in food or drink from outside the store…..but we decided to be rebels and ignore it and hope for the best. While we were inside it started raining and we were pretty glad to be inside for a bit. By the time we were ready to go the rain had basically stopped…perfect timing! We left agreeing to meet at butterpot provincial park for lunch.
The ride to butterpot was nice but turned out to be a little further than we’d thought (about 50 km), so when we got there we were only about 30 km from St John’s! It almost seemed silly to stop and take a break when we were so close to our final destination for the night, but we were tired and hungry and decided we needed to recharge. The people working at butterpot provincial park were super nice and explained to Victoria that there was a picnic site and a beach in the day-use are of the park and that there was also a separate campground area. Victoria explained this to Haley when she arrived, but apparently she mis-communicated and Haley started riding towards the campground area, saying she was going to check it out. A few minutes later when Annika and Mikael arrived, Victoria decided they should just follow Haley because she probably found a lunch spot in the camping area. Little did we know that the road was long and full of many steep hills! When we got to the camping area we found Haley and she decided we should not have lunch there because we’d never want to leave again on account of the many steep hills. So we turned right back around and climbed all those hills again. When we got back to the entrance we decided to try the day-use area….the road was just as long and hilly so halfway down we turned back. Long story short, after an hour of riding up and down (adding an extra 10 km to the day), we ended up at a picnic table very near to the entrance of the park. We managed to have a good laugh about it over lunch.. riding to St John’s wasn’t enough for us, we had to add some extra hills.
After consuming our remaining food (Victoria expertly finishing off the peanut butter) and sunscreening up, we were headed to St John’s!! The last bit of the ride went by super fast and before we knew it we were taking a photo with the St John’s sign. Then, after almost breaking some traffic laws (no bikes are allowed on the highway bridge into town), we turned off the highway and had to stop to check the map. We were going to be staying with Volker, Cecilia and Mikael’s good friend, while in town. Haley was having trouble figuring out the map and after about 5 minutes Mikael asked if we wanted him to lead the way to Volker’s….he knew the way the whole time! haha, so we were off. St John’s is incredibly beautiful….and built on a hill. We walked the last steep hill together because Haley couldn’t get into her easiest gears. We thought back to the beginning of the trip when we’d walked the last hill into Mission BC and thought that it was pretty appropriate to be ending the trip in the same way! When we rounded the corner and onto Gower St. and got back on our bikes we saw Cecilia waiting for us in her apron and bright red slippers, waving and smiling, it was amazing. Soon however, Cecilia wasn’t alone, Courtney and Scott and Courtney’s parents happened to be on the street too on their way to dinner! Such a crazy awesome coincidence! So we had a little welcoming party to greet us in St John’s. We all had a good laugh about the serendipity and absurdity of it all.
The rest of the night was amazing with Volker and Cecilia preparing an incredibly delicious meal and hanging out all together and telling stories up on the roof top patio. Such a perfect evening! …And almost surreal to have made it to St John’s!
Thanks to the Mi’kmaq of Ktaqamkuk and the Beothuk peoples on whose lands we rode.. Simply stunning.
Goobies!
Moose !
Come by chance!
Lunch spot. (:
What a wonderful hwy visit. (:
Beautiful Newfoundland. ❤
Dildo, Newfoundland.
Entrance to the path we camped on. So hidden – great find toria! (:
Camping spot. (:
Day 95: Adeytown to Neil’s Pond
Day total: 87 km
Trip total: 7403 km
Random numbers: 11 friendly barmps, 1 amazing visit, 2 ice cream cones, and 2 Popsicles.
We had an amazing sleep in till 7:30 this morning, as we’d gotten to bed so late, and then had a slow pack up and breakfast of PB&B (peanut butter and banana) sandwiches. We’d been worries about rain, but by the time we made it back out onto the hwy, it was dry, albeit a little grey.
We biked uphill, then down, then up again, before making it to Goobies, Nfld. There, we stopped at a moose statue to take photos and at the tourist info booth for bathrooms, before hitting the road for a few hours, passing signs for the town of ‘Come by Chance’ along the way.
At exactly 12 (when we’d agreed the person at the front would stop and wait), Mikael came across a beautiful gazebo in a memorial park outside of Arnold’s Cove. We stopped there for lunch, and Haley did a coffee/tea run to the Robin’s JUST up the road. We also got chatted up by a very Newfie man, and managed to catch about half of what he said to us lol. (:
As we were leaving, we texted Cecilia and Chris about a meeting spot down the road (they were driving into St Johns with Larry). We made it to the spot – Jack’s Pond Camping Spot – in about 15 minutes, but sadly due to cell reception, Chris and them drove about 15 minutes past it. They were angels and drove back though, bringing sandwiches and cold drinks. AMAZING to see them again! We got ice cream and Popsicles (thanks Chris!), swam in the lake, showered (for free – such nice campsite people!) and chatted. ’twas an amazing break! (:
After a while, we said goodbye as they needed to get into St. John’s, and we started back on the road by like 5. The ride was GORGEOUS, through an area known as ‘The Barrens,’ but it was anything but barren – tons of little ponds, bogs and trees, and the weather was wonderfully sunny. We saw a lot of it too, as we had quite a few hills to climb up, but they were so worth it for the views at the top!
We also saw a sign for the town of Dildo, Newfoundland (what a day of place names eh? Got to love newfies. <3)
By like 7:30, we needed a spot to stay for the night, so Victoria and Mikael did some expert exploring and ended up finding a little path off a road around a ton of cabins. It was beautiful, and totally hidden!
We had a dinner of mashed potatoes, bok choy, carrots and chilli, washed up in the lake, set up camp and then hit our sleeping bags JUST as the rain started. Pretty epic timing. (:
Thanks to the Mi'kmaq of Ktaqamkuk and the Beothuk peoples on whose lands we rode today – they were beyond stunning.
Day 94: Terra Nova National Park to Adeytown
Day total: 97 km
Trip total: 7316 km
Random numbers: 1 mouse, 9 friendly barmps, 1 adult novel and 1 flat.
Running out of the amazing granola that Cecilia made us meant getting up at 5:30 am, to start the stove and make porridge. This is a task that we usually happily avoid, for obvious reasons, by eating cold breakfasts. However, today the hot porridge with dried fruit was a welcome start to the day and after eating and packing up we were in high spirits when we left.
The morning ride through Terra Nova park was incredibly beautiful!…and hilly, but for every uphill there was a pretty wicked downhill, so we didn’t mind so much.
We made it to Port Glanford around lunch time and after a brief stop at a gas station, we decided to ride into town in search of food (we hadn’t grocery shopped in a while). We managed to find a small convenience store and bought veggies, fruit and bread for lunch.
While in the store, Haley decided to pick out a new book to read because they were only 50 cents. She managed to find a Judy Blume novel for adults.. She was SO stoked because she thought Judy Blume only wrote for kids. Haley left the store and excitedly told the others of the adult novel by Judy Blume that she’d found! ….Silence followed, then Victoria said “you bought an ADULT novel?” Victoria and Mikael proceeded to tease Haley about buying a dirty novel. It wasn’t until further inspection (of the very suggestive cover photo, the back cover of the book abd the first page), after we’d found a nice field by a war memorial to have lunch, that Haley realized it was an ADULT novel. She still claims to have bought it by accident….but we’ll never know for sure…
After lunch, a nap in the sun, and an application of sunscreen we headed back on the road, agreeing to meet at the McDonald’s in Clarenville. Long story short there was some miss communication about which McDonald’s we were meeting at, and Annika, Haley and Victoria ended up climbing up a bunch hills, only to have to go back down them to get into Clarenville.. So sad. But we ended up revising our plans and meeting at a No Frills store (although Mikael was dead set on Sobeys for some reason.. Bit uppity about grocery stores perhaps haha?). There, we bought groceries and Annika got asked if she was a Newfie because of her accent!! Dream come true. Hahahah. (:
We climbed back up again our of Clarenville, and then just kept climbing, and climbing.. By now it was like 7 pm and we really wanted a place to camp, but nowhere seemed available. Just as we were getting worries, a lake appeared with a gorgeous stream going into it! We couldn’t really get to the lake water (it was really swampy around the edges), but Annika found an old ATV trail to camp on, and we got water from the stream. Mikael made an AMAZING dinner for us, and by the time we’d cleaned up and set everything up it was nearly eleven.. So we hit our sleeping bags without even reading (none of our lights would work haha). Pretty epic end to the days (:
Thanks to the Mi’kmaq of Ktaqamkuk and the Beothuk peoples on whose lands we rode today – they were mighty hilly, but drop dead beautiful. Especially the Terra Nova park.. Incredible!
Friends with Fenders. (: 