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Saturday, August 9, 2008

Nine Down- One To Go!

Right now we are at the base of Marble Mountain which is during the winter time is Newfoundland's ski destination but not so much now. We have a short hop to Deer Lake today as there's a place for us to stay there. We did 140 kms yesterday which was very enjoyable because the tailwind some very lengthy downhill sections. After today's ride we will be a little less then a third across Newfoundland.

So far Newfoundland has been treating us very well. We have no other choice of roads besides the TransCanada Highway but it is a good road with large shoulders and not much traffic. At least the traffic is still somewhat paced to the ferry so there are sporadic waves of trucks and cars. Cheapest campsites since Saskatchewan- one night was 10 dollars and last night was 11.30. We asked how much firewood was at our first campsite and the guy replied in a thick Newfie accent that: "This is Newfoundland- you don't pay for wood here!" Another guy came over later gave us a stack of kindling he chop for us so thus far the people here have conformed to their friendly stereotype.

For bit of a flashback we made to Sydney two days after Antigounish. Sydney is a somewhat post-industrial town with a gritty reputation. Although it's infamous Tarponds were bit of letdown- they looked more like a creek then largest volume of toxic waste dumping in North America. Sydney is also the unofficial capital of Cape Breton Island which Tyler was shocked to discover is in fact an island rather a peninsula of Nova Scotia mainland. Tyler's back rims started failing on the island and about 12 kms from Sydney he had lost 6 spokes on his back tire causing it to rub against the frame. Not too safe so he had to take a cab in and we spent 3 days in Sydney getting new rims. We stayed at my friend Phoebe's apartment. We last saw each other when I as eight so it was super nice of her to let us crash at her place. We got a bit of sightseeing a we made it over to the Glace Bay Miner's Museum which I highly recommend if your ever in the area.

Should be a nice short ride today and we will probably be completing our journey in a week's time- w00t.

4 comments:

超昱 said...

Hi Tyler and Aiden.

It's Jim Huang and I was in your Bwood grad class back in '04 from Whittall House..

Came across your blog from facebook profile.. I enjoyed reading the posts and the pictures on this blog and I wish guys all the best in completing the journeys.

Jim

Shawno said...

Tyler, Emailed you with some ideas for when you near St. John's.

Sheila said...

Aiden and Tyler! Well done - you are on the home stretch here -- a whole round of applause for what you have accomplished!!!
I am so impressed with you both!
Mom/Sheila

Unknown said...

Congratulations on finishing. Well done. Wish I could have been there.

Now I'll wait for your completion post and comment there too. :-)