Day 34: Pointe-a-la-Croix to Saint Quentin

101km/63m, 6hrs 31mins, 15.5kph/9.6mph, 1138m/3698ft of climbing.


Lots of climbing today, I'm in the foothills of the Appalachians. But despite that, this was perhaps the best day's cycling of the tour so far. Beautiful cycling weather, sunny, not much wind, not too hot. And highway 17 through New Brunswick is a beautiful road. Great scenery (I didn't bother with pictures - I find that one picture of afforested hills looks much like another) but also a great road to ride. Largely well maintained, with smooth tarmac, and superbly engineered: shallow gradients, long sweeping bends, an absolute pleasure. And greatly improved by my feeling increasingly strong. 100 km through this terrain would have been a tough challenge at the start of this tour. Today I laughed at it.

Ate this evening at a local diner recommended to me by the receptionist at my motel. I ordered a Greek salad as a starter. The plateful that arrived was slightly more than I'd bargained for - had this been a Greek salad I was making at home, I might have been slightly nervous about it being enough for four, but would certainly have felt I was overcatering for three. I ate it though, and it was excellent.

I am in Acadia. it's one of the predominantly French areas of North America. Slightly weird. Not completely French, like Quebec, more bilingual. But the French that is spoken here is even less comprehensible to me than usual. But I am about to re-enter the English-speaking world. Depending on the weather, tomorrow I am likely to cross the border with the USA.