I spent the night in Antigonish at a campground which was nice as there a lit of kids playing. You could see that the teens congregate together as well and they just stood around for the most part, but at least they socialized.
It has been interesting that I haven't seen any other cyclists in NS. They must be cutting NS short or something.
I peddled about 120 km to the town of St. Peters that had live music. And there was a provincial campground almost in town. The campground was on the edge of the ocean and had a lighthouse there. The next day about 20 min away was a surfing competition and they had a warm up party at the campground with a few very talented fellows playing acousticly. Since there was no lights on the road to town I decided to forgo the in town music and hang out there at the gathering which was about 3 campsites down from where my tent was.
The next day I was up bright n early and on.my way to Sydney. I was not making great time with an average spead of about 13 kmh it seemed. It took about 7 hours to travel 85 km. I did stop in a little town of big pond to visit Rita McNeils Tea Room where I had a large bowl of chowder. I do not recommend biking on a full stomach of chowder, your body gets confused and tries to process food while trying to power your legs.
So I get to Sydney and find out that the ferry doesn't depart till Monday at 5 pm and it was Saturday. Sigh.
So I killed time visiting various places and biking around oh and working on my French. Sun night I get a call that the ferry was delayed it wasn't departing till 3am Tuesday morning which meant it would not arrive in NL till Tuesday evening which would be hard on my schedule.
I did catch part of a chef after party. I guess there was a large food competition in Cape Breton and they were meeting for drinks at the pub next to the hotel I was staying at.
So the day of the ferry arrived which was mostly a.sit n wait n kil time day. I went over to north Sydney about 5 pm and waited some more. The ferry finally started boarding and I was on.about 4am. Where I promptly found a couch to curl up on.
I learnt the next day that that ferry was the only one for that week as it was going to go help out the other ferry run as one of the ferries was down. It made amazing time at it had a tail wind and was running full out. We arrived about 4pm which made it an 11 hour run, not the 12-14 we were told.
The ferry had a full dining room and an excellent buffet at an ok price considering we were a captive audience.
I cheated and got a ride to st. Johns with a couple from Ontario. They were really nice and pet me pitch a tent on their campsite.
The next day they decided to stay there and we did the O'Brien's whale n puffin excursion. Alas we didn't see any whales but we did see a lot of puffins which are quite interesting and awkward looking birds. After which we went to cape spear.
I did not realize how much of an impact or involvement that the area around st. Johns had with WW1/2. They had battlements around the harbour and it was an active port for the escorts that protected the convoys of ships that where crossing the Atlantic.
There is so much to explore I hope I have enough time to see it all.
So far I have been "screeched in" so I am now an honourary newfie, I have discovered that they play fantastic music EVERY NIGHT. I have visited "the Rooms" which is their museum and seen a few of their crazy streets. I also took pictures of the harbour.
Location : 27-61 Bannerman St, St John's, NL A1C 1S2,
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