Tour de Vent

I've been on les Îsles de la Madeleine for almost a week. Everything here is in French so my rusty French skills have been put to the test.


Luckily, most everyone speaks at least some English and I can still read French pretty well.

There are lots of Acadians on the islands and the Acadian Flag is the most common by far. It is a French flag with a yellow star in the blue stripe.


There are some Quebec flags to be seen too but far less than the Acadian. The Quebec flag has four French fleur de lys.


I'd say that 99% of the tourists on the island were from Quebec. I saw a handful of license plates from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and I really looked.

I rode down to the southern end of the island chain along a thin sand dune with lovely beaches.


The highway that runs the length of the islands is part of Quebec's Route Verte bicycle route system that is found all over the province.



How cool is this?


The big issue all week has been bad weather with rain and ridiculously strong winds (le vent). I can ride a headwind as well as most but there have been a few days where it's been hard to walk with sustained 30 mph winds gusting past 50. Riding that is just tremendously unpleasant so I've hung out in campground shelters waiting for things to calm down. Two days ago, I went down to the beach to watch and photograph the kite boarders. A good day for them is a really bad day for me.


A few days ago I took a boat trip to Isle d'Entreé, the only island not accessible by road. It's a lovely place with around 100 anglophone inhabitants.


There is a 174 meter Big Hill to climb on the island with fantastic views towards the rest of the islands as well as back towards Nova Scotia and Cape Breton.

This is looking up towards the summit of The Big Hill.


Views towards the other islands.





Summit benchmark.


The towns on the islands are quite lovely with houses painted in vivid colors. There are tons of nice beaches that are surprisingly uncrowded. This is a great place to hang out and relax.


I met Natalie and Marian on the ferry coming to the islands.


They stayed at the same campground as me for a few days and were kind enough to invite me over for dinner and a board game about the islands. Thanks for your hospitality, girls!

The winds calmed down enough
(15-20 mph) that I rode up to Îsle de Grande Entree and back yesterday. What a gorgeous ride!


Along the way, I stopped at the salt museum that is sponsored by the local salt mine. It turns out that the entire island chain sits on top of salt domes that are maybe 100 feet below the surface at the shallowest and go down thousand of feet or more. The salt was deposited from shallow seas and then covered by sediment millions of years ago when this area was down by the equator. Because the salt is less dense than the surrounding material, it slowly pushed upward forming huge domes with sediment on top. The domes that rose above the surface of the sea became the string of islands now known as Les Îsles de la Madeleine. I've read about islands formed by coral reefs and hot spots in the mantle but never salt domes.

I got up early this morning to ride down to Cap a Meules to catch the ferry back to Prince Edward Island.

This is the fishing harbor.


Loading the ferry. I got to get on before all the cars.





This was the view of Îsle d'Entreé from the ferry on the way back to PEI. The Big Hill is on the left.


Goodbye Les Îsles. This has definitely been one of the highlights of my trip!

Location:Îsles de la Madeleine

Onwards to Prince Edward Island

I rode north across Nova Scotia to the Northumberland Shore to take the ferry to Prince Edward Island (PEI). Along the way, I passed by a big, cool but stinky colony of cormorants.


The scenery became more pastoral.


This area is definitely 'New Scotland'. Town names are written in both English and Gaelic. This is the cenotaph statue in New Glasgow.


Going to PEI entailed another ferry.


PEI has extensive bike paths including one that runs from one end of the island to the other along the old railway routes called the Confederation Trail.


I'm now on the east shore where there are nice sandy beaches and lighthouses. The ocean is nice and warm. I spent some time looking for beach glass and found a nice handful.


I climbed the lovely lighthouse tower you see above. Here is the view from the top.


PEI has lots of iron oxide in the soil giving it a unique dark rust color that is quite pretty especially above the ocean on the exposed cliffs. The island is just gorgeous with a quiet beauty that is different from more rugged Nova Scotia and Maine. The nickname 'The Gentle Island' really fits. There are lots of potato fields and wheat that is still green. The fields go down all the way to the ocean creating a very nice contrast between the land and ocean. The potatoes are in bloom and have quite a nice sweet smell.


I've had great weather all trip except for a few hours of rain here and there. Two days ago, however, it rained like it meant business. I got soaked on the bike and camped in the pouring rain, also. It's tricky making camp and keeping everything dry when I'm all wet too. I managed all right, though, and slept well despite torrential rain all night. I did wake up before dawn when I started getting dripped on. The tent wasn't leaking, however, the condensation on the inside of the tent was getting knocked off by the force of the rain outside. I use a single walled tent to reduce gear weight and this is the main drawback of this type of tent compared to a usual tent body plus rainfly two layer tent.


With a rainfly, there is an air gap between the tent and fly so even if the inside of the tent gets condensation, it won't get knocked free as easily, though, it still can get you wet through the mosquito netting.

There are lots of slugs around here. Being from the land of the giant banana slug and having gone slug licking at Outdoor School (the slug slime makes your tongue go numb), I really don't mind them much unless they are eating my flowers. Until now. I woke up to this. Slugs all over the tent.


I put my bare foot in my soggy bike shoe and, squish, there was a slug in it. Ewwww!!!!

I rode up to Souris (pronounced Surry) yesterday and treated myself to a bed in a nice little inn.


Riding into town, the bike engaged the automatic brakes as it always does when a sign such as this is seen.


The view inside was quite terrific!


I saw this curious sign in town.


Darth Vader has moved to PEI and has an Erf while his housemate Moeder has a Hoeve? Hmmm!

I took the five hour ferry to Îles de la Madeleine, a string of narrow islands that belong to Quebec.


See ya later PEI!


Approaching the dock.


Bonjour Quebec!


The sunset from my campsite.


-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Eastern Shore

The Eastern Shore

On my way out of Halifax, I met a fellow Portlander. This is Patrick and he's a juggler with Cirque de Soleil. He travels all over for ten weeks and then gets two weeks off at home. What a great career!


I took the ferry across the harbor to Dartmouth, bought a new rear tire and headed for the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia. This is the view back towards Halifax.


I camped at Murphy's Cove where they had a nice campfire at night and fresh cooked mussels. I met Barbara a retired British bobby and a fellow solo cycle tourist who was finishing up a cross--country ride across Canada.


We hit it right off and spent hours discussing gear and sharing stories. I can't remember ever running into a solo woman biker who has about as much experience as I do. I decided to stick around for the day and took a boat trip out to some islands with the campground owner.


Roy and Brenda also went on the boat and then invited Barbara and me over for dinner.


Roy is from Lancashire, England and Brenda is a retired school teacher. They are traveling around for a year in a nice new Airstream so hopefully, they come stay with me when they go through Portland. Roy is an amazing adventurer and is how I've always imagined British explorers to be. He is very understated but every once in a while he'll say something like, "when I sailed around Cape Horn" or,"when I kayaked down the Colorado."

People tend to be impressed with my travels but I've learned a long time ago that there is always someone around like Roy who beats me by a mile. For some people, travel is a competition to see how much more they can do than the next guy. For me, travel is all about seeing what is around the next bend in the road. It is a physical and mental challenge that I set for myself and the only one I compete against or have to answer to is me.

I spent a good half day at the living museum village in Sherbrooke. The village is a restored 1880s Canadian village with all sorts of shops and artisans. It was absolutely fascinating!
Sam posed with a Pennyfarthing.


There was a printing press.


A pharmacist.


With, the precursor to Rogaine.


Open wide. These are dental instruments.


This was the potter who turned bowls and such using a foot driven kick wheel.


The telephone switchboard.


A weaver.


A modern kitchen.


A blacksmith.


Wool that needs to be picked clean of debris, carded to get the fibers running the same way, and then spun on a spinning wheel.


All I can say is thank God for modern appliances!

-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Nova Scotia