New Brunswick Pt. 1(2) - Down (Up?) The River

We snuck in to New Brunswick just in time for sunset.  As you cross this border into the town of Boundary, you are immediately aware that you are now in the "Atlantic Provinces" and Quebec has become more akin to Ontario somehow....as a past tense part of the journey.  We've never been this far East so we have no idea what to expect. 

We set up "camp" inside a seemingly abandoned warehouse with something of a post-zombie-apocalypse-hideout vibe. Nobody around but pigeons. Sometimes the lifestyle is even less glamorous than you think.  It gets dark out, and you do what you gotta do.  

We just lost another hour over the provincial border so dark is suddenly 7:00pm.  The stiff breeze is coming in pretty cold so the extra shelter around the tent helps a lot.  Time in the tent ends up being 11-12 hours. We're riding long kilometres by day and there's no time for much else at night besides physical recovery.  

A humongous hot breakfast in Edmundston quickly assuages the running-away-from-zombies anxiety and we're back to the business of enjoying our travel, setting off a bit more like tourists again.  

It's a beautiful day.  Crisp, but at least the wind has stopped. 

Edmundston and the surrounding area is very pretty, and very French. The French is also very pretty and sounds noticeably different in timbre to the French we'd enjoyed in Quebec.  We still don't understand most of it of course, so it all sounds a bit like...music.  

We're pushing to ride as far as we can today, with no destination planned other than the ferry terminal in North Sydney. We'll just go until dark, and choose our route by the shortest. 

A stop with a fun and friendly experienced rider couple on a tandem yields the advice to take the #130.  They've just come up that way along the river and they say the pavement is nice, and the traffic is light. 

There are a many choices in highway, once we get around the corner at Grand Falls. We can cut across the province East to Moncton, through the forest, or we can follow the St. John River going South through a series of towns and the city of Fredricton.   We've learned our lesson on remote shortcuts so we're going South and will plan to make up the time in extra kilometres with will power.  

Going South, to Fredricton, can be done on any of four highways that wind back and forth across each other, and back and forth across the river.  You make your choice at each town as the roads intersect.  The tip to take the #130 pays off and we are riding with very little traffic and on brand new asphalt.  Perhaps there are larger elevations on the #130 than on the other routes?  But we enjoyed the 2 day ride through here a lot and were not bothered by the hill climbs. 

This area is as scenic as anything we've enjoyed so far and the daytime riding weather is perfect. 

Grand Falls is a beautiful town in a beautiful location, and makes a great stop to sit and study the maps and choose a route through the province, carefully considering all factors.  

The vistas are uniquely New Brunswick.  Trees and rocks, the river, farms and roadways, all of it has a very different look and smell to where we have traveled previously. 

Farms were laid out differently from other agricultural land in Canada.  Not knowing much of anything about farming, we would not know advantages or disadvantages to the differing placements of buildings and equipment, but the countryside certainly had an atmosphere that was uniquely New Brunswick.  

There is certainly less wealth on display here than on the mega-farms in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  Absent are the state of the art satellite controlled combine harvesters and high horsepower quad track super tractors. 

There are potatoes on the highway.  Why are there potatoes on the highway?  It's really strange to be riding along, not knowing much at all about the machinations of the local economics, and encountering potatoes every so often along the shoulders of the highway. 

The river was very low and we wondered if that was normal at this time of year, or if it was some small evidence of a changing climate.  Still very pretty, albeit a bit eerie.  

There are towns ahead of us, behind us, but somehow this feels...kinda remote.  This is very large and well paved road for how few cars and trucks we are encountering.  We go long stretches having the highway all to ourselves. Are we complaining about a LACK of traffic?  That would be a weird twist.  

The river is glass and nothing is moving except our bicycles. 

We arrived in Perth-Andover after a 145km ride and started eyeing places to set up camp.  After scoping out a good spot we set up our picnic dinner at the waterfront in a lovely park space to enjoy the sunset.  There was a little traffic, so we didn't have New Brunswick entirely to ourselves after all. 

A woman walking her dog, a big beautiful black lab, came over to chat and ask about our travels. And so set up the strangest night of our adventure, (in an adventure full of strange nights). 

She offered we could come and do laundry at her place after we had mentioned we were on our last day and due. Sounds great, we followed her up the hill to her place where she offered showers, and quickly started putting a meal together.  Spaghetti!  Right on.  When she learned we were planning to set up our tent in the park, she offered her back yard, and then decided that would not do and offered a bedroom for the night.  For sure! Sounds great. We settled in to lovely conversation and did the usual stuff one does when hosted at a 'warm showers'.  Laundry, showers, dinner and repartee.  

We had been tabling a theory between ourselves, and with some of the other 'warm showers' hosts, that we were all of us cyclists mostly on the same page and on the same wavelength politically, connected in spirit and in culture by the bicycle.  We have so much in common with each other on bikes it seems, and the conversations flow effortlessly, coming from a place where none of us are apprehensive as to the leanings or motives of the other, in a time where politics are so polarized. 

Except this woman was not a 'warm showers' host, and she was definitely......not.....a.....cyclist. When the word 'covid' came up, (OOPS!) as a normal and natural direction of conversation, she went OFF.  The barrage of conspiracy theory bat-shittery she spewed forth caught us completely off guard.  

"Fifteen-minute cities" she wailed on. "The world economic forum is trying to keep us in fifteen minute cities to control us." 

The crazy came at us like a meth trip.  

She shut off her wifi, (but just at night), which she said would make sure we wouldn't get... 5G'd?....(but just at night)...

The U.N. planned and executed the release of the covid virus in a mass cull operation that was only just getting started but no way Carney and the others will get away with it because there are "just too many of us, am I right?!" 

We nodded.  Uh huh...

"You guys knooow about that?!!" 

 

Uh.....mmm...uh huh.  (I mean we haven't checked the news in like 2 months so maybe we don't?)

nervous smiles.  

Her 'bug out' vehicle was NOT a bicycle.  No.  In the garage she showed us a macked out ATV with holsters and camo and the usual armageddon-ready accoutrement.  She asked what we thought. 

"What about when there's no more.....gasoline?" I said.  

"Ooooh that's goooood" she said.  "You guys are smart."  "I hadn't thought about when the gasoline runs out."

She was very impressed we had chosen bicycles as our apocalypse machines and were preparing for the eventuality by riding them across......the entire country, weaving like minded people together for the resistance.     

She said "I'm thinking of moving to Alberta."  

Hmm.  

Ya know...the clues were all there we just didn't heed 'em because we were hungry.  Neither of us slept that night.....at all......obviously.   

Anyway, gorgeous town, Perth-Andover. 

New Brunswick: Very pretty, but starting to get...very weird.  

The river water level is really low.  Is this normal?  This low?  

We are not scientists.  Nay.  We are merely curious travelers. 

This is Florenceville-Bristol, which only has a 1/4 covered bridge, which is only moderately impressive.

One local says the water is WAY lower than normal.  "Supposed to be above those concrete piers at the base of the bridge supports" he said.    

Hartland is McCain town.  French Fry Headquarters.  Yeah we're definitely noticing it now.  The towns are kinda creepy....kinda fake looking.... and EVERYTHING is McCain...or Irving.  

"The greatest squandering of wealth in history" the old fellow stopped to say as he strolled by. He wants there to be a pipeline for everything from french fries and lumber to oil and nickel and ore and fresh water.  Presumably we'd sell our resources to...China?...'Merica?  He didn't say.   "I've been to Victoria once" he said, "I took a plane."  

The interactions were going weirdly.  Friendly!  But weirdly.  

Every town in Canada seems to have a world's biggest something or other.  Banana,  moose,  goose, truck, Royal Canadian Mountie et cetera.  Hartland has a fully covered bridge and they are quite proud of it.  

From here you can smell the french fries deep frying at the McCain plant up the road I kid you not.   

We had crossed the river and now were heading down highway #105.  We'll take a small shortcut, risk a little gravel and take the #104 South to Fredricton cutting off a few kilometres and a few of these screwball towns.   

The plan is still to keep pushing some longer rides.  If nothing goes too wonky we'll have earned a bit of a slow down after a few more days of this madness and might be able to consider a day off. Maybe in Moncton, perhaps on PEI. We'll see. Ok let's see what Fredricton is all about. The curiosity is killing! 

READ NEXT:  New Brunswick Pt. 2(2) - Urban and Between