TOURING SOLO continued from page 12
roads and showers all the way to my first night in Portland, Maine. When on the east coast, you have to go for the seafood, so braved a thunderstorm to go and get a lobster roll before calling it a night. All of my trips seem to have
“endurance days”. Days where we just pile on the miles to set up the next day’s destination. Portland to Truro NS on Day 2 was going to be one of those. Eastern Maine to the Canadian border features a whole lot of nothing except trees. One stretch of Hwy 9 features 90 miles of trees. No houses, almost no side roads, and only 2 gas stations/general stores. Saint John, NB has a nice view moment where you come over a rise to see the harbour, complete with cruise ships. Not much to see or do for 12 hours and about 1000km, and in what would be a daily theme on this trip, rain from Moncton to Truro. The big failing on this trip was I
didn’t do quite enough research, but what to expect from a last minute decision? I didn’t realize that at the end of July, summer still hadn’t come to the Maritimes. Every day was going to be cloudy, cool and rainy. Luckily this time I packed my heavy duty rain suit, a heavy sweatshirt and jeans to go under my riding pants. There were times when I was wearing every layer that I packed. Day 3 was the star of the trip.
Truro to North Sydney via the Cabot Trail. The Cabot Trail is a ride that should be on every rider’s list. It really is all it’s cracked up to be, with one section of the worst possible pavement where gravel would have been an improvement, and one spot where half the road washed into the ocean. I took the online advice and planned to do it counter clockwise, and that was a good choice, with fewer RV’s that needed passing. This ride can take quite a while as you could stop literally every other minute to take a picture. Mother Nature was being a tease with lots of clouds, but the sun broke through at the post card picture
54 BOUNDER MAGAZINE
perfect point. One last bit of advice for the Cabot Trail, watch for moose. As I was coming through a twisty climb to find 2 moose feeding in the ditch at the top. Being on tour in the summer in
Canada, it’s inevitable to come across road construction, and Nova Scotia was much the same. This time they were doing bridge replacement on a 4 lane road, cutting 4 lanes to 2, and then tearing up and repaving those 2 lanes. The wait to get through was an hour and the traffic was lined up for at least 8km. It did give me the opportunity to take off my rain suit layer without an additional stop though. Again Mother Nature came through at the most opportune time on Day 4 for a photo stop at Peggy’s Cove. The 333 from Peggy’s Cove back to Halifax is a great motorcycle road not to be missed. After a couple of long riding
days with rain, it was time to turn for home on Day 5. Discretion being the better part of valour, I took the easy way out and booked passage on the ferry from Digby to Saint John. Sure I could have ridden around from Halifax through Truro and Moncton again to get to Saint John, but thought I could use the break from the rain. This meant an early departure through Halifax rush hour in the rain, and a
mad dash across the province through the Annapolis Valley to get to the dock. Apparently the RCMP through Nova Scotia are most understanding or don’t watch their mirrors much. It does cause the heart to skip a bit when you pull in after blasting past a line of cars to see POLICE painted on the back of the two Tahoe’s in front of you. I’m sure the Annapolis Valley has a lot to see, but following the RCMP on a straight stretch of Hwy 101 when I’m trying to make time didn’t have much appeal. The ferry wasn’t cheap but it was a really great idea, and I was much less worn down at the end of the day. It was raining hard when we left, but I got a 3 hour break and a chance to get a relaxed lunch. Arriving in Saint John was a
mixture of bright sun and the occasional fog patch. The only drawback was a delay getting off the ferry as one of the main ramp support arms was visibly bent, but the Engineers cleared it after all the bolts on the ramp were tightened with the mother of all torque wrenches. This ferry also had great staff in the parking area and had actual tie down straps and anchor points, unlike the “it’s your problem” attitude on ferries in Washington and B.C. last year. Summer was certainly back in effect by the time I hit the Maine border again,
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