Day 101: New Carlisle - New Carlisle

km today: 41.96
total km: 6910.2

Drying our gear on the clothesline.

Breakfast of champions, pork and beans and boiled eggs on whole wheat toast. Well, we were excited at least.

No there are no typos in that title. We really did start and finish our day in the same campsite we squatted in last night. The reason why is that the wind was even worse today. We were clocking speeds of 7 km/h going down hill, and our average speed was a tremendous 10 km/h. The ride from here to Bonaventure, the nearest town at only 15 km away, took a whopping 1 3/4 hours. Throughout our journey we were both blown clear off the road so many times it became routine. Sometimes the gales were so strong that they actually stopped us in our tracks. At that pace it would take us another 2 days after today just to reach the border to New Brunswick (a destination that we should easily have reached by the end of today).

Really not going anywhere fast.

While lunching in Bonaventure we brainstormed ways to abate our frustration and came up with a solution that we are both very excited about. Rather than fight the headwind for the next few days we decided that it would be much easier just to turn around and glide back to Chandler where, on Saturday evenings, there is a plush overnight cruise to the Magdelen Islands. And from there it is a quick hop skip and a jump to PEI.

One remaining? We must not have been that hungry.

We’ve been hearing praise about the Magdelen Islands for almost the entire journey. With Plan A (the now abandoned plan) visiting the islands wasn’t in the cards because they only offer the cruise on Saturday evenings. Given our massive delays over the last two days, it’s now only a short wait till Saturday!

So after a bit of touring of Bonaventure we sailed back to New Carlisle (it only took us 30 min this time) and set up camp again in a really great spot actually. We’re pretty proud of our squatting abilities these days. Our campsites are way better than those offered by bonified campgrounds. Tomorrow we head back to Chandler and then wait for our cruise! We’re both pretty excited.

B&K