Day 94: Matane - Sea Shack Hostel

km today: 104.76
total km: 6475.8

Katie doing "the turtle" again (Brandon's new favourite Katie pose).

We woke up to the coldest temperatures we’ve experienced yet. The upside of this, we packed up in record shattering time. Our dishes were obviously dirty due to the lack of facilities thus we couldn’t cook breakfast, nor did we want to anyway. McDonalds was just around the corner. There were so many reasons to go there and so few not too that we were just forced to go there.


“I’m so excited right now you can’t even imagine.”

McDonalds actually ended up being way more enjoyable than we should ever admit it was. Plus, it gave us the energy and caffeine buzz to ride for hours. And boy did we need it. Today was not an easy day of riding. The wind, still as chilly as the previous days, shifted against us, blowing in more of a cross-tail direction, leaning more towards cross though thus Katie dubbed it a “crail” wind. With it came rain clouds that threatened for most of the day and finally drowned us for the last 3 hours of our ride. To add some insult to the injury, we swear we rode up twice as long as we rode down.

See that neon yellow speck on the road? That's Katie.

A major highlight of the day was finally officially meeting the Atlantic Ocean at Cap Chat where the title of St. Lawrence River is exchanged for Gulf of St. Lawrence. We were pretty stoked because this now means that we have officially ridden coast to coast. Technically we could quit right now, but we have this whole Maritime Provinces business to attend to.


Cap Chat is home to Canada's largest wind farm. If you look closely you can make out the world's tallest windmill standing at 110 meters high (it's the one that looks like a Kitchen Aid attachment).

The coolest thing about the Atlantic is that it’s exactly as we imagined it to be, windy, cold and grey, practically indistinguishable from it’s granite shore. Though the elemental aspects of the day should classify it as miserable (and it was in many ways) we were so excited to experience the Atlantic as raw as we dreamed it would be that we were as happy as if it had been a tropical in Thailand.

“Have you ever seen anything so uninviting.” -Brandon

Randomly, we arrived in Thailand. Already wet and not in the least bit thrilled at the prospect of spending another night shivering in the tent, we decided it was absolutely time to stay indoors. Sainte Anne des Monts has one option for el cheapos, other than squatting. Luckily for us it turned out to be an award winning hostel that is accessed by an unassuming rough gravel driveway that winds off the highway and down a steep hill towards the beach. The last corner is rounded to reveal a grass roofed tiki bar laced with Mexican hammocks and surrounded by adorable bungalows. We were hooked at first glance and that was before we saw the hot tub. The hostel itself is definitely one of the nicest we’ve ever been in. Alone on the coast with an all wood interior and an upstairs lounge that looks over the ocean it feels more like we’re staying in an expensive beach cabin rather than a youth hostel.

To celebrate our coast to coast accomplishment, we busted open a box of wine. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from touring the wine regions across Canada, its that boxed wine, especially juice box sized, is cause for complete uproar among self proclaimed winos. Our motto: a container is a container.


We think that this may be the single greatest cyclist friendly invention.

B&K