The pension we stay in for the night is great. Sleeping in a small room and taking breakfast in Jean’s own living room and kitchen. Just one big family with the rest, mostly backpackers.

Montreal is a really cycle friendly city. Many bike paths are crossing the town. We visit the old part and did some shopping at an outdoor shop. Much cheaper then in Europe. In the evening we visit a great summer festival.

The bikes are going in large boxes and have to be handled in at the luggage office. After unpacking the bikes in Quebec, we climb up the hill, where the old part of the town is. We wonder around in town and along the river side of the St. Laurence river. In the evening we visit another summer festival.

The county is hilly and the road is straight. We hide for a thunderstorm at somebody’s home. Tore brakes the first spoke of his rear wheel. At the end of the day, it starts raining again. We have enough of it and take a motel.

We want to cross the border to America here, but the border crossing at the normal route is closed. It is Sunday !??. So we take a different border crossing. Here we are told that it is forbidden to cycle in this part of Maine. Big trucks of wood cooperation's are driving here and they can't dodge us. We have to leave again and have to cross the border more to the south, a D-tour of about 400 km. Beside this setback, Tore brakes his second spoke and has 3 flat tires.

The route is boring, straight and between fir-trees. Tore has again 2 flat tires. We can’t find what goes wrong. Tore cycles 33 km back to the nearest village and buy’s new inner tubes, a new outer tube and new rim-tapes. Iris waits with all the luggage at a car park. We cross the border in the evening and enter the campsite in the dark.

Again is the road straight and the view blocked by fir-trees. Sometimes we see a glance of a blue lake, between the trees.

We have enough of the straight roads and the trees. This D-tour has to come to an end, and quickly. So we hitch hiked from Greenville to Bangor. The bikes are going in the back of a pick-up and we creep into the front cabin. In Bangor we take the bus to Calais. From here we cycle to Oak Bay. 

Reading and a bit of walking.

We start of at a side road, but the last part of the route goes over the highway. While cars are not driving really fast in Canada and the shoulders are wide, we are doing fine.

In the morning we cycled around in town and joined the third summer festival. Then we take the boat to Saint John to Digby. So now we are in Nova Scotia, before on schedule.

We take a short cut through the wood, but are attacked by black biting bucks. If we arrive at the National Park were we rent a Canadian Canoe and row to our campsite on a island in the middle of a lake. Our bikes are left at the rental place.

We rowed over the lake to a small river, where our next campsite is situated.  This is the best day of our holiday.

We row over the lake again and do a land crossing of 2 km. Then we row to the canoe rental and change the canoe for our bikes. We cycle to the campground and stay there for the night.

We cycle through the fruit valley of Nova Scotia. An easy going drive, with a lot of side seeing moments. Like the power station in Annapolis Royal, generating its electricity by the tides of the Bay of Fundy.   

The ride is beautiful, especially the last part along the sea coast. Tore broke his third spoke. We have to change his spokes for thicker ones after the holiday. The campsite we want to take is closed a couple years ago. We ask a girl to sleep in her garden.

After having breakfast at the neighbors, we continue along the coast and have a nice view on the highest tides in the world. In Truro we go to the house of a friend. We will sleep here for the next period of time.

We visit the marriage of our friend and have a good time. A great experience to may follow this in a different country, with different traditions. We are glad that we bring proper clothes for this event.

With some other friend from the Netherlands we drive to Halifax. We visit the town and in the evening the fourth summer festival of this holiday.

The idea is to leave to Cape Breton by bus and cycle there the Carbot Trail. But the bus can’t guarantee that our bikes will be transport with the same bus we take. We decide to rent a car, but because it is a holiday in Canada, we have to wait for tomorrow before we can call the rental side. We cycle around trough the main park and visit the tidal bore.

Because of the delay we leave or bikes behind. (Good decision afterwards, while the Carbot Trail is very crowed by cars and not very spectacular to cycle. But the cars remembers us again, why we are cyclist and not car drivers). Heading north by a scenic route along the coast of Cape Breton. Really strange countryside, rough with little villages.

Only the part of the famous Cabot Trail photo  ( see above) is great. In the afternoon we take a cruise for whale watching. But because of the wind we didn’t locate any whales at all. We get a free ticket for the next morning to try again.

This time we see a group of Whales just near the boat. Driving south to Wycocomagh on the way we visit the Bell (scientist who developed the telephone and the first airplanes) museum. And wonder around in some villages along nice blue lakes.

We visit a small fisherman’s village, Lunenberg.

Climbing on the rocks at Meat Cove gives us the idea we are in Scotland. But only this part of Nova Scotia remind us at the 'old' Scotland. The rest of Nova Scotia is not what the name does pretend.

In the afternoon we take the train back to Montreal. We arrive the next morning.

We climb the Montreal hill by bike and tour through the suburb of Montreal. Of course we visit the Olympic rowing track and the park around it.

Because we missed the last train and all the budget hotels are booked we have to find, like real wanderer, our sleeping place outside.  The safest place we can think of is a dressing-room at the 'Bosbaan', the rowing track in Amsterdam. 

Overall distance: 972 km 
Number of holidays: 29
Number of cycling days: 9.5
Number of canoeing days: 2.5
Number of car driving days: 5.5
Number of rest and sightseeing days: 7
Total time on the bike: 53:14h

Average speed without rest periods: 18.26 km.h^-1
1 C$ ~ 0.75 Euro