Cycling The Globe

Distance: 133.4 km
Ride time: 6:44:04
Average: 19.8 km/h
Max speed: 50.4 km/h
Total: 41705 km

I have never been to Canada, yet, I somehow feel I know the country. While travelling around the world I have met a lot of Canadians, and they are always among the friendliest people you can imagine. The expectations are high for this little corner of Canada (2000 km) up towards Newfoundland that I’m about to visit.

After saying goodbye to Pat, Alice and Doug I was crossing the small bridge to Canada. Everything is pretty low key up here – also the border crossing. I didn’t even see a single person at the US side of the bridge – maybe they were having their morning coffee inside?

On the Canadian side a friendly officer asked me a couple of questions and then wished me good luck as I rolled into this country number 38.

I was lucky that it was still possible to cross into Canada here at Campobello. In 10 days a ferry route will close down for the winter which would mean a 2 day detour to get to Saint John. I was just in time!

On the ferry ride towards Deer Island I was still within US phone coverage, so I spend half an hour calling my new and old friends that I had stayed with, thanking them for the amazing welcome to the US. Not that Canada seems to be lacking anything in the hospitality part – I had long ago received an invitation to stay with Andy VE9DX in Saint John for my first nights in Canada.

Yet another ferry ride, and I was back on mainland New Brunswick. Oui, on parle francais ici!

And you immediately notice a difference in ways of thinking compared to the US…

Back on the mainland I was facing a bit of a dilemma. I had been following small roads for most of the day, but for the final ride into Saint John there only seemed to be one choice: a proper interstate highway. In the US (and in Europe) you wouldn’t be allowed to cycle on these kind of roads, but since I didn’t have a choice I decided to give it a go. Nobody seemed to care. In fact I saw another cyclist coming the other way, so I guess rules are different around here.

I made it to Andy’s house in the northern suburbs of Saint John with only a tiny bit of daylight to spare. I have been in contact with Andy for many years on the radio waves, but this would be the first time I was going to meet Andy and his wife Debbie in person. As you would imagine by now, I was welcomed with open arms. O Canada – it feels good to be here!