East Coast Tour - Day 13

Friday, September 23, 2011 - Cocagne - 97 km

As we were preparing for bed last night we were serenaded by a whole pack of coyotes in the distance. This of course got every dog in the neighbourhood barking as well, which was quite a racket. Then it quieted down and we slept in silence except for the cheeping of the frogs. Woke up at 05:30 and started fixing breakfast while Katja slept for another hour. When she got up, it got noisy with trucks as there was a gravel pit nearby. Just as we got on the road it started raining lightly, and it continued on and off like this throughout the morning. Was a nice ride though. We stopped for a second breakfast along the way from a diner that was full of clocks, though none of them had the correct time. More dog problems today, though less than yesterday. After Salisbury we had to take an unknown road north so we could bypass Moncton. We found the road, but signs indicated that it was closed for construction 2 km ahead. We decided to chance it, and sure enough, in 2 km we hit a roadblock as a bridge was being replaced. We were however to squeeze through with our bikes by scrambling down into the pit and then back up again. The road was fabulous as there was no traffic. We passed the Magic Magnetic Hill by Moncton and then rode along an escarpment with a view for quite a while which was nice all the way to Irishtown. I wanted to get lunch here, but there was no restaurants, not even a pub. How can you have a town called Irishtown with no pub? Traffic for the next 20 km was bad. Most people were polite but a few were assholes. A dog attack next to a police station really got Katja swearing in German. Finally we got off of that road and stopped for a granola bar as I was bonking by this point. There had no place to eat along this entire stretch. Continued on into Cocagne, where we found a diner where I could get the grilled cheese sandwich that I was craving. Another couple of km and we arrived back to where we started. The end of the tour. We celebrated with a supper in a nice restaurant down by the shore in Bouctouche.

A hop farm.