Aug 12 - gander, twillingate,

Twillingate today

Look who I ran into - Josh and Sarah and a helicopter!

Puffins…photo credit to Josh and Sarah 

Putting the bike up on the vehicle for the return trip

After the beer comes the ice cream

Mike bike at signal hill.  Feels strange to not be riding it!

Puffins

Celebrating

 

I did promise some stats….so here they are.  

8837 km 

573 hrs

55,376 meters of elevation gain

96 days

Lost - 3 gloves…not three pairs, just 3 gloves.  

Mechanical - one broken chain.  No tire punctures despite finding a thumbtack in my tire.  One broken tent pole - replaced the entire tent after three attempts to fix it….3 strikes…. I’m out!!!.  

Regrets - 2.  First is that I never wild camped.  Second is that I didn’t take my buddy Mike’s advice to upgrade my phone to have a better camera.  I didn’t understand the views that I would have.  

I appreciated every text and comment.  It helped to relieve the homesickness and I felt less alone.  🙂

I knew that Canada was a wonderful place to live, and I was so appreciative to see and learn it first hand, and I was so happy to share all the wonder and beauty we have, along with the kindness of so many strangers that are now friends 😀.  I sincerely hope that this blog has encouraged you to explore a part of Canada that you have never seen, read up on the history of Canada, talk to someone about their hometown or share the uniqueness of your hometown.  

It’s been two days of no riding, and yes it does feel strange to be riding in a vehicle, watching the scenery rolling by so quickly!  But it is a good way to see as much of Newfoundland as we can in the few days that we have.  I’ve been told that 5 weeks of visiting wouldn’t be enough and that is correct.  So many wonderful little towns to explore, so many coves and hikes that are possible.  

This is an unfortunate year to be visiting as the fires are raging out of control.  A combination of extreme heat - it was 37C today - strong winds and lack of moisture have created a perfect environment for huge fires.  Yesterday as we were heading out of St John’s an alert came on our phones to let us know that a fire close by necessitated the closure of the Trans-Canada highway.  We were over 10 km away and could see the flames shooting up.  Today there are more fires out of control and I have no idea how the firefighters are managing.  I can barely be out in the sun for a few minutes before I can’t stand the heat anymore.  It feels strange to be visiting and touring when so many people are on evacuation alert.  Tomorrow starts a cooling trend, and the forecast is high temps of 17 by Saturday, but that’s still several days away. Fingers crossed for cooler weather, but unsure if any precipitation will also come.  

Our views of Twillingate were spectacular, and they are quite far from the fires that there wasn’t any smoke in the area.  Tomorrow we will visit Gros Morn.