Today is our last day in New Brunswick as we set out early on the road with another tailwind to speed us along.
The restaurant at the motel doesn't open till July so Joe and I start out on an empty stomach towards Cap Pele looking for breakfast.
It seems like everything is closed up and we start to think we might have to resort to one of our energy bars when, out of nowhere, a massive Timmie's appears with, of course, every car from the surrounding area in the parking lot and a lineup at the drive thru that extends onto the road.
Like two aliens from another planet, we land our bikes at the door and enter amongst the Timmonians. Joe tries to order the oatmeal and yogurt from the healthy choice menu but, surprise, they don't have any. The locals studiously ignore us as they get more confirmation of our alienness by this aberration of ordering off the healthy choice menu.
Anyway, we get some calories into us and continue on, even finding the Cap Pele bike path with the popular Acadian flag telephone poles beside the road.
We decide to get onto Route 15 for the next stretch to save a few kilometers and it is some smooth riding on a good wide shoulder where the bikes seem to be pedaling themselves. We were almost sorry to say goodbye to this main road as we turned onto the 955 shore road that will lead us to the Confederation bridge especially as we bumped along this old, bumpy road strewn with potholes.
Still, it won't be long before we are at the bridge and it is nice farm country amongst the wooded areas. Some of the farms are dairy farms and we wave at the cows...until we notice that they are all staring at us with dead eyes and, as we pass a second farm with a field of dead-eyed stares coming at us, we realize that these are ZOMBIE COWS!
You would think that the sight of zombie cows would have filled us with horror but the fact that real cows are so slow moving so the zombie version are pretty well immobile means that the only way one will eat your brains is if you lie down in front of it.
Not planning on stopping, we roll along and finally come to Northumberland Strait and the grey band on the horizon, which is our first sight of PEI.
This spurs us on to get to the bridge when just a few minutes later we are flagged down by a fellow on the side of the road with a clipboard. I figure he might be a tourism NB survey taker wondering why we are leaving New Brunswick (Zombie Cows! for starters) but it turns out he is an avid cyclist who has just come back from riding Route 66 from Mexico to Toronto. We chat about touring for awhile and he mentions that he also did the Pacific Coast Highway a couple of years ago, which gets my mind thinking ahead to a next possible tour.
Eventually, we say our goodbyes after he lets us know how it works at the bridge to contact the staff for the shuttle bus warning us you can be waiting an hour or more to get across the bridge.
We get to the turn to head for the bridge just as it starts to rain and our friendly tailwind is now a salty, wet crosswind that soaks us in the 15 minutes it takes to get to the Information Centre to catch the shuttle.
Sure enough, when we call on the phone (discreetly hidden around a corner) the fellow tells Joe that it will be an hour before he shows up.
It gives us time to dry out a bit, have a coffee and for me to grab a shot of the bridge once the rain shower has passed.
The shuttle bus arrives a few minutes later and we are loading up for the trip across the strait.
Of course, the skies are clearing as we ride across the bridge and PEI is resplendent in its green and red glory.
We grab lunch at the Lobster Shop before heading onto Route 10 and our last leg of the journey to Summerside.
We come across a church and cemetery at Seven Mile Bay and I can't help but stop and see if I recognise any names since one of my great, great grandfathers worked on a farm near there at the beginning of the twentieth century.
We ride on. It seems like we should be close and the turn for Water Street should be just around the next corner but the road seems to go on and on.
Finally, we see Summerside come out from the trees across the bay and then we are here.
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