Wednesday, 31 May 2006

Bar Harbor (Maine, USA) to Yarmouth (Nova Scotia, Canada)

The advantage of staying in a motel room - apart from the obvious comfort and convenience of a bed and your own bathroom - is that I had no packing to to in the morning; everything was already packed and ready to go. I was up at 6 am for a quick yogurt and banana breakfast to tide me over, before cycling back the 4 miles to the CAT ferry terminal. It was a cool and grey cloudy morning, but with no wind the sea looked calm. I paid for my ticket ($73 - Adult fare $53, Bike $10, Port fee $10) and picked up some brochure of Nova Scotia to read on the way. While I was queued up awaiting boarding I got chatting to Gerry Cronen (?) who was on vacation from the Dept. of Corrections on his motorcycle (or, on parole from jail as he joked) He was a very useful source of information on where to go and what to see in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

By the time the ferry set sail promptly at 8am, I had already eaten my hot breakfast, although it was the usual travel fare; low quality, high price. (Should you still say 'set sail' for motor vessels?) this early in the season the ferry was fairly quiet, operating at roughly 1/5 capacity, which made it a pleasantly bustle free. The voyage was uneventful, and even the siren sound and "Red alert, red alert" announcement from the in-voyage movie 'Monsters Inc.' sadly failed to induce any false panic. Outside it remained obstinately grey and so spoiled any photgraphic ambition on my part. The only thing to see outside was the 2 rooster tails created by the 4 engines that they proudly claimed 'could fill an Olympic sized swimming pool every 33 seconds.' (Sounds quite a long time to me)

The crossing time was 3 hours, but it was 12 noon when we docked at Yarmouth as Nova Scotia is in a different time-zone, 1 hour ahead of Maine. (4 hours behind GMT) At Customs and Immigration they gave me a bit of a grilling and I feared they weren't going to let me in. "What job do you do?" "Ah... none" "How much Canadian Dollars have you got?" "Ah... none... yet" Finally they stamped my passport and waved me through with a cheery 'Have a nice day'. The Visitor Information Centre is conveniently right opposite the ferry terminal and so was my first point of call for all those questions I had. I had thought to stay in Yarmouth for at least today while I do some research and plan my route, but there was no-one in at the hostel when I first called. I filled the time doing yet more food shopping and visiting the library and Post Office. (I could neither do any blog or upload any photos - I wonder if there is a virus doing the rounds on the internet)

I still had time to kill until 3pm so I went to the Ceilidh Cafe to suss out prices - seems good value. The exchange rate at the moment is roughly 2 CAD to 1 GBP. I went back to the hostel and checked in for the night. they only had a bed in a dorm room, but I was the only person there and was hoping it would stay that way. No snorers please!

Yarmouth looks a little more ramshackle than I'm used to from Maine, and perhaps therefore has a little more character. I went out for another mosey around, and suddenly at 5pm the clouds blew awy and it became a beautiful warm sunny evening. It's amazing how much nicer somewhere can seem with a bit of sun. Later in the evening I met up with a British couple who are also staying at the hostel. John, a Welshman from Llanelli, is a cyclist who seems to have cycled a lot in Canada and Europe, and could talk the hind legs off a millipede. All of them.

Distance: 3.9 miles and 12.9 km
Cycling time: 0:22 and 1:10
Total distance: 875.2 km