The Nicest Guy in Nova Scotia

After a long, LONG day cycling yesterday, I was dead on my feet and would have happily pitched my tent on the highway, but luckily Si is a bit more demanding and pushed us on for another few miles until eventually he rolled into a farmhouse gateway for another stab at negotiating the corner of a field for our tents.

A truly lovely chap called Steve not only happily offered his barn and his field but then appeared with 3 cold beers and the offer of his 'cabin' instead. So we spent a very happy and extremely comfortable night in the most delightful little house in the middle of the woods; the boys went for a swim in the river and drank beer while I curled up in my sleeping bag in the gallery bedroom. Fabulous - a big thank you to Steve and family - may your organic farm grow and prosper.

Today the Big Fat Cry Baby Monster that had been galloping behind me for a couple of days finally caught up with me on yet another horrid hill, so I had a red face and puffy eyes to add to my patches of sunburn, mozzy bites and unwashed hair - photographic evidence of me on my hols will be strictly censored. My lovely husband force-fed me cinnamon roll and gave me a hug and my lovely son insisted on burgers and fries at the next fast food joint and hey presto I was back on some sort of form. Big milestone today as we reached Wolfville so we are almost on (second) home turf and due for a day off; just back from a boozy night at Paddy's and nothing to do tomorrow except sleep, eat and swim in the pool. Glad I packed that bikini after all :-)

Hot Sun, Cool Rivers

Perfect blue skies today and lovely quiet roads this morning made for a happy start to the day. Annoyingly my knee decided to play up which kept the pace slow but we rolled into New Glasgow by food o'clock and feasted on quesadillas (cue Napolean Dynamite quotes) and chips. Found a bike shop to stock up on spares and headed out of town in a heat-haze barely dented by the persistent wind - stopped for ice cream for me and beer for the boys and now we're camped up by the river in a picnic/country park type area and hoping no-one's going to ask us to leave when it closes at dusk.

It struck me today that I have absolutely the best travelling companions a girl could ask for; my husband and son have been unerringly patient, cheerful, kind and encouraging; I'm a lucky girl.

Six days cycling done - quite a few more to go... But hopefully only 2 until our next day off -woohoo!

On the road again

After a fabulous day of motel living (donuts, Subway, rubbish TV, bubble baths, mascot shopping -see pic!) and a bizarre encounter with a mad shopkeeper, we hit the long road south again today. Cool, cloudy, a delightful lack of wind and gently rolling roads made it almost a pleasure to be back in the saddle again and the miles flew by without too much pain. We are now slightly ahead of schedule, having stopped in Antigonish at a very nice student cafe for lunch and then pressed on for another few miles - today we tipped just over 200 miles in total - only 350 to go!

Had to ride a couple of stretches on the main highway today which was very scary and really made me appreciate the quiet backroads we are on the rest of the time. The sun came out late afternoon so another first being able to ride with bare legs; on the downside the sun has bought out the blackflies, so we pitched our tents in a frenzy and dived inside to wait for sundown when hopefully they'll naff off. Poor old Hoss went for a dip in the river before doing the tent bit though so he's been eaten alive!

I'm not quite so comfy in my tent today as my lovely inflatable mattress died on me so I popped into Walmart and got a foam mat, which stinks and feels about as bouncy as paper. But its warm, sunny and peaceful and I don't ache as much today so I'm pretty content with life.