jhawk
Veteran
- Location
- New Brunswick, Canada
This is taken directly from my blog. Hope you enjoy the read. 
It’s been late coming, but I have finally conducted an overnight (well, more of an over-weekend) trip!
Leaving at 11AM on Friday morning, I was headed for Clairville, and my friend, Rachel’s house. My route is below:
The day started brightly and it wasn’t too hot. Floating somewhere around 20 degrees Celsius, but that would slowly creep up to the high-twenties and early-thirties as the day wore on.
I began by rolling through familiar territory – Rexton and the surrounding area, stopping only to purchase some granola bars at Foodland, the packs of ten were on a 2/$5 special! Naturally, I took full advantage of said offer, one can never have too many granola bars!
Leaving familiarity behind, I rode out of Rexton and through Mundleville and Main River, these are pretty small communities with plenty of farmland! The roads, as I was to discover, were home to logging trucks. One does not expect to see a rear-laden bicycle on such back-country roads. Thankfully, though, they were well-paved.
I rode through a covered bridge (pictured below), as I left Main River behind. Sadly, though many covered bridges remain in the province, they are slowly dwindling due to lack of maintenance, harsh winters, and arson.
I came across ‘hill country’ as I hit more small communities like Targetville, which lived up to its namesake, as “the top of that hill” became my target. I found myself repeating that ad-nauseum, rolling hill followed rolling hill. As always, though, the views were spectacular.
Then came more hills! Including setting a new downhill speed record of 49.2km/h (30mph!) according to my Cateye Padrone cycling computer.
That wasvery slightly scary, I encountered the ‘speed wobbles’ on my tyres and had a, “Please don’t crash, please don’t crash, please don’t crash” look on my face.
Getting out of hill country – for at least one whole hour! I was faced with a decision, there were three possible routes to my host’s house, the first as I discovered was an almost impassable dirt road, after backtracking for half an hour, I came to the same three-pronged intersection, choosing “Beersvile Back Road” this time. Perhaps I should have guessed from the name of the road: bumpy, stony, pebbly, and wholly unsuitable for my bike! Hell, even a car would have struggled. Backtracking for the final time, I elected a longer route (as shown on my route map above), but at least it was paved. And so off I went, quickly, I ran into (of course) hills. Though, I digress, if they didn’t have the hills, then you wouldn’t have the stunning views at the top of them.
After finally conquering the hilliest of hills, at 750ft of elevation gained, much energy lost, and manyswearing words of encouragement, I turned left onto Jailletville Road, which was the road – I struggle to call it that – the dirt track – where my gracious host for the weekend, Rachel lived. I couldn’t ride my bike on it, I had to push. It took a good hour to reach Rachel’s house about half-way down the dirt stretch of road.
I was amazed to find, at the end of all of challenges that the day had to offer, my Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres hadn’t received a puncture! Just lots of dust and dirt from the ‘road’.
I finally reached Rachel’s house, got off my bike and took a quick look around – in awe. It was absolutely beautiful. A fitting reward for my hard work.
I had planned to camp out overnight, before we set off in the morning – first to a local Market, where Rachel sells Steeped Tea – Rooibos iced tea was the best one! Then we’d planned to visit the biggest car show in the Maritimes – the Atlantic Nationals in Moncton on Saturday afternoon.
There wasn’t a better place to set up the hammock than between the two trees, absorbing the fantastic view of the pond and the fields beyond.
After enjoying sausages for supper, and great chatting with Rachel – who is also English, from Sussex – it was time for me to hit the hay – or the hammock, as it were. I climbed into my sleeping bag, killed the rest of the mosquitoes, and slept like a baby. Though I woke up at 3AM feeling very cold, for whatever reason – maybe I’ll look into bringing some kind of insulating blanket to put underneath me next time. Tried to get back to sleep, only to awake again two hours later.
Wakey, wakey, 5:30AM. What an ungodly hour to be awake after riding 50KM. The morning mist enveloped large portions of the surrounding land as I trudged up to the house to see if I could get a couple more hours shut-eye.
Instead, I caught a beautiful sunrise at 6:30AM.
After waking up, having breakfast complete with tea, we went off to the Bass River Market, which runs from 9 till 12 on Saturday mornings. I have been here once before, though had previously only caught the tail-end of the market. The market was abuzz with vendors and buyers and visitors, our Steeped Tea stall did quite well, and before we knew it, it was 12PM, time to shut down and head home before heading off to the car show.
After fetching food, water, cash and cameras we headed for Moncton and the Atlantic Nationals. Below are a selection of Rachel’s photos from the show.
Following fish and chips for supper, we drove back to Rachel’s house and enjoyed watching “Patch Adams”, as I hadn’t seen it before. A very good film indeed, accompanied by fantastic acting from the late Robin Williams.
Sunday morning came after sleeping inside in a spare bedroom – I slept like a log compared to my ever-so-slightly-cold night spent in the hammock. A brunch of waffles, strawberries, smoothies and tea was devoured, as I’d need the energy for the ride home. Then, after packing up it was time to hit the road and head for home. Rachel dropped me off a few kilometres from the end of the dirt road – thereby saving me an hour of travel time! (Thanks Rachel!)
The ride home was fast – it always seems faster than the ride away from home, for some reason. Now I’m glad to be home with my feet up, tea poured and in ‘relax’ mode. It’ll soon be time to plan another over-night, possibly over-weekend trip. I’m going to try increasing the mileage!
Note: Due to my inability to attach more than ten photos, there are several missing and I had to pick and choose. For all the photos, please visit the actual post on my site.
It’s been late coming, but I have finally conducted an overnight (well, more of an over-weekend) trip!
Leaving at 11AM on Friday morning, I was headed for Clairville, and my friend, Rachel’s house. My route is below:
The day started brightly and it wasn’t too hot. Floating somewhere around 20 degrees Celsius, but that would slowly creep up to the high-twenties and early-thirties as the day wore on.
I began by rolling through familiar territory – Rexton and the surrounding area, stopping only to purchase some granola bars at Foodland, the packs of ten were on a 2/$5 special! Naturally, I took full advantage of said offer, one can never have too many granola bars!
Leaving familiarity behind, I rode out of Rexton and through Mundleville and Main River, these are pretty small communities with plenty of farmland! The roads, as I was to discover, were home to logging trucks. One does not expect to see a rear-laden bicycle on such back-country roads. Thankfully, though, they were well-paved.
I rode through a covered bridge (pictured below), as I left Main River behind. Sadly, though many covered bridges remain in the province, they are slowly dwindling due to lack of maintenance, harsh winters, and arson.
I came across ‘hill country’ as I hit more small communities like Targetville, which lived up to its namesake, as “the top of that hill” became my target. I found myself repeating that ad-nauseum, rolling hill followed rolling hill. As always, though, the views were spectacular.
Then came more hills! Including setting a new downhill speed record of 49.2km/h (30mph!) according to my Cateye Padrone cycling computer.
That was
Getting out of hill country – for at least one whole hour! I was faced with a decision, there were three possible routes to my host’s house, the first as I discovered was an almost impassable dirt road, after backtracking for half an hour, I came to the same three-pronged intersection, choosing “Beersvile Back Road” this time. Perhaps I should have guessed from the name of the road: bumpy, stony, pebbly, and wholly unsuitable for my bike! Hell, even a car would have struggled. Backtracking for the final time, I elected a longer route (as shown on my route map above), but at least it was paved. And so off I went, quickly, I ran into (of course) hills. Though, I digress, if they didn’t have the hills, then you wouldn’t have the stunning views at the top of them.
After finally conquering the hilliest of hills, at 750ft of elevation gained, much energy lost, and many
I was amazed to find, at the end of all of challenges that the day had to offer, my Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres hadn’t received a puncture! Just lots of dust and dirt from the ‘road’.
I finally reached Rachel’s house, got off my bike and took a quick look around – in awe. It was absolutely beautiful. A fitting reward for my hard work.
I had planned to camp out overnight, before we set off in the morning – first to a local Market, where Rachel sells Steeped Tea – Rooibos iced tea was the best one! Then we’d planned to visit the biggest car show in the Maritimes – the Atlantic Nationals in Moncton on Saturday afternoon.
There wasn’t a better place to set up the hammock than between the two trees, absorbing the fantastic view of the pond and the fields beyond.
After enjoying sausages for supper, and great chatting with Rachel – who is also English, from Sussex – it was time for me to hit the hay – or the hammock, as it were. I climbed into my sleeping bag, killed the rest of the mosquitoes, and slept like a baby. Though I woke up at 3AM feeling very cold, for whatever reason – maybe I’ll look into bringing some kind of insulating blanket to put underneath me next time. Tried to get back to sleep, only to awake again two hours later.
Wakey, wakey, 5:30AM. What an ungodly hour to be awake after riding 50KM. The morning mist enveloped large portions of the surrounding land as I trudged up to the house to see if I could get a couple more hours shut-eye.
Instead, I caught a beautiful sunrise at 6:30AM.
After waking up, having breakfast complete with tea, we went off to the Bass River Market, which runs from 9 till 12 on Saturday mornings. I have been here once before, though had previously only caught the tail-end of the market. The market was abuzz with vendors and buyers and visitors, our Steeped Tea stall did quite well, and before we knew it, it was 12PM, time to shut down and head home before heading off to the car show.
After fetching food, water, cash and cameras we headed for Moncton and the Atlantic Nationals. Below are a selection of Rachel’s photos from the show.
Following fish and chips for supper, we drove back to Rachel’s house and enjoyed watching “Patch Adams”, as I hadn’t seen it before. A very good film indeed, accompanied by fantastic acting from the late Robin Williams.
Sunday morning came after sleeping inside in a spare bedroom – I slept like a log compared to my ever-so-slightly-cold night spent in the hammock. A brunch of waffles, strawberries, smoothies and tea was devoured, as I’d need the energy for the ride home. Then, after packing up it was time to hit the road and head for home. Rachel dropped me off a few kilometres from the end of the dirt road – thereby saving me an hour of travel time! (Thanks Rachel!)
The ride home was fast – it always seems faster than the ride away from home, for some reason. Now I’m glad to be home with my feet up, tea poured and in ‘relax’ mode. It’ll soon be time to plan another over-night, possibly over-weekend trip. I’m going to try increasing the mileage!
Note: Due to my inability to attach more than ten photos, there are several missing and I had to pick and choose. For all the photos, please visit the actual post on my site.
