Day 4 – Port Hood to Whycocomagh

This morning, the cashier at the local grocery shop said ‘what a beautiful day to ride a bike’, and she wasn’t kidding. Rain!? No, not really.

My day started by being within 20 feet of a bald eagle. As I was packing up, this huge bird just took off. And I mean huge. What a beautiful animal. Too bad America claimed it.

Then I continued riding the Celtic Shores trail. It veered away from the ocean but was along rivers and lakes for the remaining 40 km of it. So there were a lot of bridges. Wood bridges, iron bridges and wood and iron bridges. The trail ends in Inverness which looked like a nice little town, but I just rode right through.

After that I had about 60 km of pretty typical remote country highway riding. A little hilly, very sparse, lots of speeding monster trucks and not a whole lot to report otherwise. There was intermittent sunshine mixed with clouds. When the sun was out it was pretty warm but not crazy. And there was a headwind, but not an insurmountable one.

At Lake Ainslie I stopped on the side of the road and had a sit and a swim. It was perfect.

Whycocomagh is 4 shops and not much else. Critically, though, one of shops has both ice cream and fish and chips. I went for both. In that order. Crazy that this is the first fish and chips I’ve had in the maritimes in almost a week! And I’m not even on the ocean right now.

I’m camped at a provincial park just outside of town. There are destination parks and then there are places to sleep parks. This place is the latter.

My log to chainring fix mostly worked. I don’t think I’m over the drivetrain woes, but it works well enough to keep going so that’s what I’ll do.

Today was another 100 km. Tomorrow starts a series of 3 or 4 days under 100. Based on the distance signage on the highway, I also officially get on the Cabot Trail tomorrow. Funny thing is, I don’t even know what the Cabot Trail is other than the place I am biking too! Guess I’ll find out tomorrow.