1 Year, 2 KLRs, and a whole lot of open road...: September 9th, 2010

Yesterday we arrived in North Sydney in the early evening. It started spitting rain just as we docked at the port. With no GPS to guide us, we felt as if we were riding with blind folds on. That’s the pitfall with technology; we rely on it way too much and when it breaks down, all hell breaks loose. Gonna take me awhile to get used to reading maps again. We rode around the outskirts of town in search of a suitable place to camp. We were actually looking for gazebos to get us out of the rain. Having no luck on the outskirts, we rode back into town to figure out our options. We ran into ADV inmate porterrad and his friend Chris waiting to board the ferry to Newfoundland; both of them set on tackling the Trans-Labrador Highway also. We gave them a few tips on what to expect regarding road conditions on the TLH and wished them a safe journey.

We continued our search for gazebos and found something even better; an outdoor stage in a park. The only tricky part is that it’s highly visible to onlookers; we need to hang tight for a bit and use the cloak of night. In the meantime, we picked up supper at the local Canadian Superstore. We returned to the park a few hours later and scoped out the area. The stage was wheelchair accessible, which made it easy for us to roll the bikes in under cover as well; thank goodness for inclusiveness. We set up camp and stayed dry for the evening.

The next morning we weren't so lucky. It was pouring rain. Sure enough if we had a time schedule to adhere to we would press on. The smart thing to do is to wait it out, which we did. We found out later the two riders going to Newfoundland were stuck on the ferry for 28 hours before docking in Port aux Basques due to weather conditions.

The great thing about hard rain is that it usually doesn’t last long. It wasn’t long before we were back on the road again en route to the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton Island.