I’d opted for a lower berth for the trip to Bathurst. It seemed less indulgent. I was in the last car of the train and the last section of four berths of the car. It was a full section as I had as companions, a mother and her mid twenties aged son from England and a man from New Delhi. We compared and contrasted trains of Canada and the UK. I filled them in about just how old the Château sleeper car we were in was, viz roughly 70 years old.
I slept badly, tossing and turning a lot which caused the under sheet to come loose. This was in part because I was fairly close to the wheels. When I got to Bathurst, I made a point of changing my cabin for one on the return journey to one further from the wheels.
The train got to Bathurst about an hour and fifteen minutes late. While waiting for Leonardo and the panniers I had checked, I ducked into the station to use the facilities. By the time I had done my business, just about all the checked luggage had been dealt with. The woman took one look at me, wearing bike clothing and a bike helmet and carrying panniers, and said: “You must be the cyclist.”
“Yes, I am.” I replied, then added facetiously, “Do you need to see my bagged stubs?”
She didn’t.
I had an early lunch in Bathurst, before heading off. The road was well paved and quiet and featured gentle hills along with views of the Baie des Chaleurs. It was cool, humid and overcast. The middle one caused me to change into a sleeveless biking jersey and sweat cap as I was sweating profusely. It began to sprinkle at Pokeshaw, so I pulled the municipal roadside halt and park to admire the view of a cormorant infested sea stack and a cliff with a hole in it. I also put on my rain jacket as the rain was getting heavier.
Just after entering Grande-Anse, Gateway to the Acadian Peninsula, it started raining in earnest, so I stopped at a roadside veggie stand to pull on rain pants, shoe overs and waterproof hat. This served to expose me to the attentions of the Acadian mosquitos which I have since heard are vicious. One local said that the government should put up a warning sign! I found refuge from the rain the mozzies in the Musée des cultures fondatrices. Unsurprisingly, it is interested in the Acadian settlement of the area along with the experiences of the local First Nations as well as that of the Irish and the Scots who settled here. More surprising was the large scale model of St-Peter’s Basilica in the Rome, as donated by the Franciscan order in Canada. I chatted with the staff, one of whom lived in Pokeshaw. When I mentioned I photographed the cliff with the hole in it, he said that he owned that property!
The rain had petered out by the time I was finished. I passed Grande-Anse’s Dixie Lee where the Parents and I once ate. I rode a kilometre or two further before stopping at Grande-Anse’s tourist information centre to ask a question that embarrassed the young people who should have known. Had the building we were in actually been a lighthouse or was it just a piece of architectural license? ;-) (I have since learned it is indeed a folly, in the architectural sense of the word.)
I stopped for the day at the Château Albert Hotel which is located inside the Village historique acadien. It seemed impressively well preserved for something built about 1910. It also reminded me a bit of Robin Hill, built in roughly the same era. After signing in and hauling my stuff up to room, I relaxed in a lovely seemingly period bath tub and read the information in the handouts I’d been given. In fact the original hotel had been built in Caraquest and had burned down in 1955. The place I was staying in had recently (2000) been built from the original architect’s plans!
Sleep beckons.
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