On a decent day

The hotel in Miramichi had signs relating to its enforce of its quiet time policy. I wonder if it was employed with the owner of a car whose alarm went off at 5 in the morning and kept on going for quite some time.

After climbing out of the Miramichi River valley, the road went past the town’s airport as announced by a cheerful sign. I don’t know how much and what sort of traffic the airport gets but the aircraft on the sign is a three engined Dassault business jet! Maybe this was a sign that the Irvings or the McCains regularly do business in Miramichi.

The road was fairly straight with rises and falls that kept it interesting, particularly with a convenient tail wind that had me worried about getting to my planned lunch place too early. I zoomed along. Around 11:30, I entered a construction zone which had escorted convoys of vehicles through the zone. I was allowed to go along a hard packed shoulder free of a convoy. When I came to the place I had thought of lunching, it proved closed either because of the construction, it was too early or because of the end of summer. Lunch had to wait for St-Louis-de-Kent. It took the form of fried clams and chips.

The 134 took me to Rexton, formerly Kingston. It’s main claim to fame is that it is birthplace of Bonar Law, the only British prime minister to be born in Canada and until recently, the only British prime minister to be born outside of the U.K.. Boris Johnson had to go spoil Bonar Law’s exclusivity. There is a small museum which has a few artefacts relating to him as well as the usual collection of local knickknacks. I was given a tour of the house he was born in. Having visited the Village Historique Acadien, I could see that his parents obviously had quite a bit of money for the time (circa 1860 or so). I was also struck by the fact that it was only half the size of Robin Hill! Jack Meagher, KC, was evidently pretty well off, even adjusting for the improvement of living standards in the intervening years. The guide challenged me to guess the contents of the locking piece of furniture in the living room which she said no one had guessed all summer. I got it in one. “Tea.” She was impressed. Admittedly, I had an unfair advantage with two degrees in history, mostly British. Also, locking tea caddies are mentioned in Dewey Lambdin’s Alan Lewrie novels which I read too frequently.

I got to Bouctouche in good time. I used some of it to give Leonardo some minor TLC. Some oil for the chain and adjust the brake\

The B&B in Bouctouche has a washer and dryer at the disposal of the guests with the proviso that out respect for other guests, please use them only between 3 and 9. Therefore, it was fair game to do some extra washing in the tub and heave the lot into the dryer.