1 of 17: A Motorcycle Tour of the Canadian Maritimes, Summer 2018 Northern Virginia to Nova Scotia, PEI, the Gaspé Peninsula and Back

Introduction and Index.

It’s taken months to finish documenting this 16-day, nearly 5000-mile motorcycle tour. The combination of me, Jeff, and the wonders of digital photography, yielded thousands of photos to sort, covering the magnificent and the mundane that we encountered. But, it was a joy to relive the trip while doing so. It was a fabulous experience!

Packed and ready to go!

We rode two-up on a BMW R1200GSA (hence, small luggage). I’m the pillion, so Jeff was solely responsible for our safe passage, which he carried out admirably, as always. Much of our trip was arranged around attempts to capture photos suggested by two motorcycle “grand tours” and visits to locations designated by geocachers as worth the visit. If you’re not into long-distance motorcycling, motorcycle “grand tours,” or geocaching these may seem like odd guideposts, but both the grand tours and geocaching tend to take you to interesting spots. Sometimes they are the same places that tourists following the “Top 10” will also visit, but often they cover local favorites or things that are simply interesting.

The Team Strange Melting Pot grand tour took us to statues of immigrants (specific ones designated by the tour organizers), towns with the name of a country (which were up to us to identify), and a search for the Liberty Bell replicas.  In the 1950s, fifty-five replicas of the famous bell were cast and then distributed around the country. Most are available to be visited.  Some have the crack painted on them, which I find rather funny. As you will read below, over the course of 2018, Jeff and I visited many of the ones on the east coast (some of them twice, for reasons explained below).
The Tour of Honor focuses primarily on war memorials. We did not have many of these on our trip, but we did have a few.

Geocaching was at our selection.  For those of you not familiar with this game, geocaches are hidden all over the world, and the information needed to find them is available on the web at Geocaching.com.  The number of “likes” indicates the ones that are particularly appreciated, either because of the location, the cleverness of the “hide,” or some other characteristic. With careful reading, geocaching can provide you with a curated tour of the favorite spots of locals in the areas you are visiting, some of which are well-known and many of which are not. Sometimes it's just a fun way to find your way around a place you don't know or to add an interesting challenge or fun memory to your day (see Part 11). Geocaching can also take you to places like lampposts in the parking lots of shopping malls. Hence, “careful reading” is important if you are using Geocaching.com to plan a tour of sights worth seeing.

In addition to the above, we visited places that appealed to one or both of us for various reasons, like arts and crafts destinations (for me), leading to a delightful hodge-podge of sights and very full days!

Home of artist Barry Colpitts

The logs are chronological, tracing the complete path of our journey, in 17 parts:

One: Introduction and Index

Two: 6.22.18.  Friday. Springfield, Virginia to Portsmouth, New Hampshire (via Maine), United States.
Three: 6.23.18. Saturday. Portsmouth, New Hampshire to Steuben, Maine.
Four: 6.24.18. Sunday. Stueben, Maine.
Five: 6.25.18. Monday. Stueben, Maine, U.S. to St. John, New Brunswick, Canada.
Six: 6.26.18.  Tuesday. St. John, New Brunswick to West Publico, Nova Scotia.
Seven: 6.27.18. Wednesday. West Publico, Nova Scotia to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Eight: 6.28.18. Thursday.  Halifax, Nova Scotia to St. Louisbourg, Nova Scotia.
Nine: 6.29.18. Friday.  Louisbourg to Cheticamp, Nova Scotia (Cape Breton Island).
Ten: 6.30.18. Saturday.  Cheticamp, Nova Scotia to Georgetown, Prince Edward Island via the Cabot Trail.
Eleven: 7.1.18. Sunday. Georgetown to Tignish, Prince Edward Island. (Geocaching!)
Twelve: 7.2.18. Monday. Tignish, Prince Edward Island to Parrsboro, New Brunswick. (includes the Bottle House)
Thirteen: 7.3.18. Tuesday. Parrsboro, New Brunswick to Perce’s Rock, Quebec.
Fourteen: 7.4.18. Wednesday.  Percé’s Rock, Quebec to Revière-du-Loup, Quebec; Gaspe peninsula.
Fifteen: 7.5.18. Thursday. Rivière-du-Loup, Québec to Wilton, Maine, US. (Includes Parc de la Frontière and Four Corners)
Sixteen: 7.6.18. Friday. Wilton, Maine to Bennington, Vermont.
Seventeen: 7.7.18. Saturday. Bennington, Vermont to Springfield, Virginia (home).

13 of 17: A Motorcycle Tour of the Canadian Maritimes, Summer 2018 Northern Virginia to Nova Scotia, PEI, the Gaspé Peninsula and Back

7.3.18. Tuesday. Parrsboro, New Brunswick to Perce’s Rock, Quebec.

We checked in at the dock again in the morning before leaving town.  In the 12 hours since our last visit the tide was low again, so the view was much the same, but some of the boats were gone – testimony that the tide had come and gone as we slept.

We also wandered around town a bit. Parrsboro has a cute little downtown with a number of sculptures and an area with historic cars and a little train.  The town square is also the site of a statue of the legendary Glooscap, a member of a native tribe who has various wonderful things attributed to him (apparently the legend varies).  The statue is imposing and memorable, both because it’s huge and frankly, ugly, at least in my view.  You can decide!  I liked the metal sculptures of the barber shop better.

 

Parrsboro

On our way to the Gaspe Peninsula, we stopped at Shediac, a small set of shops with a giant lobster sculpture outside, and at a lovely spot on the Miramichi River where we took a break to eat lunch from the assortment of snack bars and similar items I had stashed in the top case.  (Jeff seldom stops for food, so I’ve learned to plan ahead.)

Shediac

High above the town of Carleton, overlooking the Bay of Chaleur 555 meters below, sits a church. The church is modest, but the view stunning (as it the very blue roof of the church). The trip up Mont Sainte Joseph was a winding road and the top had a steep parking lot with a huge pile of dirt in it. Months later, Jeff still has very strongly negative memories of that parking lot, but we made it in safely and enjoyed touring the mountain top.  On the way down, Jeff prompted me to video tape the ride, which I did until the road got so rough that the footage was useless; and in any event, I wanted my hands free in order to hang on and relieve some of the abuse my spine was taking from the bumps.

The south shore of the Gaspe peninsula reminded me of Italy’s seaside villages.  The road hugged the coast and the sea wall for the most part, with a fairly constant string of housing on the inland side of the road. Occasionally there would be a burst of shops and restaurants that had the same seaside aura as little towns on the Jersey shore or California coast.  Even if I hadn’t been able to see the ocean, I’d know I was in a coastal community. It just had that vibe.

We also began to notice church steeples sheathed in metal.  The bright silvery surface looked like it was built to sustain high winds. The steeples were very striking, and I don’t recall seeing others like them elsewhere.

Our destination for the day was the southeast end of the peninsula, at Perce’s Rock.  The rock extends out into the water and an arch allows a view through it.  We approached at sunset and the view was stunning.

Our reservations were at a lodge above the town, Au Pic de l'Aurore.  We had a little cabin that was spacious and comfortable.  The parking, however, was dicey.  Jeff had to run the bike up a grassy embankment to park it next to our cabin.  The only other option would have been to leave it up at the main lodge.

The town had lots of places to eat but few had good reviews and there were even fewer places to park.  So we had to search and circle a lot before we found a place to eat, and I sat on the restaurant’s patio waiting quite awhile while Jeff found somewhere to park. Many people stay in town I think, and therefore can park at their hotels and walk.

Back at the hotel I washed out a few things and hung them on the porch of our cabin, using our portable clothes line, to dry overnight. Gave the place a real lived-in look! But I pulled them in early the next morning before too many people could be offended.

14 of 17: A Motorcycle Tour of the Canadian Maritimes, Summer 2018 Northern Virginia to Nova Scotia, PEI, the Gaspé Peninsula and Back

7.4.18. Wednesday.  Percé’s Rock, Quebec to Revière-du-Loup, Quebec.

The next morning, we prowled around the grounds of our cliffside lodge, enjoying the views of Percé’s Rock and the seals on the rocks below us.

Jeff had scouted out a geocache that was about 250 meters from the lodge parking lot (as the crow flies), but we realized that it was at the top of an even steeper cliff than the one we were on. Since we are not crows, it would have been quite a hike.  Instead, we checked-out and went into town for breakfast.  We ate at a bustling little place next to the Three Sister’s Motel (and part of it, although it looked like a little bungalow).  It was delicious.  But it gave us a much later start than usual and much, much later than we had anticipated.

The day’s ride was defined by jaw-dropping scenery. The ride out from Percé’s Rock to the north shore of the peninsula was perhaps the part I found most exhilarating. For a short way, it was like the Cabot Trail but even more so.

We rode out to Cap-des-Rosiers in Forillon National Park. We walked an elevated wooden “nature trail” that offered lovely views of the sea across the tops of the brush and rocks. The walkway had signs along the way describing wildlife – that we were not seeing. As I began to grouse about the lack of “nature” on this trail, Jeff hissed, “look, there.” Not more than a few feet from me, just below the edge of the walkway, a porcupine was enjoying his lunch, completely unfazed by us! Further along the way we found seals sunning themselves on the rocks, and a lovely view of a light house.

When we reached the south shore of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the road flattened out, and geological marvels predominated.  The St. Lawrence is much wider than a normal river all the way from Quebec City to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, so as we rode along its southern coast, we generally could not see a northern shore.  The coast line was beautiful. We had shale cliffs to our left on large parts of the route, and on our right, usually there was water. In many places, the jagged edges of the shale shelves protruded from the water. We stopped at a rest area (lured there by a geocache of course) where the beach was covered in stones smoothed and flattened into dark grey disks, many with white lines of other minerals running through them.

The metallic church steeples continued. The roadside "attractions" included a sword embedded in a rock and a house decorated in bright blue turrets. I was also charmed by the tidy stone-edged harbors with their bobbing fishing boats at anchor. The wind farms were abundant along the coast and even included some vertical turbines.

An unfortunate consequence of our late start is that we missed the last admission time for the Jardins de Métis. We did stop at the Centre d’Art M. Gagnon, to observe the somewhat disturbing clusters of statues clustered on the shore and proceeding in a straggly line into the river. Following that, we were rewarded with a stunning sunset that bathed the sky in violent reds and oranges at times.

It was dark by time we reached the Motel Loupi in Revière-du-Loup. The owner checked us in and directed us down the road to find some food. We by-passed his suggestions and went further into town where we found a cozy bar with a selection of vegetarian and traditional options and beers. Then back to our hotel for the night.