We finally managed to hit the road at 8 am. The head winds off the water were brutal and we decided to stop every hour on the hour for 10 minutes. The 9 am break lasted 40 minutes as we took a little walk at Anse-au-Fils to check out the general store and the old factory. Ran into Christian, a kayaker who was camped on the shore. He had started from Trois - Pistoles and was on his way to New Brunswick to meet up with his girlfriend and kayak to NS. He had two hand carved Aleutian Island paddles. I can see those on my to do list.
We cooked lunch at Grande-Vallée at the stop lights on the side of the road. We sure got some funny looks from folks in their cars. We stopped at a fish plant to see how they dry cod but it was too early in the fishing season. As we continued to peddle down hills because of the wind, we finally made it to Chandler. The lady at the Information kiosk was really switched on and told us of a short cut to our campsite that would save us 13 km. She pointed us to the closest food store and the route to get back to the short cut. She gave us a most favorable impression of Chandler. On the short cut over the barachois, we noticed many panels lining the route. We got to cross the longest aluminium gangway (passerelle) in the world. At the campsite, we found out about a nice and affordable restaurant right there at the "Bourg de Pabos" that gave campers 10% off.
Before supper, we went back to view the panels. The panels covered the rise and eventual demise of the news paper industry in Chandler. At one point, most newspapers in North America were printed on paper from Chandler. Not sure who is the major employer in Chandler is now, but they sure are making themselves interesting to tourists. We plan on going back. The picture for Day 9 is taken at the Pabos restaurant. We were deciding whether or not to leave Chandler a day earlier because of the headwinds we had encountered. Those winds made climbing relatively smaller hills more difficult than the bigger ones on the North Shore. Reason being is that you can't coast downhill and you have to peddle to maintain a reasonable speed going down. With no wind going down hill we should have easily hit 35 km, we peddled hard to reach 18-20 km.
Mileage 53 kms (
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/3045543)
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| Daniel admiring Christian's hand carved Aleutian paddle |
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| Helene preparing another roadside delight |
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| A new friend after a day of cycling |
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| Helene making her way on the world's longest aluminium footbridge (clear span of 62 meters) |
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