Cross Canada by Cub

We left at about 1:45pm today (I had to take a placement test at uOttawa for September) and covered the 275 miles home in just under 11 hours  We made it HOME (finally) around midnight.

I got a new bike on the way home

Rhonda's odometer turned over at a red light - perfect timing!! -  just 35 miles from home.

We left for Richard & Françoise Love's place in Ottawa around 9:45 this morning and made it here around 5pm. Dad got run off the road by a double transport truck on Highway 17, just outside of Ottawa. He did some off-roading on the shoulder and got back on the road with no problem. He says "it's great to have some motocross experience on a lightweight bike".

Shortly after we got to Richard's there was a huge thunderstorm - thankfully we weren't in it this time and could just sit inside (warm and dry) and listen to the rain pour down outside.

Thank you Richard and Françoise for your hospitality  

I'm glad that it was only for one night this year and that you didn't have to come rescue us again 

We covered 207 miles in 12 hours today (10am - 10pm) and made it to Trois-Rivières, where we stayed in a very smelly inn on the outskirts of the city... We decided to stay anyways because it was late and raining, but we had to open all of the windows (aka 2 small ones) and turn on the bathroom fan to try and get rid of some of the stench (it smelled like somebody had spilt cheap aftershave or cologne). But we were warm, dry, and stationary, so I didn't care all that much.

So this morning my shifter broke off when dad was fiddling with the bikes... Thankfully there was a repair shop 5 minutes down the road, and the guy welded it for only $5

We made it to Edmundston Honda around 4pm and once again, they were incredible to us! They gave us 3L of oil for Rhonda, and we almost got a new engine for her as well, but it wouldn't have fit properly. 

Rhonda ran out of gas shortly after we crossed the border into Quebec, but thankfully dad had some gas in the spare tank he has strapped to the back of GP...

At the gas station, I got a $20 donation for Because I am a Girl from a guy who 'heard us on the radio' - he didn't actually, it was just two guys talking about us in a Tim Horton's, but that's how he introduced himself.

There was a thunderstorm that started just as we found a place to stay for the night, and an awesome, perfect double rainbow afterwards.

We left Wayne and Patsy's place around 11:30am, and Wayne went with us to the Trans-Canada Highway, but we forgot our CVMG roster there - thankfully we didn't really need it anymore. We covered 204 miles by the time we reached Woodstock at 9:45pm. 

Unfortunately, Rhonda is still leaking oil...

There was a door connectiong our room to the adjoining one at the motel, and it was lined with shag-carpeting, which I thought was hilarious, and dad thought was 'shagadelic'...

We left at 11am and made it to Dorchester at 9:15pm, covering 263 miles, which is our best to date. It probably had something to do with the fact that we had really good weather all day - it was bright, sunny, and actually hot! Plus, Rhonda seems to have recovered, and we barely needed to top up the oil.

We stayed with Wayne and Patsy, who had just recently had open heart surgery and we truly appreciate their help and accommodation  Hope you're feeling better Patsy!!

Wayne gave us a tour of his awesome British bike collection, which he has restored personally, with Patsy's help of course, and then gave me an original sales brochure for Rhonda (a 1967 C65 Cub).

We finally left Corner Brook for good this morning around 10am. Rhonda runs good now, but we have to stop every 30 miles to top off the oil. There was a very windy section of road near the Tabletop mountains, with a sign that said something like "CAUTION! The winds in this region have been recorded at over 200km/hr" and they were crosswinds too!!! We did't stop to take a picture, as we figured there would be a sign on the other side, but there wasn't, as that would be one of the first things you would see as you came off of the ferry...

We travelled 143 miles to the ferry, about 50 of which had mild to moderate crosswinds, and made it there at about 2:30pm. The ferry wasn't scheduled to leave until 5:30, so we hung around for a while, then checked in an hour or so before departure. The crossing was a bit more choppy than on the way to NL, but it wasn't too bad considering I got to read and watch a movie. We disembarked around midnight, and then rode for 24 miles or so, until we stopped for the night in Boularderie East, NS.

We left the B&B we had been staying at (The Edgewater Inn) around 11am and went for gas. Rhonda was leaking oil pretty badly, so we turned around and headed to Perry's garage (again). I sat in Perry's 1951 English Ford Prefect and read, while dad went to work on Rhonda (again). We only managed to go 62 miles today...

It rained alot... dad worked on Rhonda's engine and rotated the tires on both bikes, while I read. Cherie also let me use her computer to update this website a bit while we were there - Thank you

On the 12th, I hung out with a friend of mine who lives in Corner Brook. 

On the 13th dad and I went zip lining over a waterfall on Marble Mountain!!! It was so much fun!!! I took tons of pictures and a video or two, while going across! (check out the Photo Gallery and Video links to see them). When we got back to the B&B, Lisa, the owner, let us use their kayaks, which was pretty fun as well 

I went back to sleeping and reading on the 14th...

Perry came with his pickup truck and trailer to rescue us around 10:30am today. We strapped the bikes into the trailer -  well they did, I just kind of hung around and took pictures. We left for Little Rapids at 11am, stopping at the motorcycle museum that Perry owns. It was pretty awesome - there was even a steam powered motorcycle from the 1800's!! Plus he owns three Vincents.

When we stopped for lunch and gas, we used the Ultramar gascard that Honda gave us to fill Perry's pickup, then met up with one of Perry's friends who helped us search for an engine for Rhonda. We couldn't find anything, so we headed over to Perry's, and he let us store our bikes in his garage while dad worked on them. Cherie, his girlfriend, lent us her BMW 750 triple (from the 80's) to use for as long as we needed it! It only had about 6000km on it and Perry told us to put some miles on it to clean the carbon out of it!