Distance: 92km
Cycling Time: 4 hrs 48 min
Average Speed: ~19km/hr
Weather: a bit of rainy drizzle for the first few hours and then clear skies and sun for the rest of the day!
Terrain: Mostly not too bad - rolling hills and a few flat (gasp!) sections
This is a map of our route for Day 3 and Day 4:
The first 20 minutes are always the most painful part of the day. Today was no exception. That great hill that we sailed down last night with the chicken and taters along for the ride, was the first 2km of our day today. Good thing we had a big breakfast, complete with toutons to get us to the top! (Toutons are one of many delicious Newfie foods; bread dough fried in oil and eaten with molasses - yum!) We made a quick stop at the pharmacy in Clarenville to pick up some stronger potions for Sean's butt. He has been getting saddle sores and his butt is quickly starting to fall apart! Luckily the pharmacist hooked him up with some Ozonol and Tegaderm which seems like it will do the trick..
We felt as if we were rolling along quite well today, the T.C.H. has been much easier going so far than the coastal roads of the first two days. We also saw the end of rumble strips today - our previous time on the T.C.H.included rumble strips all along the shoulder, not leaving much room for us! It was definitely a game of mental balance beam trying to keep the tire in the thin strip of shoulder between the rumble strips and the gravel shoulder! We entered Terra Nova National Park about 35km from Clarenville and stopped for a quick lunch at the top of a treacherous (quite possibly the worst one yet!) 4km winding uphill.
A few things I learned today:
- In this context of cycle touring, I think I actually prefer a headwind to a sidewind. This may sound crazy but I can't even count the number of times now I have almost been blown right over by a combo of a transport truck whooshing by and a big gusty sidewind hitting my loaded bike.
-Black flies are really smart. Those little jerks would only bite me on the downhills - as if they knew that I couldn't take one hand off the handlebars to smack them when I was going 40-50km/hr downhill! Sean said they like to bite around the edges of clothing and he couldn't have been more right! I now have a red, swollen ring of bites around each quad, ankle and around my neck. Lovely.
We stopped at one of the larger campgrounds in the park to get some groceries at the store and ran into a Scottish couple that were also cycling across the island, but going east. They were only the second group of cyclists we have seen so far, with the first being a group of three American guys cycling from St.John's to St.John, New Brunswick.
About 6km from the campground Murphy's Law kicked in again and Sean realized his bottom bracket was loose. (Extent of it is still TBD). We decided he could make it there and we would try to find someone at the campground or further on in Gander to borrow the tool from to fix it (this tool did not make it into our tool kit as it is big, bulky and not likely to be needed; looks like the odds were against us this time!)
We made it with no additional mechanicals, found a great campsite (the place was practically empty!) And even managed to get some firewood delivered (it was a bit too bulky to strap on the bikes....). We made the most gourmet camping dinner ever: rice noodle soup, porkchops (2 large ones each), a mountain of coscous and carrots. I really think I ate more than I ever have in my life! It is amazing how much food you can down after riding all day!
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