Day 22. After 24 days…New Brunswick! Maritime Provinces

Temiscouata sur de La Lac, QC to Edmundston, NB

9/8/23. 39 mi. AIS: 4:13. 9.3 mph. Elev 652 ft.

We didn’t feel the need to rush this morning. Waited for the boulangerie to open for a bite to eat. Had them make a sandwich “to go” for our lunch today. Just a light rain as we left town but that didn’t last long. The temperature was perfect today, cloud cover until the final hour or so.

The trail today was the crushed gravel we’ve become accustomed to. We followed the Temiscouata Lake shoreline for a couple hours. It was dotted with homes/country houses on our right and to our left their stairways to the boat docks. The lake is really long, about 40 km.

Trail and the lake shore we followed for several miles.

My adopted lakeshore house.
Love the colored rocking chairs.
This area loves their fire pits and circle of chairs

My adopted lake house’s shoreline full
of watersport toys

We’ve reached the end of our (24) days in Quebec since we flew into Montreal on August 16. To honor our first 3 weeks we decided to have our lunch near the border with New Brunswick.

We have enjoyed every single day we’ve had in Quebec. We have learned so much and seen so many beautiful cities, towns and countrysides. It’s been such a treat to ride through this special province. As I’ve said before.. we’ve learned how strong the Quebecois first, Canada second mentality and actual reality are. It’s kind of like a sovereign nation. Homes and businesses fly the Quebec flag… never the Canada flag. The only Canada flags we saw were government related. Very prideful province.

The end of the Route Verte trails and the Petit Temis Trail. Of our 18 AIS (ass in saddle) days on the bike all but 3 were ridden on dedicated Route Verte trails that Quebec province started building 40 years ago! That’s pretty incredible how many unbroken kilometers of trail they manage. This will not be the case going forward… NB and NS just got started on similar trail systems more recently. Kudos to Quebec! On a side note… our Southern Tier trip across the US never had much more than an hour or two of dedicated trail. The most we had was either Phoenix or Florida.

Crossing the border into New/Noveau Brunswick. You can see the gigantic Canada flag and the considerably smaller Quebec flag.

End of Route Verte and Petit Temis trail. Now we will follow Sentier TransCanada.
There will be highways to ride in our future

We are excited to learn more about New/Noveau Brunswick. Because they are “fully” Canadian, they use both French and English in their signage. Of course that means it will be easier for us but in this first town of Edmundston the first language is French… they are 99% Francophone. In talking with Canadians from Ontario or New Brunswick, they are not fond of Quebec’s separatist attitude and government. Maybe that’s why the Canada flag was SO big at the border.

Some things I see…

They really wanted us to sit and enjoy the
Madawaska River

Entrance to a Botanical Garden. Isn’t the vegetative horse beautiful? And changing color with the season!

Stopped for a beer before tackling the hill to our motel for layover day.

The microbrewery was the clubhouse for a golf course!

This was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while. Both government controlled businesses… side by side! The liquor store was a beehive of activity, the cannabis store was rather quiet! But it is one stop shopping.

Jim went in to buy some beers for the layover. He forgot to bring his bag… you have to bring your own!!! So.very.funny🤣🤣

We’ll spend tomorrow in Edmundston, then follow the St John River south toward Fredericton. We are keeping tabs on Hurricane Lee and the impact it will have on us… yikes… there will rain… lots of rain!