Day 1 for Dave

Dave says Hi everyone 👋.  I definitely needed a rest, repair and resupply day before starting out on the NB phase of the journey.  Even more important, since the first 3 days out of Campbellton we’re looking pretty challenging.  Remote with very limited resupply for 200k.   Add to that, some challenging hills and Dave’s first few days on the bike, this was not ideal for one’s first day in the saddle.  Well, what could possibly go wrong.   I believe in you Dave!

We were off pretty early and made some descent time.  The hills were definitely making themselves felt but the morning was cool,  so all went well. By lunchtime we had passed our first camping option, too early to stop so we decided to kept going.  That’s over going to be a problem.  The afternoon warmed noticeably and to add to the hills we got a nice strong headwind.  Definitely started sucking our legs.  As the afternoon progressed, we just could not find any good spots to camp.  In the end we crested our last big hill and realized a nice lake with campground and lodge was only 20k further.   Why not, it was nearly all down hill. Easy right?

And with that our luck ran out.  The last 10k was a gravel road.  Mmm.   More like forest trail, rutted, downed trees, swampy, a real mess. Then we found out the restaurant in the lodge was closed. Missed it by an hour.   

No worries we ate our dinner  by the lodge then headed to the campsite.  Passed the map location for the campsite, no campsite?  Ahhhhh, another challenge.  We decided to head back.  I would just ride past the next corner to be sure. Wouldn’t you know it there it was.  Yes!  That’s where everything came together.  Beautiful spot right on the water.  Maybe the 9 1/2 hours in the saddle was worth it after all.   Well done Dave, you’re a legend.