Eliot, Maine mile 2563 lat 43degN 09' long 70degW 47'

We left Yarmouth Nova Scotia at 8 o'clock this morning aboard the Cat. This is a fast ferry between Yarmouth and Portland, Maine. These shots of us getting ready to load in Yarmouth:

This is how Helen passed the time on the trip:

The ride went well and we were happy to see the sites of Portland Harbor come into view about 6 1/2 hours later. These shots of us getting ready to get off the Cat and drive out into the Maine drizzle:

We had a slightly damp 50 mile ride back to our home in Eliot. It was great to see the farm. Our motorcycle adventure to Newfoundland is now complete!

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia - mile 2513 lat 43degN 50' long 66degW 07'

This was the view when the ship pulled into North Sydney, NS harbor at 9am, it was a rough crossing with puke and retching around us but Helen took her Dramamine and we were comfortable in our cabin.  I definitely recommend  that crossing yo Newfounland...an adventure into itself.  This is for a number of reasons including the unusual collection of passengers plus the remoteness of the port of Argentia.

This where we stopped for lunch in Brooklyn, N S.

Jenny and Peter will remember this largest wooden church on thenAmericas- we bicycled past this in the late 1990's on our Maritimes family bicycle trip,  Remember, guys?

Argentia, NL- mile 2107 lat 47degN 18' long 53degW 59'

We left St. John's and drove through 90 minutes of scary winds to reach this ferry port from South East Newfoundland to Nova Scotia.

In the morning we wake up in North Sydney, Nova Scotia.

St. John's, NL Zero Day

On our rest day here we walked 5.5 miles and saw parts of the city we did not see yesterday, We got to the top of Signal Hill where Marconi received the first transatlantic radio communication in 1901.

While high on the hill we saw this immense cruise ship approaching the harbor, it was the Aidaluba en route from Kiel, Germany to New York via this itinerary:

https://www.cruisetimetables.com/cruisesonaidaluna-aug2017.html

It was cool to see the 2000 passenger ship pull into this little harbor.

We then left for 4 hours on a whale and puffin watch boat.  It was gorgeous weather and we saw one oil drilling platform, one minke whale, and 1,000,000,000 puffins. When back on land we bought a children's story book for Ella about...well, basically a "Make way for puffins" set in St. John's,  

Another great meal in a pub tonight.  Tomorrow we start the trip back to Nova Scotia via 16 hour overnight ferry.

St. John's, NL - mile 2021 lat 47degN 33" long 52degW 32'

We left Saint Pierre at 8 o'clock this morning after a small breakfast of croissants. We found  our motorcycle and baggage we had left behind in good order and get started on our 4 1/2  half hour drive to Saint John's, It rained quite hard at the beginning and we wore our full rainsuits the whole day.

The rain subsided after about one hour but they were strong wind gusts the entire way and it was quite fatiguing to drive the motorcycle in those winds, We took a number of breaks though and we arrived here in St. John's at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. We are now going to take a whole day off and stay in this nice hotel for two nights and not leave until late Monday morning. This is the first time in this whole trip we have spent more than one night in the same place. Here are a couple of pictures of picturesque St. John's harbor:

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This is where we are tonight:

St. Pierre et Miquelon, France- mile 1998 lat 47degN 04' long 55degW 49"

We left Gander at 8:15am in a light rain dressed in our waterproof suits for the first time this trip, We needed to get to a small port on a remote southern peninsula by 13:30 to catch the ferry to these possessions of France, The 160k on the trans Canada was wet but uneventful. I misjudged the remoteness of the next 150k and we were running low on gas when we saw a handwritten sigh that there was gas  available 14k out of our way on a small town via a road not marked on the map, we had no idea when we would find a gas station on our road so we had to divert. That gave us enough to make it to the ferry,

These shots are of "Fortune", the ferry port on the newfoundland side.

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These shots are of St. Pierre in France where we are tonight:

We left our bike back in Canada:

Along with these thing we did not need. Hope they are all there tomorrow!

This is where we are now:

Gander, NL - mile 1752 lat 48degN 57' long 54degW 37'

Today was a 250 mile fairly boring ride mostly on the trans-Canada to make most of way across this big island to this commercial center and very historic airport at Gander,  if the first picture below appears to be a lot of emptiness, that is positively urban compared to most of what we drove through today,

For the rest of these photos, think of the musical "Come From Away":