Part Three - On to Nova Scotia Bob and I left
the Maple Leaf Rally in Ontario at the crack of dawn with Nova Scotia as the
destination, but with no set itinerary or schedule in mind. We simply got on our
motors and headed East.
We started on the Canadian version of the Interstate and stayed on it as far as Montreal. We were doing over 70 but we the slowest things on the road. I had tried going faster but my bike was so heavy from the all the gear I was hauling on the rack I had mounted on the rear fender that the front end would shimmy like crazy and the bike would crab all over the lane. The first time this happened at about 80 mph it scared the bejezzus out of me. Bob, who was riding behind me, thought he would be scraping me off the pavement. But amazingly, even though the front end was shaking like crazy and I was tracking like a snake, the bike's low center of gravity kept it from high siding and dumping me. That incident plus the overall demeanor of the Montreal drivers convinced us to get off the superslab.  Taking the
secondary roads was a great decision. We discovered a wonderfully windy two lane
highway which parallel the St. Lawrence Seaway and had very little traffic. Each
town had an identical twin-spired church and there was a European look to the
buildings and the countryside. We made excellent progress. The 6.8 gallon tanks
on our bikes gave us tremendous range and we took advantage of it by making very
few stops. When we did stop at some small town grocery in Quebec the reception
was pretty chilly. In 1975 the separatists were into blowing-up mailboxes and
stuff like that, and the maple leaf flag stickers from the rally we had both put
on our wind screens were not the best of calling cards. The locals didn't get
any friendlier after when we tried to explain in fractured Fracais we were from
the U.S.; being French speakers I guess they didn't like Americans just on
principle.
 Crossing over the
Seaway entering New Brunswick was like passing through a time warp. Gone were
the quaint little villages, and at one point the road disappeared too. We
entered an area were were a new road was being blasting out of the hillsides and
there were rubble piles everywhere. At one point the road was reduced to one
lane which was blocked by a very large Payloader loading boulders into an even
larger dump truck. While sitting there in the middle of this barren, blasted,
muddy wilderness a very large, very grungy character ambles over to shoot the
breeze. This dude was a Charlie Manson look-alike and he definitely gave me the
willies. I took the fact that he chose to stand in front of my bike, blocking my
escape path, as a bad omen.  I casually pulled in the clutch and dropped into
first gear figuring I could make him a fender ornament if necessary. Apparently
Bob was less worried because he turned his bike off. A couple minutes later the
blockage cleared and the dude got out of my way; I think he noticed I still had
the clutch in and the bike in gear. Besides, at that point I looked as grungy as
he did.
I don't remember too much else about New Brunswick -- it has been 20 years and it was a pretty unmemorable place -- but I do recall crossing the bridge to enter Nova Scotia; it was passing through another time warp. We headed up the west coast and reached the gate of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park at dusk. We parked the bikes and went over to register for a campsite; we had ridden 600 miles that day I think. We met the rangers and exchanged small talk. They had both retired from the Canadian military and were very friendly despite the fact we were on bikes and looked like hell after our marathon ride. After sizing us up one of them said. "Well boys, this is your lucky day. Someone paid for a campsite but then decided not to stay, so we'll let you have it." That was a perfect cap to a great day of riding. Bob and I walked back to the motors and gave them a kick to start them. Bob's made the usual purring Beemer noises. Mine went "CLACK - CLACK - CLACK - CLACK - CLACK - CLACK - CLACK"... Next chapter: [ Stranded ] [ Title Page] |
