Twice a train rumbled past in the night and twice the ground quaked and rolled with the weight of the cars. That's what you get when you free-camp in a harvested hayfield so close to the CN rail line.
Mozzies at dawn, but not as numerous as last night. During breakfast I noticed the direction the blades of grass were waving. Wind from the west!
Even though I was up with the sun's rise, 8:30 was still the start time. Once cycling I was zipping along immediately, a sure sign the wind's in my favour as the warm-up phase had been bypassed.
The townships marked on the map clipped by and I sustained the pace so I'd make the most of the morning before I had to stop to try and contact Cathy at the start of her work day in BC.
The cycling, or rather the stopping, in the rain (see previous journal entry) had worn down my brakes so I stopped at a Walmart on the outskirts of Trois-Rivières to get an idea of prices. Anything would be better than yesterday's tentative quote at a small sports shop of "seven dollars something" that came back with an official price of $12.99! Today at Walmart: $11 for two sets. I'd heard about Walmart and had even set foot in a small one once I'd arrived in Canada, but this huge store had a few more things than the one at Powell River, BC. I walked the shelves and noticed packet pasta meals which serve as dinner when camping at much cheaper prices than elsewhere. They even sold bread, sadly not bagels though, otherwise I'd have bought a day's worth (two bags of 6).
From the beginning of this circumnavigation I rode with one shirt for cycling. First there was a Brunton T-shirt which I wore proudly. All good things must come to an end and so after crossing Europe (and a bit of Asia) in summer the shirt had had too much use and had become too holey to be decent. I bought a fine example of Turkish cotton and workmanship combined in a blue cotton long-sleeved shirt in Dogubyazit, Turkey just before the border with Iran. Ten thousand kilometres later that garment tore at the sleeves in Yunnan and I sported the boy-band look until Thailand's looms retired 'old blue' (as Matt dubbed it) and provided me with another local product to protect me from the sun. That is my current shirt and is now sporting 'ventilation' - two vertical tears running down the pleating in the back. Better a geek than a hobo, so I've been covering these unsightly glimpses of my back with my reflective vest while cycling across the provinces. Walmart in Québec, Canada had shirts but not quite right and made in a veteran country: China. I'll have to try another replacement.
In the centre of Trois-Rivières, following Highway 138 and La Route verte, I paused at the Info Centre. A poster of the Magic of Insects an exhibit in town, caught my eye. Held at the Pulp and Paper Museum on the waterfront promenade I paid the $3 to see big photos of interesting shots of insects of similar/vastly different looks and features. Most interesting were the collected specimens tropical giants and sun-loving 'iridescents'. The pulp and paper section of the museum, although also presented bilingually, wasn't quite what I was looking for in an exhibit on the process.
While laying out the tent at lunch to dry from the morning's condensation, a passerby struck up a conversation and my inattentive schoolboy french of 18 years ago was trés inadequate. She persisted/was patient and I think I managed to answer most of her questions. I think she wanted to extend an invitation to wash and sleep in Trois-Rivières but I repeated I had time constraints and was headed for near Québec today.
Having the motorway so close by drew a lot of the traffic (and almost all of the trucks) away. Some officially designated cycle paths came and went but the shoulder of Highway 138 still pretty much stayed the same: good, wide, crack free (mostly) and safe. The wind pushed me along and with the Fleuve Saint-Laurent (St Lawrence River) popping in to view now and then it was a good day to be on the road. At a pit stop at a rest area (when they do appear in Québec they're always with toilet and large grassy picnic spots) two cycle tourers went past just as I was wrapping up a conversation with a cyclist from Trois-Rivières on a training ride. I almost caught them up when they stopped at a cafe. Judging by their rear panniers they're probably local tourers. If gear measures distance then Mr Kim from South Korea is definitely a world tourer. I was just leaving Trois-Rivières when I passed a huge heavily-loaded bike leaning outside a restaurant, A sign in 5 languages said "World Tour". I looked around for the rider excited at meeting another RTW cyclist (round the world, see here for more info) and took a photo in the meantime. Smiling and wearing a baseball cap spray-painted black, a DIY job like so many other things attached to his bike including many duct tape-reinforced plastic bags, I met the rider at last. He produced a news article photocopied from a Québec newspaper dated 4th September. It said he'd left South Korea in 1989 and expected to finish 2010. He asked about my route and job but left to push against the wind before I could ask for the same information of him.
Despite the tailwind, I still needed a mid afternoon pick-me-up and rediscovered the magic ticket from Iceland and Europe: a 750ml tub of yoghurt (and another bagel). Another stop on my mini Tour Gastronomique du Canada was at a fruit stall selling in-season McIntosh apples, one of Katy's favourites. I asked for $1 worth and came away with a large paper bag with more than a kilo of Melba apples. I was beaming; weight be damned.
Vowing not to stop until 5pm or 140km (which ever's the greater), I got almost 2 hours of riding from the yoghurt. I filled up for the night's free camping at an intersection for Donnacona and saw some ideal camping spots, but with 137km on the clock. I kept on until after 140, called Cathy, then looked in earnest. With an hour until sunset I saw a road heading inland on a steep gravel road. Past corn fields rising for a broad vista of the river, a great quiet spot with amazing sunset colours to eat dinner by.
