Saturday 1 March 2008

On the possible routes and companions

I was speaking with Margo last night about the trip. Among other things, she wanted a better idea of which routes I was thinking of taking. I had been thinking of including a map at some point. Her question led me to finally doing it. Consequently, I will show the possible routes I could take. I couldn't find a nice map off the web which showed the full route in sufficient detail. I did find a map that displayed Quebec City and Newfoundland in suitable detail. As the route from Montreal to Quebec City is the same for all of my possible plans, the following maps ignore that portion. I hope they are sufficiently readable. Also, the portion of the route in red indicates by bike and the green, by ferry. Please bear in mind, that these are only rough depictions of the routes.

Referring back to an earlier post, this would be considered the currently envisaged route, that of plan 1. This route goes via the eastern shore of New Brunswick and the ferry from North Sydney. In Plan 2, I would go by bike to Rimouski and then take the ferry to Blanc Sablon. From near Blanc Sablon, I would take a ferry to the northern extreme of Newfoundland and cycle south to Norris Point.
In what I shall now dub Plan 3, I would go down the western side of New Brunswick, eventually getting to St-John, New Brunswick. From there, I would take a ferry to Digby, Nova Scotia. I would then proceed to North Sydney to catch the ferry to Newfoundland. This plan would involve staying with a pair of uncles on my father's side in Berwick Nova Scotia.
Plan 4 is something of a compromise of Plans 1 and 3. I would enter New Brunswick via Edmundston as in Plan 3 but would cycle to Nova Scotia rather than take the ferry.
So there you have it, a graphic representation of what I would like to do. Of these plans, Plan 1 is the only one under serious consideration at this point in time.

What is under serious consideration at the current time is the presence of Margo and Chris. (Yay!) It turns out that Chris has a physics conference in Quebec City in mid-June. We are currently exploring the possibility of me cycling to Quebec City by myself where I would rendez-vous with them. While this plan may involve some seriously baroque juggling of luggage and bikes, we can work it out. There is also an idea to have a cousin join us for a certain portion of the trip along the Lower Saint-Lawrence.

No comments: