Opened, fittingly, with a line from The Doors’ ‘The End.’
After 926km and over 26,000ft of ascent since we left Port Aux Basques, we arrived at St John’s.
Trans Canada cyclists often talk about the hills around Lake Superior from Thunder Bay to Sioux Ste Marie. Well Newfoundland is a tougher cycle with more hills, more ascent and rate of ascent. I’ve worked out the GPS figures to confirm it.
I can see why many trans Canada cyclists take the longer ferry journey to Argentia and the short cycle to St Johns. I didn’t say I agree with it but I can see why.
We had to make a late booking for a hotel in St Johns and the only place we could get on the internet was ‘Hillview Terrace Suites’. Their slogan is ‘a place like home’. You couldn’t make it up! (for anyone who doesn’t know – we live in Hillview Terrace, Edinburgh).
Our end point was going to be Signal Hill. There are a number of locations trans Canada cyclists use as the ‘finish’ and Signal Hill is the most popular. It is a high promontory overlooking St Johns and the Atlantic Ocean. It was also the reception point for the first transatlantic wireless signal by Marconi in 1901 from the UK. It was a fitting place to end.
We then made our way to Mile 0 where Terry Fox started his Marathon Of Hope.
Our final total was 8,192km or just over a fifth of the circumference of the world at the equator. Canada is wide.
A question that we were often asked on our travels was ‘why’.
Some people just couldn’t understand why we did it and it’s something I have often thought about on our cycle. It wasn’t the challenge or could we do it? Yes it would be tough but finishing was never a question.
We did it for the adventure. It was adventure that drove man across the oceans and across vast unknown territories such as Canada. Whilst we cannot hope to equal that pioneering endeavour we did travel through a marvellous country, meeting so many welcoming people and making new friends. There were highs and lows but every single day was an adventure. What do we get from this? As George Mallory, known for attempting the first ascent of Everest, once put it — the point of an adventure like this is the sheer joy of it, not some further use it can be put to; that joy is close to the whole point of living.
So to answer the question, ‘why would you do that?’ my reply is ‘well, why wouldn’t you?’
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