Exit 29 to Cape Spear, Newfoundland and Labrador

After yesterday's miserable rainstorm, today's weather was beautiful, and perfect for the final ride of my cross Canada adventure!

We began our day by sorting out rental cars--we needed to return the one my wife had picked up yesterday and get a new one from the airport--and then drove back east along Highway 1 to Exit 29, where I had stopped yesterday.

My wife dropped me off there and we agreed to meet up around 14:30 at a Tim Horton's on Water Street. She was planning to rent an e-bike and ride the final few kilometres with me out to Cape Spear, Canada's easternmost point.

It was a bit after 10:00 when I got started, and I had a nice ride for the 70 or so kilometres into St. John's. I actually did not make very good time--there are no especially significant climbs, but overall it is a rolling route and there was enough wind to make it tiring.

Once in the city, I left the highway and rode ten kilometres on streets and trails. 

St. John's clearly has a lovely trail network.

I reached the Tim Horton's about five minutes before my wife, and took the opportunity to eat a sandwich and drink a coffee. From Water Street to Cape Spear is some intense cycling. It is only 14 kilometres, but you climb (and descend) 300 metres! This makes for some embarrassingly slow climbing and some epic descending over really beautiful terrain.

As you near the cape you can see the ocean to your left and the lighthouse on the cliff up ahead, and it was here that it really hit me that I was almost done. Much to my own surprise, I started screaming into the wind as I climbed the last hundred metres or so. 

We parked our bikes at the park office and then headed on foot to the cliff over the ocean. 

My wife brought a small bottle of champagne for me to pop as we sat on the rocks and looked across the Atlantic. It was fifteen years ago that I had sat at the Pacific Ocean on Vancouver Island, and back then I had no appreciation for how good it would feel to be sitting here at the Atlantic now!

My wife offered to ride back to St. John's to get the car so that I could stay at Cape Spear and enjoy it, which meant I had a nice hour at the cape to relax and soak it all in.