Day 14 – Ferry Day, Sydney, NS

Woke up at my usual early time with the sun (5am, 3:30 EDT) packed up my stuff and went to the Comfort Station where I ran into some Ontario folks doing an extended driving trip. They too were headed for the ferry in Port-au-Basques.

I drove straight there, and was happy to see the procedure was bit more streamlined even if I need to be there at least 2 hours before departure (so 9:45am for the 11:45am departure) and I had my ticket, id check and spot in the the special motorcycle line, 11.

Wondering if I would be the only one, like on the Blanc-Sablon ferry but I was not. Soon, around 40 motorcycles were in line, and the two right behind me had just done the same route as we me, from Quebec. The BMW rider that followed and then led me for a bit the day before was also there, German, so naturally, we spoke some German. There was a lot of good conversation around gear, trips, advice, and social chit-chat, as even people from their campers came to look at all the bikes and talk to the riders. We loaded late, left late, but somehow still made it into Sydney by 6pm.

My motel was strategically placed to be very close to the ferry and I headed there, checked in and began the big clean-up, re-org. Tomorrow would be my last day on the motorcycle and the hand-off to Rallye Motoplex (Yep, that’s how it’s spelled) needed to be efficient since I had to check in and get the rental car sorted out. Across the street from MacNeil’s Motel was Kitchen 1409 where I had a good soup and pasta. Settled down for the night after planning out an extended route so I could do part of the Cabot trail on my way to Halifax.