Ride Day 42: After a night of stormy weather we awoke to clearer skies and warmed up with bacon, eggs and mugs of tea. I enjoyed riding along the quiet riverside road and the vista has changed dramatically once again. We are now enjoying an estuarine landscape punctuated by red-roofed houses. The air is now far cooler, the sound of seagulls is prevalent and we can smell the salty sea air. We are a now so close to the Atlantic ocean – this seemed an almost impossibly long way to go when I set out from the Pacific Ocean in Vancouver all those weeks ago! We took ‘Wilbert’ for some love and attention at the Ford garage in Rimouski (the part we needed was unavailable here…) and we pressed on to the town of ‘Sayabec’, a distance of 87-miles. The St Lawrence river has been widening gradually as we have followed it’s course over the last few days and we could only just see the north bank as we veered due east to cross the Gaspe Peninsula. Becs joined me on the bike and endured some sizable hills as we left the floodplain for the first time. This is surely one of the loveliest parts of Quebec. Conscious that we would soon be leaving the province, we enjoyed a luxurious fillet-mignon meal and some French wine and retired wearily to our camp on the shores of Lake Matapedia!