Capital: Ottawa Currency: Canadian Dollar Population: 33.4 million Food: Poutine, garlic fingers Drink: Moosehead, Keiths

Canada is our home country and, because we wanted to test our cycling legs on familiar ground, the first leg of our tour was over 1,000km from Montreal, Quebec, to Sackville, New Brunswick. It took us just under 3 weeks, covering a relaxed 60-80km on an average day. We then did a loop around Prince Edward Island and returned to Montreal by train.

Quebec and the Maritime provinces are highly underrated as a cycling destination. Everyone goes to British Columbia for the Rocky Mountains and they are gorgeous too but in the east of Canada you’ll find nice scenery with the added bonus of far less traffic. Maritimers are also known for their friendliness.

HIGHLIGHTS
Some highlights of the journey east from Montreal include the historic Quebec City, the pretty tourist town of Kamouraska and the fantastic rail trail from Trois Rivieres which takes you into northern New Brunswick. Unfortunately, once in New Brunswick the trail condition quickly deteriorates so it’s back to the roads. We headed south from Edmunston, largely following the Saint John river as far as Fredericton and then cut across large swathes of woodland to Sackville. Once in Sackville, we took a weekend trip to Prince Edward Island, spending one night in Kinkora and another in New Glasgow, famous for its lobster suppers!

DON’T TAKE THE TRAIL
There are a few marked bike trails in Canada and they’re tempting to take but in general we would advise you to ‘just say no’ to trails! The one exception is in Quebec where maintenance is very good but in other places like New Brunswick the trails are in appalling condition. They may also be taken over by ATV drivers and poorly signed. Unfortunately, unless you have heard from other cyclists that the trail is a good one, the only thing it’s likely to be good for is wasting time.

The roads we covered were in pretty good shape. Sometimes you do get cracks and dips left over from the winter thaw. For maps, you can stop at any tourist bureau and get the free provincal highway maps. They are at a large scale 1:1 000 000, but in most cases there aren’t too many road alternatives not already shown on these maps so they are just fine for bicycle touring.

CHALLENGES
All the comforts you want in terms of hotels and food are of course available in Canada although finding water can be a challenge. There certainly aren’t fountains everywhere like you see in Europe. Bathrooms, however, are plentiful in places like supermarkets and we often filled our bottles there. Also, be aware of the weather if you are cycling outside of summer. We had good luck in September but it could just have easily been rainy and chilly at that time of year.

ACCOMMODATION AND BUDGET
In hindsight, we should have done a lot more wild camping than we actually managed in Canada. Our lack of experience with cycle touring meant we were reluctant to just pitch up in fields and woodland but looking back on it there were probably hundreds of possible spots and we certainly would do a lot more wild or free camping next time. In eastern Canada you do not have to worry about bears, as you do in the Rockies.

Plenty of free camping will certainly help keep your budget down. It’s not hard to spend $20 Canadian a day on food from supermarkets for two people, especially if you like a few treats. Some typical costs in September 2006 were $1-1.50 Cdn for a filter coffee, $5 Cdn for a sandwich in a cafe, $20-30 Cdn a night for a campground and $60-100 Cdn for B&B accommodation.

Two of our favourite campgrounds were Camping Des Erables in Montmagny, Quebec and Iroquois River Campground with free wireless internet in Edmunston, New Brunswick.