With no climatic horrors, and with my host needing to head to work in the morning, I got on the road at around 9am. I stopped at a local community centre to recheck my route to Point Pleasant Park (for once I reached Halifax), and see the weather forecast for the day. I picked out the roads down, and saw that I finally had some light tailwinds again.
Once again, rain furnished me with an excuse for a late start so by the time I'd shown my remaining route to the Atlantic Canada Cycling folks (who didn't really have any suggested improvements to make -- something I'd blame partly on consulting their website when planning the route back in Edmundston), breakfasted on the sweet and sour pork ration, broken camp, and gotten myself back on the road it was a little after noon.
Between the late night the night before, attempting to avoid getting rained on too much by sleeping in a little extra, and trying not to have to deal with too many bugs, I wasn't really up until around 10am, and on the road until 12:30.
After a good night's sleep and a generous breakfast, I found myself heading out at around 11:30am. Upon reaching Gagetown, I found that my friend had already headed into town for church, and was going to be there for the rest of the day.
When I woke up in the morning, it was raining. On top of that, the dinner I'd had the previous night consisted of food that had been sitting (unrefrigerated) in my pannier since the 14th (and included cheese curds). So between waiting out the morning rain, and working through my minor digestive distress, I got a pretty late start on (I failed to record the start time, but I think that it was close to noon). Moreover, with the long day ahead, it looked like I'd still be riding clear through the evening, and a little into the night.
Edmundston being a paper milling town, and having spent a rest day in it, I woke up in the morning and noticed that I had a body odour that smelled of paper mill. I decided to shave and shower to wash off the smell, and be able to set out clean-shaven, though this delayed my departure a little. As it happened, I was a little later heading out than expected, but still on my way by around 11am.
Waking up at around 8am, I ate some granola bars, broke camp, and dropped into the cafe for a muffin and some tea. The pump for the watering station didn't seem to be working (it wouldn't prime, even though there certainly didn't seem to be any shortage of groundwater), but I didn't think to ask for an opportunity to top up my bottles; instead I just made sure to drink a non-caffeine tea, and top up my bottles at the next opportunity.
After a pretty good night's rest I got up, had my breakfast, and chatted with another cycle tourist who was stopping in the park for a snack. Having managed to carry on the conversation entirely in French, I felt that my shyness about my relative (in)ability to speak French was really slipping away, and almost regretted that I'd be out of the province in 2 days, so soon after starting to get really comfortable in Quebec.
As Gavin had to leave early, and there was a gate that was kept closed between the hours of 11pm and 7am, he parked his car just ouside the gate. There not really being any parking spots outside, he parked on the grass. So at I-really-wanted-to-keep-sleeping a.m., I was called from my sleep to help with a push, as the grass had gotten rainy, dewey, and otherwise wet and slippery. Eventually failing in this, I went back to bed while Gavin dropped in on the owner to get an address/directions/etc. to pass along to the CAA for a tow.
After another late night came another late morning, but with no wheelbuilding to delay things, we were able to get going at around 11am. With Gavin's car providing the opportunity not to have to carry my gear, it also provided the opportunity to make a substantial error in judgement. I tossed my raingear in the trunk, and it started to rain heavily while I was too far from the car to do much other than get really wet.
