2009-08-25 47 -65

Location

In South Tetagouche, just south of Sainte Anne Street. (Well, Rose Hill Road, it seems.)

Participants

wmcduff plans to swing by.

Plans

After my dental appointment and haircut, if I have time before board game night, I'll swing by.

Expedition

Well, hair shortened, teeth buffed, lunch consumed, I headed out to try to hit the nearby hash on my day off. It was only a couple of kilometers out of town, just off a road. Finally, an easy geohash in Bathurst!

...Yeah, I should have known better than that.

Anyway, I headed up Vanier, and took the turn. A grader was at work on Saint-Andre, the pavement pulled up as they pushed the rocks around. I squeezed by, and turned onto Sainte Anne. Once safely there, I turned on my GPS with 2 km to go to get an idea of how far I left to go. A kilometer and a half passed...and my road ended.

Wait a minute. I looked at Google Maps. There's a road here. It goes all the way through. And, well, there seemed to be. A single lane track continued on. Not wanting to be unable to turn, I parked at the end of the pavement, and continued on by foot from 500m.

A couple of hundred meters later, the road started to get wet. Not unsurprising, really. Probably used for 4x4ing, and there was a lovely pond by the road. Keeping to the edges, I worked further up the road that was beginning to do a convincing imitation of a stream.

And it was getting worse. The little road ponds developed waterstriders and minnows...how bad was this going to get? As I endevoured to keep my feet dry, I heard a voice behind me. A man called out, asking who I was with. I answered no one, and asked if it was private property; it wasn't. Turned out he had called the Department of Transport and was hoping someone would show up. His basement was getting flooded.

I advised I worked for a call center up the road, and was just out here for a walk, and he advised me there was a beaver dam on the road. Indeed, I realized that the wood sticks across the road was the first dam. He told me the road was washed out for two miles, and as I didn't have my hip waders, I figured I'd hit the end of the road. Thwarted by one of the icons of Canada. How embarrassing.