N 45:50.320 W 66:28.373

I’ve arrived in New Brunswick this evening, passing through Edmundston, Grand Falls, Florenceville, Hartland, Woodstock and the outskirts of Fredericton. My accommodations tonight are in Oromocto, at the home of Brangwyn Jones. Brangwyn is in his 12th year with the Canadian Forces, and is the second Google Earth enthusiast I’ve come across this week. Google Earth is pretty wild… I wonder if anyone is using it to monitor climate change in action?

Brangwyn is into GPS, geocaching and long road trips, having just completed his second trip across North America in as many years. (Travelling from Fredericton to Victoria both times.) He drives a Honda Civic, a Yamaha BWS50 scooter, and a Leopard C2 Main Battle Tank. (Stats on the tank: 985 litre fuel capacity - range: 600 kms… that’s a whopping 164 L/100km… ouch) He also takes extensive pictures of his trips and has many notes and recollections of the experiences on the road.

A strange thing happened in Edmundston when I stopped for fuel and coffee. I was approached by a couple who were asking about the car saying it was the second to pass through in a week. I was led to a newspaper article in the Journal le Madawaska which tells of a fellow sponsored by Days Inn named Guy Desjardins, who was travelling from Victoria to Halifax. His fuel economy was not specifically listed, but based on the $268 over 6000 kms that is mentioned, I appear to be doing 20% better roughly. (6669 kms on $230.66 as of tonight…)

I’ll be visiting Fredericton and Moncton Saturday before heading to Charlottetown for dinner.