Day Seven - Charlottetown to Bingham ME – 521 miles
Our time on the island had come to an end and we headed back to the Confederation Bridge, paid our $16 and exited the island. As we crossed the bridge we ran into heavy fog lowering the visibility to less than a mile. On the other side of the bridge we began to pick up rain and it wouldn’t let for most of the day. After we crossed over the bridge we caught C15 at Port Elgin and continued on to Moncton. It rained just about the entire way so it wasn’t much of a ride. In Moncton we picked up C2 and rode to Kingsclear where C2 rides along side the St. Johns River. We didn’t see much of the river. The 183 miles from Moncton to Hartland was fairly boring. We had decided to go to Hartland to see the world’s longest covered bridge (KMZ) which spans the St. John’s River at a whopping 1,282 feet. We felt the need to include this on our bridge tour page since we were relatively close. The 1,282 foot Hartland Covered Bridge is the longest covered bridge in the world. It was originally constructed by the Hartland Bridge Company, which was formed by citizens on both sides of the St. John River, and officially opened July 4, 1901. The bridge was purchased by the government of New Brunswick in 1906. Two spans of the bridge were taken out by river ice April 6, 1920, and the government made major repairs and covered the structure in 1922. The side walkway was added to the bridge in 1945 and on June 23, 1980, the Hartland Covered Bridge was declared a National Historic Site and on September 15, 1999 it was declared a Provincial Historic Site. Unfortunately it was still raining when we arrived at the bridge. We covered our bikes and found a local watering hole where we ate lunch and had a couple of beers to wait out the rain. After about an hour the rain lightened up and we went out to explore the bridge. After getting our pictures and milling around we got back on the bikes and continued towards the border. We went back south on C2 to C95 and crossed the border at Houlton (KMZ). We waited in line in the rain and crossed over without incident. We stayed on I-95 and got gas at Smyrna Mills. We had planned on taking the back roads but due to the rain we decided to stay on I-95. The rain again started to subside so we exited at 244 and stopped at Medway for a rest along the Penobscot River. There was a nice little park along ME11 and we shed our rainsuits (KMZ) and continued east. We rode ME11 east and passed over Dolby Pond and through the town of Millinocket. We were riding in the shadow of Mt. Katahdin. In 1898, Great Northern Paper Company started construction of a paper mill near the convergence of the West Branch of the Penobscot River and Millinocket Stream. Millinocket was incorporated in 1901, by the hearty individuals who built and operated the mill. It remains a nice little quite town. We passed by Quakeish Lake, Elbow Lake, and North Town Lake. ME11 takes a southern bend as it enters Piscataquis County. The southern tack continued until we reached the town of Milo where we connected with ME16. A number of roads converge in Dover-Foxcroft. The town was originally two towns Dover and Foxcroft separated by the Piscataquis River until 1922 when the two towns merged into one. We stopped along the river for a rest. We continued east on ME16 through Abbot Village where had stopped in 2001 but we continued through. We stopped one last time along Kingsbury Pond at a rest stop just east of town (KMZ). Finally we came into Bingham where US201 meets up with ME16 and our motel was located. The Bingham Motor Inn is a great place to stay (KMZ). The two owners were very nice but the lady who runs the operation, affectionately known as the “Colonel” was a bit over bearing with the rules but we assumed that was why the place was in such good shape. There were some ATV riders there from Boston who we struck up a conversation with and we relaxed in the hot tub while listening to the Reds game on XM Radio.
