Today we decided not to follow any Waterfont Trail signs and used Ride GPS instead for mapping out our route …and had the kind of cycling that we were hoping for on this trip. It was a perfect late spring day with blue cloudless skies and lilacs blooming everywhere, and we rode on a mix of roads and trails, through towns and farms and wetlands, with Lake Ontario off to the right nearly all day.

Our hotel was in Port Hope on the Ganaraska River at the end of a picture perfect street with shops and cafes. We headed out to find breakfast after editing Dan’s post about our challenging first day, and ended up at The Main cafe, which was beautifully designed and where they had changed their Americano coffee to “Canadiano” for obvious reasons. (Lots of opinions about our current political state in the U.S. in Ontario, and not very flattering…!)

After wrestling our bikes out of our third floor hotel room onto an ancient elevator, we clipped on our pannier bags outside and took off on a 67 mile ride, and we were immediately struck by how pristine the roads and shoulders were, and how courteous all of the drivers were. We are used to coasting down hills dodging strips of rubber from blown out truck tires, discarded beer cans and fast food bags, and bloated raccoon carcasses on our bike trips in the U.S., with dudes in big trucks coming uncomfortably close and blowing exhaust at us. This is not our Ontario experience in the least. (See Dan’s post about how nice everyone is here….he waved on a truck this morning and the driver said “no, you go, I insist” and then they wished each other a good day). More on that later.

We heard and saw lots of birds, including swans and geese and green herons in a rookery, and enjoyed the ten degree drop in temperature any time our route tools us near the lake, And we had a very pleasant stop at an ice cream stand where the owner filled up our water bottles and we met a fellow bikepacking in the opposite direction, back toward Toronto, who gave us some tips about biking from Ottawa’s and the Rideau Canals (not part of our trip this time). During our conversation, it dawned on us that we had a nice tailwind – we looked at the new Canadian flag that was blowing steadily east which is very helpful!

We were riding on crushed gravel on the Milennium Path for a long time and then came to a point where it was fenced off, and Dan turned to a guy coming out of a hardware store and said “Is this path closed?” And he responded in a very deadpan way “Sure looks like it.” Turned out he was a cyclist as well and that path had been closed off for a big project, and told us we could ride on 33 and get back on the path down the road or just take the highway all the way.

We arrived in Picton just after 4:30 feeling grateful, hot, and thirsty and stopped at the 555 Brewery for some chips and beer and then headed off to our hotel to check in and get cleaned up for a lovely evening at the Acoustic Cafe, which I’ll let Dan tell about tomorrow.