Prince Edward County, Toronto, and Central Ontario

After the Thousand Islands, I continued on the edge of the water to Lake Ontario. I started my day by rolling down a long hill toward the free ferry that would take me to Prince Edward County, which is a large chunk of land that juts into the lake. Just after I started the windy descent, two tractors pulling huge wagons full of hay pulled out in front of me. They just happened to be going around 20 mph, so I was able to draft one of them for around 5 miles.


It made for an easy ride, except for a constant flow of hay particles coming off of the wagon. I passed some touring cyclists going the other way who cheered for me as I passed by.

Shortly after taking the ferry, I arrived in Bloomfield, the town where Sarah the Canadian tourist's favorite bike shop was. Sure enough, on the main street I found Bloomfield Bicycle Company.

The owner Rick is a really cool guy, in his 50's with long gray hair and a very casual attitude. I talked about my bike with him and the two mechanics who were working, and they invited me to have lunch with them on the porch of the shop. So for an hour or two we all sat and chatted in the shade, munching on tuna salad, chips and veggies. Rick gave me a map and the phone number for his mother in law's place in Toronto, where he assured me I could stay for the night when I got to Toronto. So I pushed on through the county, eventually finding an old gravel pit to camp in.


What I hadn't bargained on was my close proximity to the train tracks, and during the night I was awakened to what I thought was the sound of the fabric of the universe being torn apart.

The next morning I awoke early so I would have as much time as possible to get to Toronto, which I reckoned to be about 75 miles away. As I rode west, the landscape became more and more congested. I passed shopping centers with all the same stores as the shopping centers I had passed only minutes before. I also discovered a trend that is sweeping the Toronto area: housing subdivisons. Dozens of them, each seeming to stretch to the horizon with tightly spaced faux-stone facades, with ridiculously inaccurate names like "Castlemore Manor" and others.



The fallen sign in the foreground of the picture says something like "Estate living in a breathtaking ravine setting." The 'ravine' was a gradual slope down to a dirty piddling stream. Clearly Canadian real estate developers have a finely honed sense of irony when naming their new projects.
Anyway, after battling traffic for a couple of hours, I finally got to the house I was supposed to stay in. Upon arriving, the guy who was there said that the owner was in France, and her roommate, who would have welcomed me for the night, wasn't around. He was nice enough to let me look up the address for a hostel in the city, where I ended up staying the night.


The next morning I awoke to torrential rain, which put a damper on my mood for the morning. Luckily, by the time I was ready to leave, the rain had stopped and a heavy fog settled in on Toronto. I rode down to the waterfront to follow a path that would link to another path that would take me outside the city.


The path ended up being a really nice 20+ mile long meander along the Humber river, which goes north-south through the middle of the city. It was a very relaxing change from the previous day. In an overpass on the path, some graffiti artists did a collaborative mural with some great style. (top-bottom=left-right)




After getting out of the city, I ended up on long, straight, flat roads with tons of truck traffic. I asked around, but apparently since there is no large highway going north, trucks drive on pretty much any through way. Needless to say, the riding was not the most exciting. As if to highlight the uninteresting landscape, there's a town called Mono.


Eventually, it started to get hillier, and the clouds were making some interesting late-day formations, so I at least had something pretty to look at.


See those towers in the second photo? I camped near the base of the thinner one on the left.

Now I'm heading north towards Lake Huron, where I will be taking my first rest day of the trip so far. I plan on eating a bunch, having a beer, and nodding off in the afternoon. Later!