This was a long day, 68 miles, with three hours of light rain in the morning. No biggie. It was also a great day, because I had no worries whatsoever about any device or credit card issues. Everything is in order and as it should be. So I enjoyed myself riding through the beautiful, flat countryside, and 15 miles or so of bike trail along the Lake Ontario shoreline.
Guelph is the end of Greater Letterkenny. Once you get through the urbanized area around Guelph, it's still agricultural, but not as intense. It no longer smells like manure. The houses are bigger and nicer. There are also many nature reserves, since this is the edge of the Niagara Escarpment. The Escarpment is a huge area of high, flat land south of Lake Ontario.
On the eastern outskirts of Guelph, I came upon this bike and coffee shop. I took a break and stopped in to visit.
I'm looking for a new Schwalbe Marathon spare tire. They didn't have one, but it was nice to visit. The coffee shop is great, although I was well caffeinated before I left the Super 8 in Guelph, so I didn't get coffee.
Here's a view of the big city of Hamilton, from the edge of the Niagara Escarpment. Hamilton has a population of 570000. It sits at the western end of Lake Ontario. You drop about 300' of elevation when you go down the edge of the escarpment.
There is a big bridge that crosses the Robinson Ship Canal in the middle of Hamilton
But you don't have to ride your bike over the big bridge, which carries the limited access QEW. Queen's Expressway? Instead you get to ride over this older lift bridge, which has a bike lane.
OMG, I have to shove my bike up these steps to get to the bridge, and the bike track on the side is too close to the railing for the panniers to fit!
I managed, by leaning the bike over. The bike with gear weighs about 100 lbs.
Here's a view of Lake Ontario from the middle of the bridge.
There is a nice wide multi-use path along the lake the whole way through Hamilton. Maybe 15 miles. It was really great. No city traffic at all. There are also some restaurants along the path. I stopped at Hutch's on the Beach, which is an extremely popular fish and chips shops.
The fish and chips were yummy. I got a bottle of Top Pop Root beer and one of Creme Soda (which is bright red as it should be) to go with.
After Hamilton, my route was mostly the frontage road along the QEW, with a lot of time on parallel neighborhood streets serving homes along the lakefront. As you go from Hamilton towards Niagara Falls, the land use shifts from industry and warehouses to agriculture, which is now vineyards and orchards. There are many wineries and fine dining restaurants. There are lots of farm stands, but these are not Letterkenny farm stands, these are big fancy farm stands with gourmet products.
My end point was the town of Jordan, where there is a campground. This campground is a couple miles from any restaurants, so I stopped at the Grand Oak Culinary Market (big words for a fancy deli) and got a sandwich to bring with me for dinner later.
Look at the yummy fresh peaches. There are peach orchards all around.
This is a very affluent area now. There are hotels, but they are very fancy and expensive. I was lucky that there is a campground, although it was not a great campground. It's privately run, with wifi, showers, laundry, and lots of tent sites, however the tent sites are very far from the amenities. The tent sites are on a flood plain, which is very, very buggy, and thick clouds of mosquitoes. It's like camping on Asseteague.
So I doused myself with bug spay, set up as quick as I could, and spent the evening sitting at a picnic table in the RV area, where there were no bugs, but there were outlets and wifi.
When it got dark, I scrambled into the tent and hid from the bugs all night.
This is my last night in Canada, and my last night of camping. Tomorrow I meet up with my friend Jim in Buffalo, and we are riding home to Baltimore from there and staying in motels.
2 comments:
The bike with gear weighs about 100 lbs. Amazing!
I’m thoroughly enjoying your trip from my armchair each morning!
Post a Comment