Distance: 101 km
Elevation: 550m
I woke up around 5 AM determined to get Rosinante out of the airport. I could see that she had been sitting in one place without any movement. Also, still no signs from my bags.
I took the train to the airport around 7am and was told that delayed luggage is handled by the airline and Lufthansa is so small here that they only work part time. The fact it was a public holiday also did not help. Hence I should please come back in the afternoon when the next LH flight arrived and the staff was on duty.
I explained my project to the gentleman at the information booth. I showed him that the AirTag indicated that Rosinante was right behind that wall. After some time he realized that I would not leave and he made a phone call.
He reached a lady who after a 15 min wait came out the luggage area and showed me a picture on her phone: “Is that your bike?” Yes, it was Rosinante! “Ok, I will try to get it through customs for you”.
Another 15min later, she came out with a huge white box on a cart. I was super happy and thanked both of them from the bottom of my heart.
I explained also the project to her and our work for Ukrainian NGOs and she said “I am from Ukraine. I will help you to get your bags”. Kosta, the gentleman from the information booth, and Tamara of Ukrainian decent, were now fired up.
Tamara found out that my bags were with a courier service 3km away. She gave me the address so that I could cycle there and pick them up.
Assembling Rosinante worked okay. There was a dent in one of the drop-bars but nothing critical, I believe. After 30min I was ready, said goodbye to Tamarra, thanked her again, and cycled to the warehouse.
The courier service was an Indian family enterprise. They were expecting me and were curious how I would fit this plastic things to my bike.
Another 10 min later and I was on my way to downtown again.
This mission had probably saved me another two days of waiting. In hindsight, I should have been there the afternoon before when the LH crew had been there. But anyways.
I cycled back to Aaron’s place. He wanted to take me out for a nice breakfast and it needed some convincing that time was of the essence now. So he prepared a delicious brunch instead. Then I packed up, we said farewell and I was on the road by 11:30 AM.
It took some time to get out of the suburbs of Toronto. After 30km, I started cycling through a lot of parks where people from all cultures were having picnics, BBQs, music concerts and cricket matches. It was very colorful and vibrant. Again you could feel the multicultural nature of Toronto and Canada.
After 50km I reached the waterfront of Lake Ontario. Absolutely beautiful.
A few shops were open and I used a shopping stop to avoid a small thunderstorm.
Despite my late start, I wanted to do 100km today. Around 6pm I arrived at a provincial park directly at the waterfront.
It was warm and damp. I set up my tent, had a shower, and an improvised dinner. I had no camping gas yet so I couldn’t cook anything.
Around 8pm I was in my tent to avoid the mosquitos. I was tired and dosed off quickly.
