Distance: 111km
Elevation: 1220m
After a patchy sleep, I woke up to light rain. Great!
During a rain break, I packed up and cycled to the shop of the provincial park entrance where they had a patio with a roof and more importantly, coffee.
When I was hitting the road at around 9am, I was overtaken by a cycling family. Chris and Mary from Ottawa and their three sons Oliver, Thomas and Clayton. They were on a 1000km tour around Lake Ontario. How awesome.
They did around 60km each day which meant they would cycle the morning and have the afternoon free. At that pace it would take them 2.5 weeks for this tour. What a brilliant idea.
I would have wanted to hear more about them but I could not keep up with their pace as it became increasingly hilly.
I was entering the Trent Hills and that was both enjoyable and exhausting. Steep climbs followed by downhills over and over again.
At lunchtime, I reached Port Hope and had a nice lunchtime at Tim Hortons. I was feeling tired from the climbing.
In the afternoon it became increasingly difficult for me to make good progress. Pushing 120kg up the mountains takes a lot of energy.
I had no plans for the night yet. I needed a power outlet every other day to charge my batteries.
I had reached out to some Warmshowers hosts in the area but no luck there.
In the late afternoon, I was overtaken by a car and a lady offered me a cool bottle of water. I must have looked very tired and a little desperate. We chatted a little and she and her husband drove off again.
How super nice! I just love Canada and the people.
Around 6pm, I reached a small place called Warkworth and I was really tired. I checked for B&Bs without much hope and in fact found one.
When I got there, a guy was sweeping the sidewalk. He told me that the B&B had been non-operational for four years and that they had just bought the property and moved here from Toronto this week Monday.
They were planning on re-opening the B&B around Christmas. He probably saw the disappointment in my eyes as he added “well, we are renovating and it’s messy inside, you know, but if you want, I am sure we can offer you a bed”.
It was like heaven on earth. Michael and his Korean wife Sonya welcomed me into their beautiful house from 1905 which they shared with a Greek dog named Zoe and a cat named Henry.
They both worked in ESG consulting and we had immediate chemistry.
I was having a shower while Michael improvised a bed. Everything was brand new, dry and clean. Paradise!
Even better, Michael prepared food for me and we had some beers and a really good conversation.
Time flew by quickly. We were in the “music room” and Michael was introducing me to music from their vinyl collection.
Around midnight, after a round of whiskeys from Newfoundland, he showed me the Main Street and told me about the history of the town.
Like many other places it had been going downhill for long but 25 years ago a famous sculptor and his husband from Toronto bought a house here and renovated it.
Over the years, other artists followed and it became a liberal little town with an active LGBTQ community.
When we were back, we went to bed and I fell asleep instantly in an awesomely comfy bed.