Distance: 95km
Elevation: 267m
Today it rained the entire day. Actually, it was pouring cats and dogs most of the time.
I left Silvia’s place at 8:30am because her workday had started. On the way out I had a quick chat with her husband Adam, the brewer.
I took the TransCanada Trail into downtown Ottawa which was great in principle if you ignored the weather.
From one of my podcast guests, the English adventurer Charlie Walker, I had learned the following British logic to bad weather: “Once you accept that it is unpleasant, it is actually not that bad anymore”.
I tried to influence myself to stay positive and it worked for a while.
When you are cycling and it rains strongly for a long time, there is no such thing as staying dry. You are either wet and warm or wet and cold. That depends on you clothing and the energy that your body is producing.
By the time I had reached Parliament Hill, I was very cold and my SatNav had stopped working because of the rain. I had to improvise and stop all the time to check for directions. Oftentimes, I had lost directions. All of that took a lot of time.
In a weak moment, I cycled a couple of km to the Ottawa Train Station because I wanted to see if I could take a train to Montreal. But no luck. No cycles were allowed on this route.
So I had no choice but to cycle on towards Montreal. The rain was relentless.
I crossed the bridge over the Ottawa River and was in Quebec. And sure enough, everybody spoke some sort of French here.
Many roads and bike paths were flooded, trees had fallen over and it had become really dark and cold.
Around 3pm I found a McDonals restaurant and I had something to eat and time to weigh my options.
After some hesitation, I finally opted for a hotel room nearby.
Two hours later, I was in the hotel room and had a long, hot bath.
My mood was not great but I was happy that I had tried it and that I had pulled through.
Tomorrow, I would do the final push for Montreal.