The ride this morning was very pleasurable--we followed Ian & Sandra's directions along the side roads. These roads led to another rail tril that led from Omemee right into Peterborough. Finding the path was interesting--it wasn't marked well on the side road--and once we found it, we were a little unsure because the first 100 yards or so were pretty bumpy--but then it settled out into that limestone surface and was really nice!
The path here was a little more overgrown than the other rail trails we have used, but I think they were in the process of clearing it (we squeezed past a work truck that was parked on the path). But this particular path was a real godsend because it is a railroad grade and avoided the huge hills we saw on either side of us whenever we had a view out. We saw lots of steep hills off to the left, and huge drop-offs to the right, and were happy we didn't have to follow the road!
We also saw some Canadian BikeMeisters--about 15 or so folks over 55 years old cycling along the rail trail the opposite way. They brought our CO SkiMeisters to mind (who are probably hiking or biking as I write this)! They were having a great time on that trail! And right after that, we went over a really high railroad bridge that showed just how many hills we were missing. It made me happy.
About 8 km before we entered Peterborough, another cyclist joined us and started chatting. His name was Tim and he owns the record store in Peterborough. He gave up his car several years ago and commutes by bike about 21 km each way. What a nice guy! He led us into town and right to a fantastic coffee shop (are you seeing a theme here?) called The PLanet Bakery. He even bought us a drink! We talked with Tim and the owner of the local bike shop a block behind The Planet, and got some scoop on our route down to Lake Ontario. Then, we decided we should just eat lunch at this place, and had a fantastic vegetarian lunch there! Great food and great people.
We checked out the bike shop and then headed east and south toward the water.
They mentioned that we would have some "rollers"--up and down hills between Peterborough and Brighton, but they may have understated that just a bit! David described it is grunt-grunt-grunt-grunt-grunt-yahoo!-grunt-grunt-grunt-grunt-grunt-yahoo! It was pretty exhausting for 25 miles. It was very fun riding, and we wished that we had a sag wagon to carry our heavy panniers so the uphills would be easier. One of the highlights was the 6 osprey nests we saw that were filled with birds caring for their young! How fun to watch them.
We stopped in Hastings because we saw an open library and decided to blog for a little while--it had been four days and I was getting frantic phone calls about our safety! But it's hard to find a computer on the weekends unless you're at the right hotel. Then we decided that instead of slogging our way for 25 more miles, maybe we should just stay right there in Hastings! David went off to check out lodging opportunities and I blogged. While I was there, I found out what kind of people live in Hastings ON. First off, the librarians were so nice and helpful--and the computer use was free!
Within 30 minutes, Patricia Lehman (a library patron) had offered us a place to stay at her house in Warkworth, about 45 minutes away. She was going to let us pitch our tent, or she offered a tent that they already had up in their yard! How nice was that? And then about 15 minutes later, Skye Morrison sat down at the computer beside me. She is the proprieter of a new guesthouse in Hastings called The Doors Guesthouse (www.thedoorsguesthouse.com) and offered to let us stay there for free! Fantastic! But alas, David had already found us a place in town and we stayed there. The only bad thing about that was that we had to pay for it, but it was worth the expense. We stayed at the Lockside Guest Suite and it was a little apartment! We felt like we had lots of rooms to spread out in, and had breakfast in our own kitchen! It was very decadent, and the owners were exceptionally nice also! Hastings is on our list of the most friendly places we have been.
We had a great Chinese food dinner at Jiang's and spent some time checking out the local scenery--they have their own lock that serves the Trent-Severn Waterway. It was a neat time and we're glad we cut our ride short to stay there!
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