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Sunday 20 July 2014

Day 58 Ottawa to Hawksbury

... 120km

(Courtney) The way out of Ottawa was not nearly as nice as the way in. We were missing the pretty network of trails as we rode down congested streets dodging parked cars, potholes and pedestrians. After about 20km cate had managed to navigate us onto the Prescott Russell trail link, an old rail bed that goes for a long ways east of Ottawa. We didn't see many people on the trail other than a few maintenance workers, all of whom spoke French. We are in French Ontario now. After lunch we decided to ditch the trail in favour of a road that followed the river. It was great, nice shoulder and fairly quiet, until we were stopped by a fellow cyclist who warned is that the road ahead was closed. We were going to have to do an unspeakable thing. Backtrack. Trust me, we spent a good ten minutes scouring our maps for a way around before resigning ourselves to our fate. So back we went, through a small town where we were stared at and asked if we were lost, then out to the main highway (the horrible #17). We got into Hawksbury and asked for directions to the grocery store. It was "just over the bridge, in Quebec". QEUBEC!!!!! We hadn't planned on hitting Quebec until tomorrow. Au revior Long-tario!!
After almost 4 weeks Ontario is finally over. We peddled across the Ottawa river bought supplied then looked for some where to camp. We were directed to a lovely park (complete with a no camping sign)... on the other side of the river. So for the second time we back tracked. 
As we were making dinner two kayakers pulled up and set up camp beside us. They were doing a triangle route from Kingston up the Rideau canal then back down the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers. We exchanged stories with them until way past our bedtime then snuggled into our sleeping bags for one last sleep in Canada's biggest province. 

Goodbye Ontario!! (Not for the last time)
Bonjour Québéc!
If it says no camping it's gotta be a good spot!!!

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