Where is the moment we needed the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue skies fade to grey
They tell me your passion's gone away
And I don't need no carryin' on
You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You're faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life's been way off line
You're falling to pieces everytime
And I don't need no carryin' on
Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
- Daniel Powter - "Bad Day"
Day 52 - August 11th Ottawa to Hudson
176 kilometres / 109 miles
I was a nervous wreck this morning as today was the day for my appointment at the British High Commission to get my UK Highly Skilled Migrant Person (HSMP) visa sorted. I had scheduled an appointment for 9:15 and figured that the appointment would take no more than about 30 minutes which meant we wouldn’t actually be starting our 176km day until about 10am – which was cutting things a bit close even for our standards..! To make things worse the morning was grey and overcast… not even an all you can eat breakfast in the ‘worlds best cafeteria’ at Carlton would help to lift my spirits..! I was nervous about cycling out of Ottawa on my own as the directions for the day were a bit complicated so Ian and Andrew very kindly stayed with me and offered to wait in a local coffee shop while I went into the embassy for my appointment. I even wore my bicycle skirt in honour of the occasion.
It was a strange day which again proves that the TdC trip is definitely more mentally challenging than physically challenging. I had some ‘emotional baggage’ that I was dealing with on the England and boy-front which, combined with my frustration at the weather, feeling of guilt for holding back Andrew and Ian because of my visa pit-stop and general nervousness for the visa made it an especially long morning. I did have fun – don’t get me wrong – but I just couldn’t seem to find my biking legs. Andrew always says that he can tell within the first 30 seconds of cycling behind me what kind of mood I am in… and subsequently what kind of day he is
going to have…!
It took about 1.5 hours (!!!) for me to get my visa sorted – fortunately it was about 4 minutes from the Houses of Parliament and was relatively easy to find. Ian and Andrew waited at a coffee shop next door which was super, super nice of them. I felt really bad that they’d waited so long for me but was especially grateful for their patience. We hopped on our bikes at around 10:30 and I immediately felt sluggish and tired… I just couldn’t get moving and to make matters worse I was also cold and could feel my leg muscles tightning up..!
The ride from the downtown core took us along the Rideau Canal and out toward the home of the Governor Gener
al where we took a short photo break to be tourists and get our photos taken next to the ‘guards’ at the entrance of the house. It was pretty funny – we nearly got bounced from the residence for standing on the wrong side of the guard during our photo-shoot. Ian kept on inching closer and closer to the guard with his bike. Finally we gathered enough collective courage to stand next to him for a photo..!
From the Governor General’s house we turned on to Old Montreal Road / County Road 34 for about 20kms. It was a wet 20kms as the rain which seemed to have been threatening all morning finally began to sprinkle down. The frustrating thing was that every time it started to rain I’d stop and put on my rain coat and then cycle on and then it would stop raining again. This continued for about 4 cycles of coat on, coat off, coat on… (repeat) when finally we noticed a small tent set up off the side of the road just past Becket’s Creek Road – it was EXACTLY what I needed…! Some riders from last years’ TdC ride had set up a small tent loaded with some fantastic Tim Hortons coffee and delicious homemade squares and rice crispie squares (my absolute favourite!!). We stopped and chatted to them for about 45 minutes – the break was a bit longer than we had anticipated (and could have afforded!) but we all needed it. I had 2 giant cups of warm coffee and started to feel a bit more like my ‘normal’ self again. The group from last year mentioned that their favourite province was actually Quebec which was pretty exciting – they said that the roads in Quebec are fantastic and the landscape is also stunning. This was good news – as much as I lik
e Ontario I’m looking forward to leaving Ontario today for greener pastures – Vive le Quebec..!
Andrew and Ian had sensitive bladders today so we made about 1000 pit-stops along the side of the road. I’m not sure what it is but we seem to making exponentially more pit-stops these days. I think that it’s a combination of the Rest Day boozing in Ottawa and the copious cups of coffee we’ve been drinking.
We encountered some of the worst roads we’ve had on the trip so far – some gravel sections and the typical ‘crappy old pavement’ sections where you spend more time avoiding pot-holes than actually enjoying the scenery. The terrain was relatively flat with a few minor hills and as the day continued the sun soon broke through the dense cloud to reveal small patches of clear sky.
Things were starting to look up when suddenly just before we hit North Plantagenet Road we crossed left onto Route 17 and Andrew’s chain fell off mid-pedal cycle. Faster than the blink of an eye, he fell sideways still clipped into his bike onto the hard asphalt with a giant incredibly painful looking yet elegant sounding ‘thud’. As it was a relatively busy road he quickly jumped up and hopped back on his bike and we collectively skirted over to the side of the road to inspect the damage and make sure that our valiant leader was ok. Andrew’s hand had immediately started to swell up and his leg had a nasty gash on it which was slowly starting to ooze blood. It looked incredibly painful. Andrew being Andrew would not admit that it was sore but rather demanded that Ian and I bike up ahead while he had some ‘alone time’… Between his hand, his leg, and his ‘tender bottom’ Andrew was not having a great day.
Ian and I cycled nervously up ahead while Andrew dropped to about 1 km behind us. We were worried about him and pulled off the side of the road in an attempt to find a convenience store to buy a drink and have a ‘peanut butter sandwich’ break. Unfortunately Ian forgot to pack a sandwich today so not only did Andrew have to deal with a sore hand but he also ended up giving his lunch to Ian (oops!). Ian did a bit of reconnaissance near a campground but it didn’t have a convenience store so we were out of luck on the lunch front and decided to continue on our way. Andrew’s had had really swelled up by this point and he made a make-shift cast for it with an old piece of cloth.
Just as our afternoon couldn’t get any worse, we had cycled another 5 kilometres when Ian’s back tire suddenly went flat. Arrrrrgh..! It was already 2:30pm by this point and we still had about 100kms left to cycle that day..! Ian and I were left to our own devices to fix the tire with Ian’s crappy pump and some old patches while Andrew looked on and shook his head. It was one of those patch jobs that don’t seem to go as smoothly as it could have thanks to old patches, dried up glue, a tough tire and a tube that was the wrong size… It didn’t do too much to improve Andrew’s mood but the giggle at the continuous misfortune did lighten the mood a bit..!
We continued on as the sky became darker and darker and as we got hungrier and hungrier… We passed through one rural small town after another and found out that very few towns had restaurants or convenience stores. Many towns are made up of a church and then long rows of houses and farms. If there is a store then it also doubles as the post office, the doctors office and the dentists office. We finally (finally!!) found one that was open and had a decent selection of chocolate bars, chocolate pudding, chocolate milk and sandwiches. Fortunately there was a table in the middle of the store and in broken French we asked whether it would be ok if we sat down and ate our snacks / lunch. We were nearly 120% certain that we were the last of the bunch and hours behind everyone else because of our late start and all of our stops but then suddenly Tak and Laura walked through the door of the shop..! Our short break suddenly turned into a long 45 minute break complete with moaning and groaning about how much further we still had to go that day..!
As soon as we stepped outside I realised that we should have taken a shorter break as the sky which looked as if it was due to clear up looked menacingly dark. Ugh..! What could possibly make this day any more annoying..!?! The usual game of “let’s outrun the storm” soon began. It looked as though we would stay cycling parallel to the storm but the instructions indicated that we had to turn left just after Hawksbury and directly into the storm..! Nightmare. The ‘wall of rain’ scenario which we witnessed back at Kingston played at
the back of my mind. The only highlight of that left turn was that we were cycling over a long bridge and INTO QUEBEC!! The provincial divide was marked by a tiny sign which read ‘Quebec’. Unfortunately there was a giant ‘wall of rain’ about 500m into Quebec and we desperately tried to avoid it. By this time it was already 5pm and we had to call into camp to tell Meaghan and Cullen that we’d likely be about 3 hours late with an 8pm ETA. My voicemail to Meaghan from the comfort of the phone booth went something like this….
“Hi Meaghan. It’s Heather. We are going to be late… very late… because of my visa situation in Ottawa and then Andrew had an accident on the road and Ian popped a tire and now we are trying to avoid the rain. So don’t wait up...”
On hindsight I should perhaps have not mentioned the accident or should have mentioned that Andrew was actually ok…!
Our entry into Quebec on Route 34 and the subsequent race against the storm soon made us forget our hungry stomachs and the stretch of kms which lay ahead. We were able to outrun the storm for about 20 minutes when finally the inevitable happened…. We got dumped on. Big time. It POURED. Fortunately the road was tree lined so I convinced Andrew and Ian that we could wait out the storm (complete with thunder and lightning) by seeking shelter under one of the many trees which lined the road. We waited for about 30 minutes and it was pretty clear that the sky was not going to clear up… and that I was definitely going to have to bite the bullet and get wet. I was summoned back to the road by Andrew and trudged up and onto my soaking wet bike seat (which I accidentally forgot to remove..!)
It poured rain for about 5 minutes as we biked out of the storm and into the setting sun.
The Ferry Terminal at Carillon was tiny and you could see the boat crossing the river off in the distance. Ian was keen for an icecream break but unfortunately there was no ice cream to be found and we were already running late. We crossed the river which was about a 20
minute ferry ride along with a car full of rowdy Greeks who were listening to dance music and dancing around the car. We were too tired to participate in the antics and simply smiled at the Greeks and held onto our bikes. I was soooo tired – it had been a long and emotional day and we still had 30kms left to bike and I had a hunch that it was not going to be flat terrain..!
The rest of our journey passed fairly uneventfully. The highlight of the remaining 30kms was the route into Hudson which was stunning. Hudson is a town with a population of about 5,000 people located on the south-west bank of the lower Ottawa River, in the county of Vaudreuil-Soulanges. Situated about 60 kilometres west of downtown Montreal, many residents commute to work on the island of Montreal. A relatively wealthy town, Hudson is known for its large, turn-of-the century houses, many of which border the Lake of Two Mountains. The Town is largely upper-middle
class and includes professionals, artists and artisans, corporate executives, and a wide variety of entrepreneurs as residents. There are some 140 businesses in town, 50% of which are of an arts and crafts nature. It is predominantly English speaking. Rain fell intermittently as we cycled through Hudson and I was incredibly relieved as we cycled into Camp Daoust at around 8:30pm.
We were among the last to arrive and the sun had set so I quickly set up my tent and prepared my plastic food trough for the usual evening feast. Apparently everyone had struggled today and it had been a long day with most people arriving into camp at around 6pm. Dave made an cabbage amazing salad and I have to remember to get the recipe – the dressing is sooooo good..!!
The campground is actually really nice - we have a huge covered pavillion which has plenty of picnic tables and room to set up the food for dinner. The truck is also very close by the pavillion which will make packing up the truck much easier tomorrow morning. The campground itself is a mini-farm of sorts with horse stables etc. nearby.
Andrew’s hand seemed to be improving which was good news.
I am super tired but looking forward to tomorrow – Montreal..!! Today has been a long and emotional day - potentially one of the most emotionally challenging ones on the trip so far. So much of this journey is a mental one. Sitting here cross legged in my tent I can h
ear a cacophony of snores echoing around my tent which is a subtle reminder that I should log off here and get some rest for what promises to be a long but exciting day tomorrow..!!
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue skies fade to grey
They tell me your passion's gone away
And I don't need no carryin' on
You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You're faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life's been way off line
You're falling to pieces everytime
And I don't need no carryin' on
Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
- Daniel Powter - "Bad Day"
Day 52 - August 11th Ottawa to Hudson
176 kilometres / 109 miles
I was a nervous wreck this morning as today was the day for my appointment at the British High Commission to get my UK Highly Skilled Migrant Person (HSMP) visa sorted. I had scheduled an appointment for 9:15 and figured that the appointment would take no more than about 30 minutes which meant we wouldn’t actually be starting our 176km day until about 10am – which was cutting things a bit close even for our standards..! To make things worse the morning was grey and overcast… not even an all you can eat breakfast in the ‘worlds best cafeteria’ at Carlton would help to lift my spirits..! I was nervous about cycling out of Ottawa on my own as the directions for the day were a bit complicated so Ian and Andrew very kindly stayed with me and offered to wait in a local coffee shop while I went into the embassy for my appointment. I even wore my bicycle skirt in honour of the occasion.
It was a strange day which again proves that the TdC trip is definitely more mentally challenging than physically challenging. I had some ‘emotional baggage’ that I was dealing with on the England and boy-front which, combined with my frustration at the weather, feeling of guilt for holding back Andrew and Ian because of my visa pit-stop and general nervousness for the visa made it an especially long morning. I did have fun – don’t get me wrong – but I just couldn’t seem to find my biking legs. Andrew always says that he can tell within the first 30 seconds of cycling behind me what kind of mood I am in… and subsequently what kind of day he is
going to have…!It took about 1.5 hours (!!!) for me to get my visa sorted – fortunately it was about 4 minutes from the Houses of Parliament and was relatively easy to find. Ian and Andrew waited at a coffee shop next door which was super, super nice of them. I felt really bad that they’d waited so long for me but was especially grateful for their patience. We hopped on our bikes at around 10:30 and I immediately felt sluggish and tired… I just couldn’t get moving and to make matters worse I was also cold and could feel my leg muscles tightning up..!
The ride from the downtown core took us along the Rideau Canal and out toward the home of the Governor Gener
al where we took a short photo break to be tourists and get our photos taken next to the ‘guards’ at the entrance of the house. It was pretty funny – we nearly got bounced from the residence for standing on the wrong side of the guard during our photo-shoot. Ian kept on inching closer and closer to the guard with his bike. Finally we gathered enough collective courage to stand next to him for a photo..!From the Governor General’s house we turned on to Old Montreal Road / County Road 34 for about 20kms. It was a wet 20kms as the rain which seemed to have been threatening all morning finally began to sprinkle down. The frustrating thing was that every time it started to rain I’d stop and put on my rain coat and then cycle on and then it would stop raining again. This continued for about 4 cycles of coat on, coat off, coat on… (repeat) when finally we noticed a small tent set up off the side of the road just past Becket’s Creek Road – it was EXACTLY what I needed…! Some riders from last years’ TdC ride had set up a small tent loaded with some fantastic Tim Hortons coffee and delicious homemade squares and rice crispie squares (my absolute favourite!!). We stopped and chatted to them for about 45 minutes – the break was a bit longer than we had anticipated (and could have afforded!) but we all needed it. I had 2 giant cups of warm coffee and started to feel a bit more like my ‘normal’ self again. The group from last year mentioned that their favourite province was actually Quebec which was pretty exciting – they said that the roads in Quebec are fantastic and the landscape is also stunning. This was good news – as much as I lik
e Ontario I’m looking forward to leaving Ontario today for greener pastures – Vive le Quebec..!Andrew and Ian had sensitive bladders today so we made about 1000 pit-stops along the side of the road. I’m not sure what it is but we seem to making exponentially more pit-stops these days. I think that it’s a combination of the Rest Day boozing in Ottawa and the copious cups of coffee we’ve been drinking.
We encountered some of the worst roads we’ve had on the trip so far – some gravel sections and the typical ‘crappy old pavement’ sections where you spend more time avoiding pot-holes than actually enjoying the scenery. The terrain was relatively flat with a few minor hills and as the day continued the sun soon broke through the dense cloud to reveal small patches of clear sky.
Things were starting to look up when suddenly just before we hit North Plantagenet Road we crossed left onto Route 17 and Andrew’s chain fell off mid-pedal cycle. Faster than the blink of an eye, he fell sideways still clipped into his bike onto the hard asphalt with a giant incredibly painful looking yet elegant sounding ‘thud’. As it was a relatively busy road he quickly jumped up and hopped back on his bike and we collectively skirted over to the side of the road to inspect the damage and make sure that our valiant leader was ok. Andrew’s hand had immediately started to swell up and his leg had a nasty gash on it which was slowly starting to ooze blood. It looked incredibly painful. Andrew being Andrew would not admit that it was sore but rather demanded that Ian and I bike up ahead while he had some ‘alone time’… Between his hand, his leg, and his ‘tender bottom’ Andrew was not having a great day.
Ian and I cycled nervously up ahead while Andrew dropped to about 1 km behind us. We were worried about him and pulled off the side of the road in an attempt to find a convenience store to buy a drink and have a ‘peanut butter sandwich’ break. Unfortunately Ian forgot to pack a sandwich today so not only did Andrew have to deal with a sore hand but he also ended up giving his lunch to Ian (oops!). Ian did a bit of reconnaissance near a campground but it didn’t have a convenience store so we were out of luck on the lunch front and decided to continue on our way. Andrew’s had had really swelled up by this point and he made a make-shift cast for it with an old piece of cloth.
Just as our afternoon couldn’t get any worse, we had cycled another 5 kilometres when Ian’s back tire suddenly went flat. Arrrrrgh..! It was already 2:30pm by this point and we still had about 100kms left to cycle that day..! Ian and I were left to our own devices to fix the tire with Ian’s crappy pump and some old patches while Andrew looked on and shook his head. It was one of those patch jobs that don’t seem to go as smoothly as it could have thanks to old patches, dried up glue, a tough tire and a tube that was the wrong size… It didn’t do too much to improve Andrew’s mood but the giggle at the continuous misfortune did lighten the mood a bit..!
We continued on as the sky became darker and darker and as we got hungrier and hungrier… We passed through one rural small town after another and found out that very few towns had restaurants or convenience stores. Many towns are made up of a church and then long rows of houses and farms. If there is a store then it also doubles as the post office, the doctors office and the dentists office. We finally (finally!!) found one that was open and had a decent selection of chocolate bars, chocolate pudding, chocolate milk and sandwiches. Fortunately there was a table in the middle of the store and in broken French we asked whether it would be ok if we sat down and ate our snacks / lunch. We were nearly 120% certain that we were the last of the bunch and hours behind everyone else because of our late start and all of our stops but then suddenly Tak and Laura walked through the door of the shop..! Our short break suddenly turned into a long 45 minute break complete with moaning and groaning about how much further we still had to go that day..!
As soon as we stepped outside I realised that we should have taken a shorter break as the sky which looked as if it was due to clear up looked menacingly dark. Ugh..! What could possibly make this day any more annoying..!?! The usual game of “let’s outrun the storm” soon began. It looked as though we would stay cycling parallel to the storm but the instructions indicated that we had to turn left just after Hawksbury and directly into the storm..! Nightmare. The ‘wall of rain’ scenario which we witnessed back at Kingston played at
the back of my mind. The only highlight of that left turn was that we were cycling over a long bridge and INTO QUEBEC!! The provincial divide was marked by a tiny sign which read ‘Quebec’. Unfortunately there was a giant ‘wall of rain’ about 500m into Quebec and we desperately tried to avoid it. By this time it was already 5pm and we had to call into camp to tell Meaghan and Cullen that we’d likely be about 3 hours late with an 8pm ETA. My voicemail to Meaghan from the comfort of the phone booth went something like this….“Hi Meaghan. It’s Heather. We are going to be late… very late… because of my visa situation in Ottawa and then Andrew had an accident on the road and Ian popped a tire and now we are trying to avoid the rain. So don’t wait up...”
On hindsight I should perhaps have not mentioned the accident or should have mentioned that Andrew was actually ok…!
Our entry into Quebec on Route 34 and the subsequent race against the storm soon made us forget our hungry stomachs and the stretch of kms which lay ahead. We were able to outrun the storm for about 20 minutes when finally the inevitable happened…. We got dumped on. Big time. It POURED. Fortunately the road was tree lined so I convinced Andrew and Ian that we could wait out the storm (complete with thunder and lightning) by seeking shelter under one of the many trees which lined the road. We waited for about 30 minutes and it was pretty clear that the sky was not going to clear up… and that I was definitely going to have to bite the bullet and get wet. I was summoned back to the road by Andrew and trudged up and onto my soaking wet bike seat (which I accidentally forgot to remove..!)
It poured rain for about 5 minutes as we biked out of the storm and into the setting sun.
The Ferry Terminal at Carillon was tiny and you could see the boat crossing the river off in the distance. Ian was keen for an icecream break but unfortunately there was no ice cream to be found and we were already running late. We crossed the river which was about a 20
minute ferry ride along with a car full of rowdy Greeks who were listening to dance music and dancing around the car. We were too tired to participate in the antics and simply smiled at the Greeks and held onto our bikes. I was soooo tired – it had been a long and emotional day and we still had 30kms left to bike and I had a hunch that it was not going to be flat terrain..!The rest of our journey passed fairly uneventfully. The highlight of the remaining 30kms was the route into Hudson which was stunning. Hudson is a town with a population of about 5,000 people located on the south-west bank of the lower Ottawa River, in the county of Vaudreuil-Soulanges. Situated about 60 kilometres west of downtown Montreal, many residents commute to work on the island of Montreal. A relatively wealthy town, Hudson is known for its large, turn-of-the century houses, many of which border the Lake of Two Mountains. The Town is largely upper-middle
class and includes professionals, artists and artisans, corporate executives, and a wide variety of entrepreneurs as residents. There are some 140 businesses in town, 50% of which are of an arts and crafts nature. It is predominantly English speaking. Rain fell intermittently as we cycled through Hudson and I was incredibly relieved as we cycled into Camp Daoust at around 8:30pm.We were among the last to arrive and the sun had set so I quickly set up my tent and prepared my plastic food trough for the usual evening feast. Apparently everyone had struggled today and it had been a long day with most people arriving into camp at around 6pm. Dave made an cabbage amazing salad and I have to remember to get the recipe – the dressing is sooooo good..!!
The campground is actually really nice - we have a huge covered pavillion which has plenty of picnic tables and room to set up the food for dinner. The truck is also very close by the pavillion which will make packing up the truck much easier tomorrow morning. The campground itself is a mini-farm of sorts with horse stables etc. nearby.
Andrew’s hand seemed to be improving which was good news.
I am super tired but looking forward to tomorrow – Montreal..!! Today has been a long and emotional day - potentially one of the most emotionally challenging ones on the trip so far. So much of this journey is a mental one. Sitting here cross legged in my tent I can h
ear a cacophony of snores echoing around my tent which is a subtle reminder that I should log off here and get some rest for what promises to be a long but exciting day tomorrow..!!
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