Carrying Place to Ivy Lea Day Day 49

The Lake on the Mountain on one side of Bridge Street in Picton. The lake is level with the road. Just across the road you can look down over the mountain to see Picton Bay.

On the other side of Bridge Street you see (way down there) you see Picton Bay.
Way in the background you can see the wind farm. It appears to be built right in the water.

Many of he homes along Picton Bay were not only beautiful but they had the water as their front yard.

We got started on our trip out of camp this morning about 7:45 am and arrived at our destination about 6:20, a total of 167 km. The dew was very heavy this morning and it was warm enough to start out with just shorts and a shirt. The sun shone all day and the temperature got to 30 C on my thermometer. Thank goodness for the breeze you create when you are biking. I had mentioned several days ago in this journal we were all beginning the think we would not tan anymore. I was wrong for we are supposed to have nice weather again for the next several days.

We travelled along secondary roads for the better part of the day. The roads this morning went through farms again and the terrain was flatter except for one big hill early in the morning. I clocked only 5 km/hr and Terri said she was down to 6 km/hr at one point. We were thankful we were in the shade the whole way up and as it was only 24 km out of camp, it was early so not too hot. As we had a long day our goal was to not take long breaks and not too many. Our first rest was at the Lake on the Mountain where we spent time reading up on the folk lore regarding this lake. We climbed up a 2 km hill to find the lake at roadside at the top. You looked way down over the other side of the road and saw Picton Bay. There is an Indian legend that goes with this lake about a young Indian woman who dove into the lake (on purpose) and drowned. Some thought it did not have a bottom to it. It is a though the lake comes out of nowhere as it does not appear to have any body of water feed into it. Scientific evidence suggests that it is a result of glacier activity.

After going back down the hill we took the Glenora Ferry across the bay. I had been on this ferry in 2004 when I was on my first tour with Braun Cycle (from Kitchener). Much of the road after this until Kingston was familiar to both Terri and I. It took us along Lake Ontario and we loved the view of the water and the coolness it offered. This road called The Loyalist Parkway started before the ferry and continued on until Kingston. It took us through Bath where we had an official lunch break at a small cafe. I was not able to find the little bakery our group in 2004 had a break at but we enjoyed our lunch on the front porch of the cafe. Unfortunately there was no breeze there and a nap would have been nice.

We set off again with the clock in mind. We sent word on with another cyclist that we would not make the lunch stop offered by Mike and his wife Ruth. We felt we would not get there in time and did not want them to wait for us. We found out later that it was a very nice lunch and we were sorry to have missed it. We rode through Picton without stopping but found it to be a very quaint town. Our Braun group stayed there in 2004 and I saw little then and saw no more today. We spied several quaint eateries that would have been nice to visit.

The ride through Kingston was very busy with very rough road surface and we were glad to leave it behind us. This area is home to a somewhat transient population. It is home to a few federal penitenturies which in and of itself gives a certain atmosphere. Families of inmates sometimes move here for the length of their husband/father's sentence just to be able to visit more. In addition to the prisons, CFB Kingston is here.

We carried on through Gananoque, a very nice little town to stop in but our time was getting on. We were in the area of the 1000 Islands with a bike path running parallel to it. There was some views of the lake at various points. We are camped at Ivy Lea Campground very near the bridge to the USA. I got a glimpse of the bridge through some trees and noted it was a very high bridge.

We had a nice surprise just minutes after we got to camp. Terri's younger sister Mary (from nearby Prescott) stopped by for a visit. She stayed for supper and we shared some stories. She and Terri did a week long tour of the Finger Lakes last fall so Mary has some idea of the challenges this kind of a trip has.

We are off to Ottawa tomorrow where we will have a rest day. We will be sleeping at Carlton University for two nights and hopefully some of us will get to see some of the Capital.