Monday,
July 16, 2001
Day
8: Oshawa to Etobicoke
We were up at 06:00 and down for
breakfast at 07:30. Our B&B host
was the man of the house this time, rather than the woman who had greeted us
the evening before. We were served an
excellent breakfast of eggs, toast, fruit and coffee. I had already gotten my bike back out of the garage and had
packed it up for the day before sitting down to eat, so I was all ready to go
right after breakfast. Breakfast took a
little longer than usual, as we talked up the young gentleman host, finding our
all about his B&B experience. He
recounted how he and his wife had rescued the old house from demolition and,
with the help of a grant, had had it moved across town to its current
location. It was 08:30 before I was finally
on my way, after taking a final picture.
My first stop was just down Stevenson
Road, at the local 7-11 & Shell where we had bought gas just the evening
before. I bought a bag of ice and
topped up my mini cooler.
As Today was to be the day I crossed
Toronto, I had high hopes that the Waterfront Trail would keep me along the
green shoreline and away from the busy city streets. I knew I had to make it all the way across the city to
Mississauga on the far side, as there would be no place to stop for the night
before that.
While I have been to Toronto many times, these notes focus on the part of
those visits which touch my current ride. See 1.
Recollections of Toronto Visits, in the Supplementary Notes section below, for more information.
My first decision was whether to just
head straight down Stevenson, until it met the Trail by the GM Plant, or to
backtrack and pick up the trail right where I had left off the evening before,
at Lakeview Park. I chose the latter
option, and decided to descend to the lakeshore via the bike trail along Oshawa
Creek, the trail I had not chosen the evening before.
A major city it its own right, and the home of Canadian automobile
manufacturing. See 3. Notes on Oshawa, in the Supplementary Notes section of the previous
day's notes, for more information.
I made the right decision. The trail along Oshawa Creek was a
delightful path, curving along right next to the water, deep in the wooded
ravine, down below the streets. It was
a clear day, and bright, but very cool down by the water. I met the trail just
past the Midtown Mall off King Street, at 08:40, and came out at the Lakeview
Park at 09:10, some 4.3km further along.
It was 09:10 and I was back at the point where I had left off at 17:00 the
day before.
The Waterfront Trail led me up and around
the point, sometimes along quiet suburban streets and sometimes in its own
right of way through various city parks, but always close to the lakeshore. I
came even with the foot of Stevenson, where I would have ended up had I come
straight down, at 09:25. At this point, I was riding along Phillip
Murray Avenue, a wide, open industrial
boulevard, behind the big GM factory and other related heavy industries. Looking from the 401 during my uncountable
trips past this area, I had never had any idea that there was a green space to
the lakeward of these huge factory complexes. Beside the GM Plant, there were lines and lines of railcars being
loaded up with new vehicles from this vast parking lot.
The trail left the street and took off
along the waterfront parkland just as I came into the town of Whitby at 09:50. I found myself riding along a paved trail
over grassy knolls and overlooking the Lake.
The air was dead calm. There was not even a ripple to disturb the
mirror-like surface of the water, a surface covered with ducks and geese. After so many days fighting the wind, the windless
day was such a blessing!
Whitby is the next Pre-Toronto Suburb to Cross. See 2.
Notes on Whitby, in the Supplementary Notes section below, for more information. Read a
journalists account of the same trail.
At 10:00, I made a brief stop at a gazebo
erected at Ross Point. Looking out
westward with my field glasses, I
caught my first glimpse of CN Tower, far in the distant haze. I could also see
the cliffs of the Scarborough Bluffs.
The trail continued along the greenway
towards Port Whitby proper, where it became a fancy, groomed park. My forward progress was halted by the boat
channel of Port Whitby, so I had to ride inland a bit, along some back streets.
Once around the harbour, I was once again onto a bike path with it own
right-of-way, riding by the marina, and then through the park-like grounds of
the Whitby Health Centre.
I came out of these grounds at the far
side, and onto a suburban street with brand new homes to my right and fenced
off wetlands to my left. The people occupying those homes sure had a nice
view! Up, away from the lake, and around
the marsh's edge I rode, and then got lost as block upon block of new streets
and new houses arose, streets that were so new as not to be on my map.
It would be sad, during the day's riding,
to see the extent to which new developments were going up. There was hardly a street which did not have
a huge chunk of green space giving way to construction. Those few bits of green remaining untouched already
had big signs of "Intent to develop" posted on them.
I had to ride inland as far as Victoria
Street in order to get past the Conservation Area. Victoria Street in Whitby was a busy, suburban boulevard, but soon
leaving the built up portion of town, it reverted to the narrow, two-laned,
country-style road it must have originally been. Unfortunately, the traffic did not abate in the same way. As I crossed the head of the Conservation
Area marsh, it was hard going with so much traffic on such a narrow road that
had no paved shoulders.
The road made a long descent, to a bridge
over the creek feeding the marsh and conservation area, and then it climbed
back up to the highlands on the far side in a long, gradual climb. Once past the conservation area, I came by the
last farmland holdouts amidst the encroaching suburbia.
I crossed into the town of Ajax at 10:40
and continued along until I reached Shoal Point Road. My city showed this to be the route of the Waterfront Trail. At Shoal Point Road I was able, at last, to
turn off the busy street and head back towards the lakeshore. Although the map show the area to be
"green" on both sides of the road, I found the entire west side to be
levelled by construction. Whole neighbourhoods were going up, and along the
roadsite building lots were measured out that were barely 20 feet wide. The new homes that were completed on these
lots were 4 storeys tall, with one room per floor.
The town of Ajax was created after the Second World War.. See 3.
Notes on Ajax, in the Supplementary Notes section below, for more information.
As I neared the foot of the road, the
homes got older and the neighbourhood more established. These older homes all sprouted signs saying
"Save our wetlands - No development". This demand was likely in
reference to the east side of the road which, except for a block or two,
had remained essentially "green".
Turning the corner at the end of the
road, I found myself on a short stretch of "Lakeview Boulevard". To my left was nothing but beach. It was 11:00 and I could not resist the
temptation to take a 15 minute break in order to sit on the beach. I had a snack
of a peach and some cheese and chocolate.
I found this beach was marked "Pickering
Beach" on the map. I could easily make out the Scarbourough Bluffs ahead,
with my field glasses. All around, in the still mirror-like water, were geese.
On my way once more at 11:15, I was soon
off the street again and rolling through waterfront parkland. I came to a monument, at Rotary Park at
Lion's Point, where they had made a map in the concrete of the Rio de la
Plata. There was a plaque for each ship
involved in the 1940 battle which had taken place there, when the German
battleship Graf Spee was sunk. The
point of the whole monument was to honour the HMCS Ajax, one of the ships
involved in that conflict. Another nearby
information plaque described the "name that town" contest they had
held in 1955, when the town of Ajax was founded.
The trail led cross the mouth of the
inlet at Simcoe Point on a footbridge. For once, I did not have to retreat
inland to the main road in order to get past a creek and its bay. On the far
side of the creek, I was under the shadow of the Pickering Nuclear Plant.
Pickering, home of the Rouge River, the site of some of the earliest
habitation in the Toronto area, and of the Pickering Nuclear Facility. See 4. Notes on Pickering, in the Supplementary Notes
section below, for more information.
It was 12:00 and I tried to call Sheryl,
but there was no answer. She would end
up calling me back at 12:20. Unlike the previous day, when she had simply
forgotten to turn the phone on, on this day she was in intense negotiation with
a shop keeper and had turned the phone off so that I would not interrupt.
The parkland was done up nicely all
around the Nuclear Station,, with very, very nice bicycle paths. As at Darlington, huge earthen mounds,
now covered with grass and trees,
sheltered the site of the nuclear reactor itself.
I remember from the early 70s that one
could see from the 401 all the way across the
farmland to the unsheltered nuclear plant. I guess building the earthen walls was the compromise for
allowing development to get so close.
Past the plant, the trail came down to a
section of beach boardwalk, along "Beachfront Park". It was a very nice section of trail, with
the water of the lake only a few feet away.
Alas it soon ended and I had, once more, to turn inland, and onto the
city streets. This time my obstacle was
Frenchman's Bay. In through a complicated maze of suburban back streets I
followed the Waterfront Trail markers until, finally, they brought me all the
way back up to "Bayly Street", the continuation of the Victoria
Street I had been on earlier. I was just under the shadow of the 401 and of the
railroad lines. I followed the road down
along a short dip and then up a short rise of about half a kilometre, thus
crossing the head of the bay.
Almost immediately on the far side, the
trail left the road again, to follow the western shore of the bay. At the parking lot of the West Shore
Community Centre, I turned off. At the back of the lot was a small opening in
the fence, about three feet wide, and with a pole in the centre, to keep out
all but bikes.
Down into a small wooded gorge the trail
led, and then across a small creek bridge, and back up the other side and into
a suburban cul-de-sac., There would be
several of these as I wound my way downhill through suburbia, and ever closer
to the lake. I got used to the signs
that read "No Exit", for I knew my trail would provide a way that no
car could follow.
At the foot of "Park Crescent",
therefore, after a long, steep descent,
passing by all the fancy houses, I was a bit unprepared for what greeted
me. There was the familiar opening in
the guard rail, with the pole in the middle.
Still flush with momentum from my downhill ride I went bowling through
this opening.
Only to find that the trail
vanished! Unlike the paved trail I had
been used to, there was now a fifty foot cliff. Down the cliffside went this
rough, steep trail, a hiking trail at best, and overgrown with tree roots. At
the foot of the cliff I could make out a dirt trail leading off under the trees
and through the marsh.
A little background is needed to follow
my thought processes at this point. The maps showed the Waterfront Trail
leading down the point towards the mouth of the Rouge River, which formed the
border between Pickering and Scarbourough.
It SEEMED on the map like the tiny blue dots marking the trail crossed
the river, but that could easily have been a printing error. My brochure on the Waterfront Trail clearly
showed a hiatus in Scarborough. Was
there a crossing or not? If not, I
would have to backtrack all the way back up to Kingston Road. So, at this
point, I was pretty well committed to going the Rouge River way.
I got off my bike and inched it down the
footpath, using the brakes to hold the weight back. When I got to the bottom, the dirt track followed a small creek.
It was hot, muggy, and very marshy. Mosquitos
were all around. The "path"
was barely a foot wide. As I rode
through the tall grass, my saddle bags would catch on both sides. The expression,. "You can't be serious!", kept coming to
mind. Several times I had to stop
in order to lift the bike over fallen
logs.
Eventually, I came to the foot of a
bridge, where a road crossed over the gully high above. Again there was a footpath leading up the steep
side. Now I had to struggle up the
slope, pushing the heavy bike and using the brakes to keep it from slipping
back. The road led over the creek and
into the Petticoat Creek Conservation Area.
I saw from the map that the paved road section would soon come to an end
and I was ready for a repeat of the mess I had just been through. Mercifully, though, a nice bike bike began
at the end of the road: Wide, well-groomed, and gravel.
I came out of the woods at the end of
some forgotten residential street, lined with old, shanty-like houses. I was
riding through a tiny, lost neighbourhood that time had passed by. I had came the moment of truth. At the end of the last street, the trail, including
steps, led up and over a rise. There was a sign that announced that the
Waterfront Trail ended at that poinrt, and would resume in 20km. My hope for a crossing was fading.
Yet people kept coming down the path from
over the rise, carrying lawn chairs and the like. I decided to climb up to the top, where I saw, to my delight, that
there was a a footbridge across the river mouth, just upstream from the
railroad bridge. All of the people I
had seen were coming from a parking lot on the far side, from Rouge River Park
in Scarborough.
Thus, I crossed into Toronto, by the
ultimate back way, at 13:00.
The beachfront park was very popular,
despite the fact that swimming was not allowed, on account of water pollution. An access road came down from the high ground at the far side, and
went along the inland side of the lakeshore railway embankment. Alongside the road was a marsh and lagoon,
along which many people were parked and were fishing. At the river was a larger parking lot, full of cars. The road
then curved out under the railway bridge, to come to an end on the beach side
of the railway embankment. At the beach
were a bathhouse and a cantina. There
were lifeguards, and lines of boats for rent.
The beach was packed with people.
I stopped at the beach, below the railway
bridge, and changed into my rain gear,
as the sky was beginning to look grey. As
I was changing, I kept hearing the
lifeguards blow their whistles and tell this or that group of kids not to go
near the water. It was almost surreal.
Scarborough, the first of the Toronto suburbs, and the location of the
Scarborough Bluffs. See 5.
Notes on Scarborough, in the Supplementary Notes section below, for more information.
I finished my rest, happy to have made it
to the Toronto milestone. As I sat, I studied the next map in my series, a
detailed Toronto street map from MapArt, to see how I should proceed. I found I
was right at the very end of Lawrence Avenue, which would lead me directly to
Kingston Road. Kingston Road was my
only way forward, as Scarborough had no through streets to the lakeward of that
busy boulevard. Since the bluffs above
the cliffs, the famous Scarborough
Bluffs, are nearly all parkland, it is hard to understand why the city
fathers could not have build a bikepath.
I surmised a distinct lack of will as the cause.
I rode on up the embankment from the park
and began riding along Lawrence Avenue.
For the first few blocks Lawrence avenue was a tiny road that ran
parallel to the rail line separating it from the lakeshore. At the Rouge Hill GO Station (Commuter Train), it
turned inland and became a straight-as-an-arrow, six-laned, urban
boulevard. It remained totally
residential, however. There were no
stores or businesses. The traffic was
moderate, and there was plenty of room for a cyclist.
I realized I must have been riding right
by the neighbourhood where my friend Bernie had once lived, in Centennial Park.
I stopped briefly on the bridge over
Danforth Park. As with many of Toronto's wilderness parks, this consisted
of a deep, tree-filled river valley, winding its way through disconnected
suburban islands. One could almost
think of these suburban clusters as the air sacks in the lungs, with their
streets being the air passages, leading to boulevards like Lawrence, and the
river park, being like the veins, washing each cluster, to carry away the
oxygen. After looking out for five
minutes or so, I continued on my way. I
was at Kingston Road by 13:45.
I turned left off of Lawrence onto
Kinston Road, using left-hand turn lane like the big cars. Kingston Road, being the main artery, was
much busier and much more commercial. It
was also a six-laned boulevard, but there was little in the way of shoulder. The cars gave me some problem.
I stopped at the corner of Eglington and
Kingston at 14:00. I was ready for
lunch and had been scoping out a nice spot.
I settled for the garden- like steps of this apartment complex. I settled myself in, my bike leaned up
against the ledge upon which I sat, and unpacked my cooler. I found that my cream cheese container had
leaked and the contents were totally waterlogged and inedible. I tossed that into the nearby
receptacle. I ended up having only some
crackers and cheese and grapes.
I resumed my trek at 14:15 and by 14:30 I
had passed by St. Clair Road. When I got to Cliffside Village, Kingston Road
started to look less suburban, as the streets became lined with small shops and
began to look quite trendy.
Not too much later, I came to the major interchange
at Danforth Avenue. Here I had to cross
to the left-hand lanes in order to stay on Kingston Road, and then there was
construction and only one lane could pass.
I felt bad for the cars behind me, but they were polite. As soon as I was able, I shifted over to the
newly completed sidewalks, so that the line of cars could get by me on the road.
Across the Toronto Waterfront, in history and neighbourhood descriptions..
See 6. Notes on Toronto, in the Supplementary Notes
section below, for more information.
I was at Victoria/Park at 15:00. It was called Park to the north of Kingston Road
and Victoria to the south. It was here
that the map showed I could go down once more to the shoreline and pick up the
Waterfront Trail, along a section of town
called the "Eastern Beaches".
I dropped down the steep slope along
Victoria, to the next street, and then
pulled over under the refuge of a large, shady tree. This served as a refuge from the rain, which
was just beginning. It was time to call
Sheryl.
She was just getting back onto the 401 at
Bathhurst, having had some adventures
of her own. I had given her directions
for two ways to cross Toronto: Via the 401 and 427 freeways, or via Kintston
Road and Queen Street. I had then
amended these directions so that she could pass by her school's office in
Toronto, at St. Clair, just west of Yonge Street. I had warned her, like the
warning given to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, that she must not stray from the
path. For I knew Toronto streets were
notorious for not going through. With
all the ravines cutting up the city into isolated neighbourhoods, a busy boulevard
can quickly become an isolated suburban cul-de-sac. Well, she had strayed from the path, and only after many false
starts had she found her way back up to the Bathhurst entrance to the 401.
I advised her to go ahead to Mississauga
and to find a place along Queensway Boulevard, near where the 427 joins the
QEW. I warned her, though, not to drive too far west, for I was only on a
bicycle. A short distance to her could
become quite a trek for me.
After finishing my phone call, I
continued down the steep, shady hill, amongst the older houses of the
"Beaches" neighbourhood. I
reached the end of Queen Street, which
at this point had very much the air of a quaint San Francisco
neighbourhood. I followed Queen Street
westward a few blocks, until I came to
a street that looked, from my map, like it would put me at the beach at the beginning
of the Waterfront Trail.
All I was going on, of course, was a
tiny, blue dotted line, on a very crowded section of the map. I could see from
my map a structure called "The
Boardwalk", and figured I would be cycling along that. Alas, I came down one street too early. Along this section were a number of streets
which dropped precipitously down the steep slope to the waterfront. Each was
lined with houses and came to a dead end. Once at the bottom, climbing back up would not be an attractive
option for a cyclist!
When I got to the bottom of the street,
and then hiked my bike down the remaining twenty feet of footpath, to the
beach, I found myself standing in the sand.
I could clearly see the boardwalk beginning one block further down the
beach. Rather than hike back up, I
decided to slog it through the deep sand.
While the rain was beginning to firm up the top of the sand, my tires
cut right through and buried themselves
four to six inches. It was slow
going.
When I finally did get to the Boardwalk,
though, the riding was pleasant. The rain pouring down was only a slight
distraction. In fact, it served to
clean the abrasive sand from all my chain and gears. I was riding by a very nice part of Toronto, one that I had never
seen before. Lakeward was a nice, sandy
and flat beach. Landward was a park,
and a number of beach buildings.
After a while on the Boardwalk, I noticed
a bike path running parallel, and so shifted over for smoother riding. I surmised, anyway, that bikes were probably
not permitted on the boardwalk section.
As the beach curved lakeward, out to a
point, the bike path cut across the head and came out at a small marina. I saw
that I was right by where the big Woodbine Race Track complex used to be. I had not even known that it was gone now,
replaced by suburban houses and malls. I
remember the Woodbine Race Track from my early trips out Queen Street on the
street car, with a friend of mine. We
would go to this local, working man's
bar in the early 80s, to take in the wet T-shirt contests.
I stopped briefly at the marina,
sheltered under a tree. The rain was
abating, but it was still very hazy.
As I continued, the Trail led me into the
Port Area. Given more time, I would
have followed the Trail out and around Toronto's Outer Harbour. At it was, it was already 15:30, and I still
had not made downtown Toronto. I saw
from the map that I could cut across the port on Commissioner's Street, and
meet up again with the marked Trail on the far side. Commissioner's Street was all industrial and all trucks. It was a run-down industrial area, with lots
of vacant, overgrown lots and lots of
closed factories. Every once in a
while, the tops of ships could be seen beyond the low buildings.
I came out, finally, at Cherry Street, at
the edge of the Inner Harbour. I could now
see the buildings of downtown Toronto quite clearly. Up along Cherry Street, I crossed over what was left of the Don
River on a metal drawbridge. The river
was little more than an industrial channel. I passed under the freeway, the Don
Valley Parkway, where it turns westward and becomes The Gardiner
Expressway. To my left, on the port
side, was an overgrown area inhabited by squatters. In among their tents and old camper trailers was a big sign that
read "Toronto's Tent City - Still Here".
See 6.
Notes on Toronto, in the Supplementary Notes section below, for more information on the
Tent City and on the Don River.
The bike trail became a painted lane
along Queen's Quay, as I rode in
towards the built-up hotel section.
I passed Parliament Street, the exit off
the Gardiner Expressway that I used to take in the early days when my friend
Bernie lived on Carleton Street. It was
16:00.
Five minutes later, at 16:05, I was at
the Harbourfront Centre hotel complex at the foot of Yonge Street. I was across from the new CBC building. The bike lane, though still painted on the
street, was totally ignored at this point by the buses and the taxis. Since I was facing oncoming traffic, I could
hardly swing out around these obstructions.
I had no choice but to go up onto the sidewalk, and I had to do this
gingerly, for the crowds of pedestrians were thick.
I stopped for a minute under the awning
of the hotel, to change my film, for it was still drizzling. I then took a few pictures. I saw the new streetcar line they had built since
I was last down in that area (in
December of 1992), and the cute way that the streetcars went underground
at Yonge Street. When I started going
along again, I walked my bike for a couple of blocks.
A little past the thickest area, I was
able to start riding again. I rode by
the CN tower and the Skydome at 16:15.
Then I was along a side street, passing by all the new waterfront condos
that had been built facing the Island Airport.
I watched a few STOL planes land, and a sailing ship make its way through
the channel into the Inner Harbour.
The Trail then took off into parkland for
a ways, before I found myself riding by Ontario Place at 16:45. Ontario Place had really changed! It was
much more built up than I had remembered it.
Where the old circular and open bandshell had been, where I had seen
Phylis Dyller back in the 70s, was now a big, covered grandstand.
Past Ontario Place and the Fairgrounds,
the bike trail went along the shoreline of the waterfront park, around the cove
of the "Western Beaches."
There was a concrete breakwater about 100 feet out, and then a beach and
a narrow park. I passed a lot of very
old fashioned beach buildings. It
looked like they had been built in the 20s and 30s. Landward were the four lanes of
Lakeshore Boulevard, paralleled by the six lanes of the Gardiner
Expressway, and then the commuter rail lines.
It was quite a busy section!
Behind the rail lines was a slope, on which advertising had been
"planted" in gardens. Atop the slope were residential neighbourhoods.
From my vantage point, where the whole
vista was laid out before me, I waited
in vain for what would have been a great photo, that of a GO train coming along to complete the
picture with all the traffic. I finally
took the shot without the train, and then one passed by only a few minutes
later.
At 17:00 I was even with Landsdowne.
As I came round to the Humber Bay Shores,
a peninsula jutting out into the Lake and sporting tall apartment buildings and
lots of parkland, I was intrigued by this beautiful, white pedestrian
bridge. The path went up over that
bridge, and I could look back on Toronto, now behind me.
Sheryl called and gave me the information
on the motel she had rented, Motel 5. It was in Etobicoke, along Queensway, and
just west of Kipling. Rather than drive west when she had gotton off the 427,
she had driven back eastward, in order to cut down on how far I would have to
go. How nice of her!
I had a choice. Just shy of the the Humber Bay Shores complex, I could have taken
Park Lawn Road and connected with the eastern end of Queensway, barely a couple
of blocks away at that point.
Thenceforth, the lakeshore dropped south and by the time I would get to
Kipling, I would be at least a mile from Queensway. Still, I was enjoying the lakeshore, and it looked by my map as
if the Waterfront Trail continued along the lake all the way to Humber College,
at the very foot of Kipling. I made my
choice, and continued along the lakeshore.
Alas, it was not to be. I crossed over the fancy bridge, and
whipped around the apartment buildings,
and by a fancy cove with brick-paved waterfront, only to have the trail come
out at Lakeshore Road. There was a sign
that indicated, "Waterfront Trail resumes in 2km". It was 17:30
Etobicoke is the westernmost of Toronto's suburbs. See 7.
Notes on Etobicoke, in the Supplementary Notes section below, for more information and
background on this Toronto Suburb.
That section of Lakeshore Boulevard was
rather quaint, like a New York neighbourhood.
This, too, was a new section of Toronto for me. It was called "Lakeshore Village"
and it looked very Polish. I passed
this huge waterfront mansion which was the Polish Consulate, with a big Polish
flag outside.
I rode along the busy, but much narrower
than before street. At 17:45 I was at
the foot of Islington, and by 18:00 I was at the foot of Kipling.
I turned right on Kipling and began my
climb up through the factory section of town.
It seemed to take a long time, but finally I came to the Gardiner
Expressway. I stopped in at a local gas
station to buy a detailed map of the next instalment, the MapArt city map of
Mississauga, Oakville, and Belleville.
Then I was up and over the freeway, coming down on the far side to meet
Queensway Boulevard.
Sheryl called once again, just as I was
at the corner of Queensway and Kipling, to inquire if I needed a "pick
up". I told her I would be by in
five minutes. I had only to climb up
and over a rail overpass, and the motel was right on the other side. I got in at around 18:30.
I parked the bike inside the room, then
quickly showered and changed, and we set out by car to find a place to
eat. Sheryl, in her wanderings, had
remembered places up East Mall Road. We
found nothing but light industries and shopping malls, so we crossed over the
427 and came down the west side along West Mall Road. There we came upon yet another Keg Restaurant. The previous day's
experience had been so good that we decided to give it another try. We each had the very same thing: Steak with portobello mushrooms.
We decided to have our coffee elsewhere
though. I asked at the cash how to find
a Chapter's, for I was sure one had to be somewhere in this "Mall
Land". One was very close, just
back on Queensway. We got a bit turned
around for a moment, going the wrong way, but we finally got there at
21:30. We had until 22:00 when they
closed, so we quickly had got our cafe au lait and carried them around with us
as we perused the sale books for a little "R&R".
On the way back to the motel, we spied
the restaurant where we could have our breakfast, a place called "The
Grille".
Daily
Report
According to a later, detailed study of
the kilometrage, based on map readings and my hourly log:
·
I travelled a forward (towards my goal) distance
of 81 km, for a total cumulative forward distance of 591 km.
·
Total distance travelled this day 90, for
a total distance travelled of 621 km.
·
I rode for 9 h 20, with an additional 0 h
45 in breaks, for a total of 10 h 05 on the road.
·
My average speed was 10 km/hr
[See the Kilometrage Study for details]