Day 45 / August 15, 2017 – Ottawa, ON to Montreal, QC

I made a huge mistake. Those were the words running through my head most of this morning as I decided to make the long leap from Ottawa to Montreal. The distance was estimated to be around 220 km and there was a band of active weather approaching. This was not a winning combination.

I left the comfort of the Andrews at a reasonable time and under good conditions. You’d never guess that, at that exact moment, Montreal was being pummelled with thunderstorms. It was slow going through the city centre, but there were no surprises there. This is the way it is in most major cities. Ottawa was teeming with tourists (myself included). After snapping some customary photos at Parliament and passing the Byward Market, I connected to the bike path on Sussex Drive, past a long line of embassies and JT’s house. Again no sign of Justin. The path wound its way to the wealthy Rockcliffe neighbourhood. I stayed on the quiet Georges Étienne Cartier “Highway”, a quiet route along the Ottawa River. It was fast moving for me with hardly any vehicular traffic. The day was starting out well.

A rare moment when the bus loads of tourists cleared away from the Canada 150 sign.

Day 44 / August 14, 2017 – Kingston, ON to Ottawa, ON

When I was traveling through Tobermory, you may remember me saying that the shortest route was not necessarily the fastest. Today, I faced a similar decision. I planned out the rest of my route to Halifax and I’m now on a tighter timeline, so my plan had me heading from Kingston to Ottawa in one day. Maybe that was a bit lofty, but if you’ve already read the title, you know that I made it. The choice was to beeline for Ottawa through country roads or to continue on the Waterfront Trail to Brockville and then head north through a different mess of country roads. The second option would add nearly 30 km to an already long day. I was waffling until I received an email from Liz and Jan who were now a day ahead of me. They had glowing things to say about the stretch of Waterfront Trail from Kingston to a small town called Ivy League.

This was what most of the first half of the day looked like. Not a bad start to the day.