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Published: June 18th 2018
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Deep River to Hawkesbury
Deep River is famous for being the place where Canada's nuclear industry started and Chalk river has a reactor that produces
medical isotopes. I pedalled through these towns after high tailing it out of buggy old Ryan's gifts and camping. Signs appeared
warning of slow moving troop vehicles. CFB Petawawa was next up. Over the fence there was a sandy road where camo painted Humvees with
heavy machine guns were raising dust clouds as they raced along. Our Canadian army training - perhaps they were getting ready to go
peacekeeping in Mali. The base seems like it is pretty big. I never did see the town as the highway bypasses it completely. The highway
was flatter and therefore easier to ride but the 1 foot wide paved shoulder had been turned into a rumble strip. These are a super good
method to warn drivers, but in this case they leave cyclists no where to ride other than the white line. Farm fields were replacing the
pine forests and some of the farm houses and barns looked to be hundreds of years old. The traffic got heavier and
heavier the closer
I got to Ottawa and I finally reached my limit. At Haley Station I left 17 and went on a backroad that the map said would take me to
our campground just north of Renfrew. I had pedalled for about an hour after leaving the highway and had to turn down one more road to
reach my destination - which was just minutes away. The entrance was blocked by a barricade and there was a detour sign. After consulting
my map I realized the detour would essentially take me back to where I had just come from. So I rode around the barricade and I soon got
to a place where a work crew was replacing culverts. They had the whole road dug up, but when I pled my case,
they kindly let me carry my bike through the deep trench they had excavated. The Serenity Hills campground was just around the corner and
that is where Michele was waiting for me beside our little home away from home. And she was playing a ukelele.
The objective for the next day was Vars, a little community to
the southeast of Ottawa. As you might have noticed, this tour of Canada is
not about seeing the traditional high points - perhaps we will visit Parliament hill on our way back, when we are both in the car -
the journey east is about riding the bike and finding each other at the end of the day and seeing what we pass by and getting to know the
people we meet. In Vars live Caroline and Sean Follis and their children, Finnegan and Mabel. Caroline is the daughter of our very favourite
neighbors in Dryden: Frank and Elaine Morris. We have known Caroline since she was a little girl and we were looking forward to visiting her.
To avoid the traffic of Ottawa, we plotted a course that first took us along the Ottawa river to Arnprior and then
southeast along county highway #3 and then after a 90 degree turn, along county highways #10 and #8. The hypotenuse of this right angle was
the 417, and neither Michele or I was willing to take this option (not to mention that cycling is not allowed on any 400 highway). The route
took us through rich farming country and it was blessedly free of traffic. My map referenced the routes with numbers, with no mention of names.
Signage wasn't great and I began to wonder if I had gone to far. I stopped and asked two ladies who were planting flowers in their front yard
how far to #10. They didn't know what that was, but after several minutes of discussion and looking at my map, they decided I must mean Franktown
road. "How far is that," I enquired. "Oh, it's pretty far," they not so helpfully responded. At least I knew I hadn't gone past the junction, so
I kept plugging away till I got there. Michele passed me about that point and went on to Vars. It took me till 4 pm to reach there - a long day
of about 135 km. But a good day. Finnegan, who is 11, rode his bike to the edge of Vars to wait for me. He greeted me like we were old friends
and showed me the back way to his house. So we snuck up on Michele and Caroline who were expecting me from the
other direction. Even though
everybody in that household is living a full schedule of work and school, they welcomed us with open arms - fed us a delicious dinner,
gave us a comfy bed for the night (Finn gave up his room for us). We talked politics with Finn - who is well versed in both provincial and
Federal issues - and Mabel showed us how she can balance a book on an egg. Sean helped me plan the next day's trip. It was a real treat stay
ing with this lovely family in their beautiful home (which is over a hundred years old). Thank you Follis family
Sean helped me find a route to Van Kleek Hill. He said from there we could go either north or south to enter Quebec. To the north was Hawkesbury
and a bridge over the Ottawa River. To the south we could cross the St. Lawrence at Salaberry de Valleyfield. We preferred the southern option
because it avoided going through Montreal. Also we wanted to visit Bedford in the eastern townships - it is the place where the Cosletts first
settled when they
emigrated from Wales in the 1840s. I made good time riding the 75 or 80 km to VanKleek Hill, arriving just in time for lunch
with Michele. The picturesque little town brands itself "Canada's Gingerbread Capital" not because of the baking skills of the populace, but
because there are so many homes and buildings with ornately carved "gingerbread" style fascia and trimmings. As we walked around town
admiring all this wonderful old architecture, black clouds began to fill the sky. We asked someone where the nearest motel was, as we had no desire
to set the tent up in the rain. There were only expensive B and B's in town and the closest motel was in Hawkesbury. So the weather had changed
our plans for us; we would go to Quebec through Hawkesbury. Michele went ahead to get us a room while I followed as fast as I could, just in front
of the rain. And that is how I ended up snug in Stephanie's Motel trying to make my unwieldy fingers hit the right frets on my Ukelele, while
the rain bucketed down outside.
Ah, yes, the ukeleles. Two
days before, when Michele was shopping in Renfrew and feeling kind of blue and far from home, she asked the universe
to send her a clue that she was on the right track. She turned her head and there before her was a sign that read "Mill Music". So she went in
and found the two ukeleles for which she had been looking.
Next time: we survive a wild drive through Montreal, we visit some long dead Cosletts and we find out just how unilingual we are.
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Judy Powell
non-member comment
So glad to hear you survived Montreal!
Can’t wait to hear the details but for some reason I was particularly worried about you getting through Montreal. We had a wild time driving through it in a late spring snowstorm 42 years ago coming back from Newfoundland so no doubt that has coloured my perceptions. You are both doing so well, very proud of you and can’t wait for a ukulele concert this summer. Xoxo