Cycling trip - Day 5

Aug. 20th
Cozy Cove (Trudeau Park) to Silver Lake

The day started with some sweet sleep and we awoke to the sounds of crows and woodpeckers. We had a good campfire last night with hot chocolate and marshmallows (and a combination of sugared peanuts and soft! chocolate raisins). The showers of Trudeau Park were public pool style showers that were the size of a ballroom all to ourselves.

We did decide to take the 'rail trail' because it was the Trans-Canada Trail and S had been led to believe that it was entirely wheelchair accessible - it definitely was not! The quality of the trail varied from good to crap. The good part was almost like tarmac; the crap parts were sharp, chunky, loose granite. The condition of the rest of the trail was somewhere in between the two extremes. It was very beautiful too with lots of water and marshes.

"Hey would you see beavers in this kind of area," asks P.
S replies, "If you're really patient."

Less than a minute later.

"What's that?" asks P.
Answer, "That, that's a beaver dam."
And it went right across the trail and soaked our shoes.

Strange encounter: At one point a truck started honking at us and a local guy drove up behind us onto the rail trail offering the use of his private beach and cabin. Maybe it was just weird because he was the first person we'd seen in hours.

We've re-named Sharbot Lake 'Sore-butt Lake' but we're pleased that their hardware store did have a new bulb for P's Mac torch. We REALLY didn't like Highway #7 - 3 trucks tried to drive us off the side of the road, so we rode on the gravel shoulder for several kms. Compared to the rail trail it was pretty good. Upon arrival at Silver Lake P enjoyed fries and mayo, S had cotton candy & cherry cheesecake flavoured ice cream.

We're very pleased to make use of Provincial Park facilities (come visit with us here). The tent is up, the food pack rope* is up the tree, our clothes have been washed and we hope to be in Ottawa tomorrow.

According to Sigmund we did 81 km in 5hrs 10min.

* with bears and raccoons in the area we had to keep all food and scented items out of our tent... however everyone else just puts this stuff in their car trunk (boot). So instead we hung our stuff in the saddlebags from a tree.