The night’s sleep at Poonamalie Lockstation, just outside Smiths Falls turned out to be very broken at-best. The overnight temperature seemed to never fall below 20°C (70°F). It was hot enough that I never used my sleeping bag at all. Also overnight, a substantial thunderstorm rolled through and Chris and I found out the the 10-year old tent I’d brought was definitely not waterproof anymore! After some cursing and grumbling as we were dripped on, we did our best to sleep as the sun started coming up in the morning.
When we finally awoke, a bit damper than we’d like, we also found out that the lockstation’s facilities weren’t going to open until the lock-keepers came on-duty at 9:00am. With us having arrived completely out of water, this meant we couldn’t even start breakfast until 9:00am. This, combined with our tent, and other camping gear being quite wet from the early-morning thunderstorm meant we were going to have a late start.
While at dinner, the night before, we’d asked our server if there was any swimming at the lockstation, and she mentioned there was great swimming. While we were waiting for the facilities to open, Chris and I set off down the gravel road along the canal to find the swimming hole. After Chris walked barefoot down the sharp gravel road, we found there was only a muddy boat launch at the end. With no swimming holes that we could find, we resigned ourselves to the fact that it was going to be a grungy, maybe even stinky ride this day.
By the time we returned to camp, the facilities had opened, and we got to making some breakfast. Oatmeal, with peaches and some nice coffee got us going. Afterwards we started to break down the tents and laid them and our sleeping gear out in the sun to dry.
Dishes were done, and the food was packed back up before we started on packing our still-wet camping gear. Before we knew it, it was already after 11:00am, starting to get quite hot, and we still hadn’t set out for the day! This got me pretty worked up, and I barked at the group to get a move on.
By about 11:30am, we were all packed up and biking up Poonamalie Rd. back up to highway 15 where we continued our journey south. The highway was somewhat busy and didn’t have more than 12″ of pavement past the painted guide line on the edge of the road. Ilya and Alina especially did not enjoy the traffic passing by so fast and close. When Google Maps’ directions had us divert toward the Cataraqui Trail, they were happy to hear it.
I’d done some research on the Cataraqui Trail before the trip, and their description of the trail did not give me confidence that it would be an improvement over the highway. The described less that 10% of the trail as “suitable for biking”. When we arrived to the trail, we saw why. What had at one point been a railway line was now overgrown to be less than a fire road and more like twin-singletrack trails running in parallel. On seeing this trail, we decided we’d stick it out on the highway instead.
By this point, it was getting on towards 12:30, and I was starting to get very hot and pretty hungry. I knew highway 15 ran along several lakes in this area and was hoping to hold out until we got to a nice lakeside stopping point. As luck would have it, we came up to Otter Lake, and found a nice boat launch park with a tiny beach and picnic area! What a spot!
Chris and I both jumped in the water with all our biking gear on. Ilya and Alina took a more conservative wade into the water, but everyone enjoyed the cool, refreshing water all the same. After our quick swim, it was lunch of tuna-salsa burritos with peaches for dessert.
Reluctantly, it was time to leave our waterside picnic and continue. By this point, it was nearly 1:30pm, and we’d covered less than 20km. With 96km to do for the day, we still had a lot ahead of us, and it was only getting hotter and more humid as the day wore on.
After some more time on the highway, we came to a full closure for construction, with a detour that sent us out to Newboyne, Ontario on some very narrow, twisting roads with easily 10x the traffic that they’d normally carry. Without any shoulder whatsoever, there was not enough room for cars to pass our group in several places. Although there was a fun hill to go down toward the end of the detour, I think we were all happy to see the highway again when we reached it.
Continuing on our way, we reached the town of Portland, Ontario. There was a pretty serious hill on the edge of town leaving Portland, and Chris made the executive decision to stop just before the hill when he saw a sign for ice cream. Great decision all around, but it was made only after Ilya had decided that he didn’t want to stop until he made it to the top of the hill. Zooming away, he must not have heard tell of ice cream at the foot of the hill!
A tasty freezie in me, and 4L of new water for Chris from the strange little grocery store, and we were back on our way, chugging up the hill to find Ilya waiting at the top at a gas station. Ilya went in for some water of his own, only his was refrigerated, and we were back on our way.
We went through Crosby and Elgin, Ontario on the highway before starting to look for an alternative route to get us off of the busy road. Looking for alternatives, we found a route that would take us on what appeared to be a more direct route to Kingston via Jones Falls Rd. (Kingston County Rd 11) through (of all place names!) California, Ontario.
Soon after turning onto Franks Rd. to take this route, I felt an awful pop in my knee, and was in a lot of pain. Luckily, Alina had packed some extra-strength Ibuprofen, and after taking a pill it had my knee pain under control in a few minutes.
Jones Falls road was much more interesting than the highway. It was twistier and hillier than the highway had been, and the bridge we went over the Rideau River on spanned what appeared to be a gorge was beautiful. With far less traffic as well, we were having a much nicer time.
Eventually, though the undulating landscape and the heat really started taking their toll. We were all getting quite tired, and I was feeling the weight of pedaling my bike up those hills over and over again. My bike was nearly 30 lbs heavier than the others being steel, and the only one of the four with front panniers and the big handlebar bag. Breaks were needed frequently for water, peaches and energy chews all around.
We made another stop at the corner store in Battersea, Ontario for cold refreshments before continuing.
Eventually, we came to a much larger downhill with a great vista out on to lower lands. We zoomed down the hill, and when we reached the bottom, found that there was a nice, cool, steady breeze coming from the southwest. This must have been the lake breeze from Lake Ontario! We were getting close to Kingston!
Despite seeming like a plain, the road still had several substantial hills left. Along the way, while climbing up one of the larger ones, Chris and Alina found a church with a sign out front they had some thoughts on.
A few miles down the road, we finally made it to the Kingston city limit, and not a moment to soon. I was absolutely knackered!
We still had some distance to go before making it into the city proper and to our Airbnb. It was just about all I could do to pedal the city streets at 12km/h on our way through the city.
When we eventually pulled up, there was glorious central air conditioning, showers, and beds waiting. Chris and I went off to grab some beers from the LCBO while Ilya and Alina had showers. When Chris and I returned to order pizza, Ilya and Alina went off themselves for bubble tea and The Works burgers.
We all were in bed by 11:30, well worn out from the hard day of cycling, and ready to take our rest day to explore Kingston tomorrow.