2024-08-25: Owen Sound to Ottawa

After our late night charging into the night the 100 km (60 miles) from the ferry landing at Tobermory, Ontario to Owen Sound, we had a nice night’s sleep at our motel. We woke up, and I sought out a good breakfast spot about an hour up the road. The day’s journey was to be a reasonably long one, the goal was to make it to our final destination, Ottawa, Ontario a journey of about 570 km (350 miles). I fired up Google Maps and scouted for breakfast spots around Collingwood and Wasaga Beach and found a spot about 90 km (55 miles) away in Stayner, Ontario.

We packed up the room, and loaded up the bikes and were on the road by about 8:30. Everyone was still a bit tired, and eager for coffee as we rode along through small, quaint Ontario towns and nearby the shores of Georgian Bay. I pointed out the mountains off in the distance, recognizing them as the Blue Mountains, next to Collingwood and the rough distance to the breakfast spot. The Blue Mountains are a major ski destination for folks from the Toronto area that I’d visited long ago when I spent a winter living in Southern Ontario.

We continued riding through Collingwood and back out into the countryside on highway 26 before coming upon Charlie’s Diner in the next town. There was a lineup of people waiting – a good sign – but it was moving pretty quickly. We were seated after only about five minutes and found a menu with many mentions of “peameal”, something The Captain had many questions about. “Peameal” in this case was referring to peameal bacon, which is the authentic version of bacon that Americans might be familiar with as “Canadian bacon”. While they are kind of similar, authentic peameal bacon is less like ham as Canadian bacon tends to be, and more like a thicker cut of back bacon that’s covered in peameal before being sliced into medalions and fried up. It’s not as common to find peameal bacon at a breakfast spot in Canada as it is to find Canadian bacon on the menu of an American breakfast place, so we each ordered some with our meals.

As we dined, more and more motorcycle riders arrived, including a group on an extended weekend ride out of Ottawa, most on Harley-Davidsons but with one rider on a beautifully refurbished 1980s Honda CB1100. We chatted with the group as we both got ready to hit the road again, and they marveled at The Captain’s riding ability for riding all the way to Ontario from San Francisco.

After breakfast, we continued riding East, and made our way to Orillia, Ontario where we decided to head downtown to take a rest stop. We found a beautiful downtown waterfront park and posted up to watch the weekend activities on the water of Lake Simcoe.

After our break, we turned North to head out of town and made our way out onto the very busy highway 11 to make our way to Huntsville and the center of Ontario cottage country. The highway reminded me of an even more dangerous version of CA-99, both with the heavy traffic and with the old, substandard intersections and interchanges. Traffic was also hurtling along at 120km/h (75 mph) with the 90km/h (55 mph) speed limit. The sign marking the town line for Huntsville couldn’t come soon enough as we all wanted to get off the road. But the sign came and went, but we kept riding and riding for at least another 30 km (20 miles) before the exit to the town center came. Typical Ontario style for the town to have amalgamated all the surrounding countryside into one massive municipality.

By this point, the lack of sleep and warm temperatures were starting to catch up with us and we were starting to get a bit drowsy. Chris found a local coffee shop right in picturesque downtown Huntsville and we stopped in to grab some coffee. Afterward, we walked down to the waterfront and sat watching the hive of activity right behind all the shops of downtown.

Still with nearly 300km (200 miles) to go, we unfortunately had to leave before taking it all in, but the nice thing was that the ride from here on was to be a much nicer one East on highway 60 through Algonquin Provincial Park. Algonquin Park was the first provincial park in Canada, and remains the largest in Ontario. It covers a massive area of Central Ontario, and is famous for it’s wilderness back-country camping and canoeing routes through its chains of lakes and rivers. Highway 60 crosses the entire park near its southern boundary, and was gorgeous with its rugged Canadian shield rocks, lakes and swamps. After about an hour, we stopped in at the Algonquin Park visitors’ centre for a rest and to learn some about the park.

Back out onto highway 60, and after another thirty minutes we were making our way down out of the highlands, and the land began to flatten out. We were now getting very close to my and my brother’s familiar stomping grounds in Eastern Ontario.

Chris and I suggested that we stop for dinner in Eganville, Ontario at The Grainery, a spot my brother and I used to frequent when our uncle used to live in Eganville, that specialized in homemade schnitzel. The restaurant was packed, and of course The Captain ordered the biggest schnitzel on the menu. We all ate our fill, and by the time we were done it twilight was starting to set in outside.

With only 150 km (90 miles) to go, we jumped on the bikes and rode down the rest of highway 60 into Renfrew, Ontario and then onto highway 17 and then as the it divided highway 417 as darkness fell.

With all the week’s riding catching up to us, The Captain wanted a break after only 60 km (45 miles), so we stopped off in Arnprior, Ontario. The Captain picked up some Tim Hortons donuts for the morning’s breakfast and after saluting each other on wrapping up the ride, we saddled up for the final stint of the transcontinental journey. My brother Chris made the decision to skip riding the highway into the city, and decided that we’d take the country roads right into his suburb in the south of Ottawa. Off we went.

Just as we left Arnprior, we crossed into the official bounds of the City of Ottawa. However, as The Captain will describe, that didn’t mean that we were anywhere near the city, we had nearly 50 km (30 miles) of woods to traverse before even getting to the edge of the suburbs. Some of the roads were bumpy, some had well-painted lines and others didn’t, but all were so dark that there was nothing to do but try to keep our bikes on the pavement. Traffic didn’t pick up until we were right into the suburbs, and after a few anxious suburban blocks, we finally pulled into my brother’s condo’s parking lot around 10:00pm.

With that, we’d done it! From San Francisco, California to Ottawa, Ontario, a distance of over 4800 km (3000 miles) over nine days. From power failures to motel booking failures, there were trials and tribulations and a good amount of Type 2 fun along the way. It’d been a great trip, with lots of sights, sounds, food and memories. Thanks to The Captain for being a great riding partner, and my brother Chris for being up to join us for what I think were the two longest days of riding he’d done before. Now it’s time to unpack the bike and not pack it back up for at least two weeks! Then it was off to bed, both Chris and I need to work in the morning!