Another early morning! I'm getting used to this. Plus, another day of dreadful predictions with a 70% chance of rain . . . but no rain. In fact, we woke to sunshine and blue skies. And didn't see any threatening rain-type clouds until mid-afternoon. I will say, we occasionally felt a drop here and there, but nothing to make me stop and debate what to do. I continued cycling, and it disappeared. So we've been lucky now two days in a row. I will say it rained quite heavily last evening as we went to dinner, but we had hotel umbrellas to keep us dry. And tonight looked threatening as well, but we have lenders here as well. We'll see about tomorrow.
The waterfront fountain in Kingston's town square.
So, all that said, the day started out well. Although the promise of a lakeside trail never materialized. It was more like a lakeside route! Getting out of town was easy, even with some construction we had to navigate, but the expectation of a "trail" became the reality of a bike lane and/or shoulder on Ontario Highway 33, also known as Loyalist Parkway. The area is rife with references to loyalists who left (mostly) New York to seek refuge in then British Canada. And they seem to be very proud of this part of their heritage!
Our route today was mostly on bike lanes and/or roadway shoulders.
The other observation was that, being a lake road, traffic was a bit heavy for the first 15-18 miles. And that part of the road had a heavy dose of industrial use, being near a major waterway as it is. But that pretty much disappeared after we passed through Bath, ON and the predominant land usage became agricultural . . . all the way to the ferry to The County, as the island of Prince Edward County is known.
Eventually, it all became agricultural. Fields and fields of . . . soybean, maybe?
The ferry is known as the Glenora Ferry, and it takes you to Glenora, there being no town on the mainland side. At the time of my arrival, the ferry was on a 15-minute schedule and was just pulling away as I rode into the queue line, which now consisted of only me. But cars started showing up soon enough, and so did Jerry . . . just as they finished loading the new arrivals and were ready to take me! To our advantage, I guess, bicycles and pedestrians load last on this ferry, so Jerry and I crossed together.
On this ferry, cars board first, which allowed Jerry to catch up. I saw him in the distance as the last car was loaded. Canadians are so nice, they probably would have waited anyway, but he made it!
Though the ferry is named for a loyalist (I believe), this M.V. is named after the Bay of Quinte, "a long, narrow bay shaped like the letter "Z" on the northern shore of Lake Ontario."
But it was a short crossing, about 1/2 mile, enough time to eat a banana and take some pictures. On the far side, we rested for a bit before tackling the climb up from the ferry port and the ride to Picton, another loyalist stronghold. The town's slogan? "A Proud Loyalist Town."
And just so you don't forget, Picton's welcome sign.
Aside from that, Picton is a nice town, although we heard a rumor in Kingston that it was the center of a Hell's Angels cocaine racket at one time. Nothing we saw resembled that. It seemed artsy and foodievilleish. And from there, it was an easy ten miles to Wellington and our B&B for the night. I was in by 3:30; Jerry lingered here and there and arrived at about 4:30. We have delightful hosts and had a delightful dinner in town.
