Week 0: Toronto, ON to Ottawa, ON via Lantier, QC

I know… only a programmer would start the series at 0! But our story starts on a Tuesday, so you can’t count it as a whole week.

Tuesday, June 24

Toronto

Finally finished packing up the house at 6pm, six hours after our planned departure time. Needless to say, we did not have time for one final picture before leaving. I did take one earlier of the back yard for posterity:

Toronto 1

Fortunately the new owners of house were out of the country and not in a rush to move in.

Ingleside

It was dark by the time we got to our first boondock at the Ingleside Walking Path parking lot.

Wednesday, June 25

Ingleside

We were not expecting much when we woke up

Ingleside 1

but were pleasantly surprised by what was a few steps away:

Ingleside 2 Ingleside 3

which made us wish that we could have departed closer to the planned time.

The Challenge

Generally, for this trip, we are planning our destinations only a few days in advance so that we do not feel tied to a schedule. However, the first few days were planned to be spent in the Laurentians with our niece Laura. In fact, Laura and Gail did quite a bit of planning.

Since Laura did not have any independent means of getting from Montreal to Sainte-Adèle, we faced a bit of a challenge because Sleepy Hollow cannot accomodate a third passenger owing to the lack of a third seat belt. Fortunately, Henry volunteered to ride his e-bicycle to Sainte-Adèle. Hence Henry and Gail’s stories diverge for today.

Kirkland to Sainte-Adèle on an e-Bike (Henry)

Henry’s route took him from Dollard-des-Ormeaux to Île Bizard to Laval across the river on to the P’tit Train du Nord up to Sainte-Adèle (km -24 to 25.5):

*click on the map to see more details

The trip included a ride on the ferry from Île Bizard to Laval:

The ride is really nice: there’s lots of shade and it’s very smooth: Ptit Train du Nord 1

What better place to stop for lunch than at a Cabane à Sucre: Ptit Train du Nord 2

We also need to learn about the history of the P’tit Train du Nord: Ptit Train du Nord 3

The trail runs along the Rivière-du-Nord: Ptit Train du Nord 4 where Henry took the opportunity to cool off in the river: Ptit Train du Nord 5 as have many others over many years: Ptit Train du Nord 6

In many places the river is quite calm and provides an opportunity for a little bit of skinny dipping: Ptit Train du Nord 7

After 80km of riding mostly uphill, Henry had 15% left of battery charge to make it another 4km to the hotel where he was to meet Gail and Laura. However, the big uphill to Sainte-Adèle completely used up the rest of the charge. With less than 3km to go, he decided to ride the rest of the way without battery assist, but after riding 50m on a sligh uphill, he realized that he was not going to be able to complete the rest of the ride (which mostly was slightly uphill) without battery assist. After all, he had put as much (or more) energy as the battery to get this far. Reluctantly, he called for his support team, who had just put on her swim suit, to bring him the battery from Gail’s bike. Henry completed the ride in “Turbo mode” (which provides the most amount of assist) in order to get into that pool and cool off as quickly as possible;-)

Montreal to Sainte-Adèle in the Van (Gail and Laura)

After visiting her mom, and picking up Laura, Gail drove the less interesting way up the Laurentian Autoroute to Sainte-Adèle stopping for a boxed lunch at Parc du Saint-Jérôme . Unfortunately, the huge swarms of bugs destroyed all of the pictures… at least that’s the story they told Henry. Regardless, there are no relics from this part of the journey.