Days 4 and 5 Darlington to Presqu'ile to Kingston

What is it with Parks Canada? Here we are, 170-odd cyclists heading into Prince Edward Country and we can't travel along the Murray Canal, one of the prettiest pieces of waterfront on the lake.
Instead we have to take a longer route to Carrying Place, along County Road 64, which is hot, busy, doesn't have a good shoulder and is a long way from the water.
The reason being that the federal government owns the Murray Canal. I've ridden the roadway that runs along it twice, and it's been allowed to deteriorate so badly it has potholes you can lose your bike in.
Marlaine Koehler, executive director of the Waterfront Regeneration Trust and organizer of the Great Waterfront Trail Adventure, says she tried to get in touch with someone at Parks Canada who had authority over this stretch of trail. She failed dismally. And Marlaine isn't the type to be easily derailed; it takes a very determined bureaucracy.
"I spent months trying to find the right contact that takes care of the Murray Canal so that we could get it in shape in time for this," she said as we waited in line at the Glenora ferry. "I couldn't find the one person. I couldn't find the guy who could tell me yes, we can, or no, we can't and this is why. As late as last night I took my car out to see if by some miracle it was okay, and it wasn't. It was very disappointing."
So the Murray Canal - one of 40 priority projects Koehler has listed that are needed to complete the missing links in the Lake Ontario Waterfront Trail - prompted a last-minute change to our itinerary on Day 5. The public owns this lovely 5-kilometre stretch, edged by banks of honeysuckle and dogwood framing boats drifting lazily along the canal. We should be able to use it.
Well, we've had two very long days. I threw in the towel at around 80 k on Day 3, completed the 120 k on Day 4 (which included the hills east of Port Hope, that somehow didn't seem as steep and deadly as they had six years ago) and called it a day at 110 k on Day 5, getting a shuttle ride for the last 20k from Bath to Kingston.
Tour director Ian Lobb says that in his experience Day 4 or 5 are the most difficult and by Day 6, a whole new cyclist hits the road. We shall see.
Pat Blackman, who hails from West Virginia, where the Potomac and the Shenandoah meet, reckons that Day 3 is the worst. Pat has the experience to speak with authority. An elegant figure with her grey hair pulled back in a pony tail, she'll be 70 this year and she runs Seniors Cycling (old folks on spokes) from her home town of Loudon Heights. When she read about the GWTA, she called Ian. "I asked, do you need a sweep?" A sweep is the person who brings up the rear and makes sure no stragglers get left out in the cold. She was in.
Every age is represented among this group of riders, making the event feel like a family gathering. There's Carl Janzen, 76, a retired salesman from Puslinch, Ontario, who rides 5,000 k a year, mostly in Europe.
There's Jasper Heffernan-Wilker, who's two years old and rides on carrier seat behind his father Derek Heffernan, while sister Anna, 4, rides in tandem behind her mother Kathleen. The Ottawa family is out in force, with Derek's parents taking turns in riding the trail and driving support, and taking care of the children. Along for the ride are family friend Ron Arsenault (on a recumbent bike) with his son Zack, 13, from Fredericton.
Koehler says it can be a challenge attracting teenagers to cycling - they object to the clothes and the intensity - but there are quite a few on the GWTA. Just joining at the Presqu'ile Provincial Park campgrounds on Day 4 were Matthew McCarthey and his friend Alex MacPherson, both 13, both from Scarborough, who were supposed to ride just one day, but who put pressure on Matthew's mother Donna and friend Anna Sonderskov (along with daughter Katie, 10) to stay on the trip to the end. "Go for it,"Anna said. "It's going to kill us," said Donna, beaming from her bike.
Food has been an issue. Firstly, the vegetarian option appears to disappear east of Ajax, leaving some of us to fall back on the nuts and dried fruit we bring along for such emergencies. Then, there have been some meals that seemed lacking in the value-for-money department. The $15 a service club was charging seemed a little steep for beef on a bun and three salads and I got turned down when I tried to negotiate a deal for just the salads.
For a waterfront tour, there's a crying need for more waterfront east of Oshawa ( Oshawa's waterfront deserves its own blog entry, I'll do that after the tour).
Scarborough has improved immensely, with the trail running through quiet streets and for the most part avoiding busy Kingston Rd. , and then a final wonderful beach and trail put in by the Toronto Region Conservation Authority at Port Union. There are new stretches in Pickering that are very enticing, and Ajax gets top marks for having a seamless waterfront right of way across the whole municipality since 2006.
But since then we've generally been separated from the lake by lakefront property owners and agriculture and we've been riding country roads, all well and good in their way - but time done on a road is hard time, while time on a trail or even a road shaded by trees is a different matter entirely. If municipalities and the Ontario transportation department start planting trees along their roads now, the next generation of cyclists will be grateful.
We managed to actually get into the lake at Presqu'ile. We probably could have on other days (although many Lake Ontario beaches are unsafe due to pollution) but we were just too tired. Kingston Councillor Vicki Schmolka and her partner Gavin Anderson joined us for a dip. There's a lot of algae there, but pockets of weed-free water if you look. It was heavenly. Vicki is one of two municipal councillors who are riding end-to-end. Ajax Mayor Steve Parrish is the other.