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I ate almost a whole box of cereal for breakfast and was very reluctant to leave in the morning. I’ve been getting too used to sleeping in beds I think. When I finally left at 10 I still had to get groceries and then ask a little bit more at the info center about the route to Montreal.

My route is “La Route Vert” which essentially follows highway 148 with a few detours around towns. I didn’t take the detours because some of them were unpaved pathways. It was a mostly uneventful day and I eventually stopped at a campground. The campground had an entry in my GPS that was in the wrong location about 3km too early on the road. Before dinner I went for a swim in the river. Though it was so shallow that most of what I did was walking in water barely knee deep.

Today was yet another day off. They seem to be getting more and more frequent because I’m now getting to places I want to stop and see. It was raining in the morning and I almost decided not to bike today but fortunately it stopped and I did bike to downtown for breakfast. After breakfast I looked around for a bookstore but none of the used bookstores were going to be open today due to it being a holiday.

Eventually I headed to parliament hill to book a guided tour of the center block building. Luckily the timing worked out so that I could watch the changing of the guard ceremony on the lawn right before the tour without having to wait around long between. Both the ceremony and the tour were interesting. The inside of the building is quite amazing in all it’s detail.

After eating lunch downtown I went across the bridge to Hull, Quebec. My first stop was the information center where I got lots of tourist guides for the area between here and Montreal. Next was the Canadian Museum of Civilization where I spent several hours wandering through the exhibits about the native americans, the postal museum, Canadian history, and important Canadian people. Afterwards I headed back to the apartment to eat diner and watch DVDs all evening.

I talked with the other cyclists in the morning while packing so I could get an early start to get out of the campground before anyone noticed I hadn’t paid. My route this morning followed some very scenic areas along the Rideau Canal/River and I stopped at a couple lock sites along the way. At one of them I got to watch as the Parks Canada staff worked the hand operated locks for several small boats.

I had an early lunch at the Rideau River provincial park before biking into Ottawa to my friend’s apartment. When I got there I found he had a copy of “Frommer’s Ottawa” which I found useful in planning my stay here. After my planning I walked downtown for dinner and then to the parliament buildings where I wandered around the grounds. When it got dark I watched a sound and light show projected directly onto the front of the entire center block building which was quite impressive.

On my way back to the apartment I stopped to watch one of the buskers in the street (International Busker Festival was going on) and was picked from the crowd to hold one of several ropes anchoring a pole upon which the performer would stand. He was actually quite choosy and swapped a couple people out who he felt he couldn’t fully rely on while risking his safety. Once he was done I was finally able to continue walking back to the apartment.

We had a great breakfast of waffles topped with various fruits and I was in no hurry to leave this morning. I was waiting around for a friend of mine to pass through Kingston on her way from Ottawa to Toronto. Eventually I made my way downtown to have lunch in a park and continue waiting. When she finally arrived I got some mail sent to me from her as well as keys to an apartment in Ottawa that I could stay in.

I finally left Kingston around 2:00 and rode along highway 2 until Gananoque where I followed the 1000 Islands Parkway. There was a paved bike route on the left side of the road but I decided to stay on the road anyways because the road was in better condition and it gave a better view of the river on the right.

I stopped to eat dinner at the St. Lawrence Islands national park around 5:30 before getting back on the road to head north. I decided to pass up on one campsite I saw to make today a long day instead of tomorrow heading into Ottawa. Unfortunately I didn’t time sundown very well and it eventually became dark before I got to a campsite at 9:30. I did have enough lights and reflective surfaces that I was able to ride in the dark anyways and the cool night air was a welcome change after the heat of the last few days.

When I got to the campground in Merrickville it was already closed but I came across a person near the managers office who told me that the site next to them was empty and should just take it and pay in the morning. He and his girlfriend happened to be cyclists biking from Ottawa to Kingston.

It was another warm day at almost 30ºC by 10:15 when I left the campground this morning. I followed the waterfront trail out of Cobourg. It follows side roads but I would hardly consider it to waterfront. I hardly saw the water at all. It is just named that because it roughly follows the edge of the lake the whole way.

I left that route in Brighton where I had lunch and stuck to highway 2 the rest of the way to Belleville. I had a break at Dairy Queen before deciding I was going to continue on to Nepanee. Ten minutes later on the road I decided I would make it all the way to Kingston where I could stay with my Aunt’s sister. This made for a long day since it was already just past 4:00 and Kingston was 75km away. I called ahead from Nepanee to let her know I was going to make it there tonight and got there around 7:00.

I woke early and lazily packed before eventually having to wake my friend to disable the alarm so I could leave. There was record heat today in Toronto that I wish I didn’t have to go out into: 35ºC (feeling over 40ºC with the humidity). Throughout the day I stopped in several Tim Hortons for the air conditioning. Another brief moment of cooling down was when I got sprayed by the water gushing across the street from a burst fire hydrant.

Leaving the city, highway 2 was very busy all the way to Oshawa. The Greater Toronto area is just huge. Eventually the highway became more of a quiet country road at least. I went through Port Hope and picked up the waterfront trail which supposedly started much earlier but I stayed off it because it detoured towards and away from the water too much and I wanted the straighter route.

I stayed at an expensive trailer park in the city of Cobourg. The upside was that it was right on Lake Ontario and I got to go for a swim after dinner. I’ve now swam in three of the five great lakes. The other two weren’t on my route.

Today was the first day since I’ve left that I haven’t biked. I woke up much earlier than my friend and spent the morning on her computer updating my blog while watching TV. In the afternoon we took the subway downtown so she could go to a class while I wandered around. Walking is so much slower than biking around a city but it was so warm out that I didn’t want to bike in the heat to get to downtown.