Thursday, August 13, 2009

Fast forward to Halifax!

WE MADE IT !!!!
YEHAW!
Larissa and I are currently resting our legs in Halifax, Nova Scotia after a gruelling month long journey!
What a journey it was!
We realize we left a rather sizeable gap in our blog entries but fatigue, adventure and lack of access kept us from adding regular posts.
Rather then try to enter all the details in full form, i'll list off all of our stops and interesting events in point form to speed things up.

Day 10: Terrebonne to trois rivieres (almost 140km!) - Awoken by park ranger saying we were lucky that security didn't fine us for sleeping in the park (he was rather happy no one bothered us though, he seemed to support our trip). Bike through Celine Dion's hometown (charlemagne!). One of the longest days of the trip, got lost in Trois Rivieres late at night, meet up with Sebastien and Nathalie from couch surfing.com.
They are fantastic hosts with lots of charisma and great stories to share, not to mention wild dance dance revolutionists!

DAy 11: A late start saw us leave later and plan for a shorter distance on this day. We stopped at a small local vegetable stand and purchased some corn on the cob with the husk to cook over an open fire. Cycled to Sainte Genevieve de la batiscan and camped in a sub par campground but really made it our own. The corn experiment had mixed results: Sean noticed that the cobs were turning into ash and suggested that perhaps it was the right time to remove them from the flame, larissa thought they needed a few more minutes. mmmm...black stuff.

Day 12: RAIN! We had certainly been lucky up to this point considering the minimal amount of rain that we had to deal with, but we more then made up for it this day.
It rained from the second we left our tent until we went to bed that night. We were meeting good friends in St Catherine de la jacques Cartier and had to bike quite the distance through the horrible rain and head winds. Larissa was also feeling quite bad on this day and really showed her toughness. We got our first taste of the mountains that quebec would have to offer us as we biked through the northern back roads to get to the small town. We also snapped some shots of some cute yacks just yackin' it up. Yeehaw!

More will be comming soon

Monday, July 27, 2009

Days 5-8. Boathouses and womens shorts

Day 5 saw us leaving kingston and heading into the 1 000 islands area.
We rode the highway 2 into Gananoqua which, apart from having a cool-ass name, is also a beautiful artist town complete with huge arches announcing your arrival and departure from the township. The road quickly split off into the 1000islands parkway which had a bicycle path, separate from the road, the whole length!
Yehaw!
We had planned to stay in the 1000 islands national park but once arrived realized that the park closed earlier then we suspected. It also became apparent to us that the office was far from any actual camping and was only to be used as a day camp area.
Locals started explaining all kinds of different places to camp that seemed way too far or way too sketchy.
Tired and hungry, we were ready to just pitch our tent in a corner of the day park and make a meal until a couple offered for us to pitch a tent on their house boat!
Thanks Monique and Mike!
In the end we realized that pitching our tent in the lawn in front of their house boat was pretty much the same thing so we chose to do that instead to give both parties more space.

Day6: Got up early, packed up the tent and headed east!
We stopped in brockville for a quick breakfast where we were challenged for a bicycle hiding spot by a terrifying humongus snake!
Cleverly, Larissa shrieked a high pitch yell that seemed ideal for scaring slithery critters away and the day was saved!
hurrah!
Also important to note, Sean realized that his cycling shorts never really fit him properly and actually covered no part of his bottom. Larissa inspected them more closely and revealed to him that he had been riding in womens shorts. To avoid some pain and embarrassment Sean picked up some better fitting shamois-pants at the local bike shop. We also tried to get our bikes services but the gentlemen was rather impatient and undeserving of our patronage (also unwilling to service us!).
We ended our day camping just outside of Long Sault in a cozy corner next to the water. We also did a few extra laps around the park to ensure that we hit our 500th km before the end of day 6. Yeehaw!!!!!

day 7 was slightly less successful. Tired bodies woke late and road in to cornwall.
in cornwall we were able to get our bikes serviced freely and add a handlebar bag to Larissas bike (sap's) frame. We only road for a few more hours and made it just west of south lancaster. The campgrounds we found were pretty terrible lacking even potable water (we made due with our water purification tablets and pots for boiling and made a tasty meal!).

Day 8: Vive le quebec libre!
After a bit of confusion (and rain) that brought us through both south and north lancaster (we really had to see both!!!) we crossed the ontario quebec border by lunch time (we had an avocado/peanut butter feast to celebrate!).
We road some terrible roads with fiesty quebecer traffic into the cute town of St. Lazare where we got lost looking for the public library. Luckily, a couple asked pulled up beside us and asked us where we were going; when we asked how to get to the library they decided it was too hard to explain and instead just told us to follow behind them. They later explained that they had once done a cycle tour before and were shown much kindness from locals. Eventually, we met up with Gigi Andrieux (a friend of Seans) who showed us to her beautiful where we set up our tent to dry and put our stinking selves into the shower. Gigi and Patrick were perfect hosts and we look forward to spending time with them again! (Gigi even packed us a lunch in the standard issue brown paper bag!).

Day 9 : Road over to Vaudreil sur le lac yacht club to have lunch with stephanie andrieux and a bunch of sailor-kids. We learned the dancing bear game, the dead horse game, and that fatty broccoli soup is really unpleasant. To cross the river we took another ferry across to the town of Oka and road "la route verte" until we could ride no more in terrebonne. We found a local campground called "parc sur la riviere" and set up our tent for the night.

Thats it for now, I'm too tired to go on!
We're currently in St Catherine de la jacques cartier and will fill in the other details soon.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Days 3-7: Cobourg-St. Lazre

We crossed the Quebec border today! We celebrated with avocado and peanut butter sandwhiches (yum!) right at the signpost. But! More about that later. Now, to catch up on the last few (and very eventful) days.

Leaving Cobourg, on day three, felt amazing. We were finally on our way! The ride was drizzly, but we thought of it as an opportunity to to test out our waterproofing skills. We decied to go a little of-route and dip down to Prince Edward County to see what all the fuss about this county was. Turns out, it is worth fussing over. It was beautiful, a quaint farming community, with lots of friendly people. One of these people included Pat, a UPS driver who got out of his truck and stood in the rain helping us figure out where we should camp for the evening.

We headed into Consecon, a small town on the south-west of the county. Outside of the general store, Sheila, a retired high school teacher, gardener and music-enthusiast, asked us if we`d like to stay with her. Her cute stone house overlooked a large field complete with bales of hay, and led out onto the water. She cooked us garlic tops (a new thing for both of us, yum!), gave us a bottle of wine, and left us to enjoy her home.

On to Kingston!!!!!!!!!!!

A sunny day! We biked through the county and had lunch at the Painted Peppercorn (ha!) in Picton. We borded the Glenora-Adolphustown ferry (surprisingly we were the only cyclists)and rode the beautiful highway 33 to Kingston. On the way, we stopped in Bath to fill up our water bottles (with BATH WATER!!!!!!!!! Ha!) Hans, owner of the Loyalist Music Store, kindly gave us the bath water and fixed our melodica!!!

We stayed with Daphne`s grandparents, Gerry and Mary Ev, in their lovely and cozy home. They fed us verrry well and gave us a tour of their impressive garden, complete with monk`s hood, a highly poisonous flower! Da da daaaa.

We must celebrate our border crossing with some dinner and a pint! More later!

Much love,
Sean and Larissa

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Day 2: Pickering to Cobourg

Hello!

We thought it was 80 km or so to Cobourg. It probably is. But, on the waterfront trail, which loops down and up and around, and includes scary hilly and gravely bits, it is a little longer. My odometer told us we actually rode 111 kms today! Despite the occaisional cursing at the winding road (it sometimes went plain west!), many parts were very beautiful. The parts on the water, feeling the immediate cool and lovely breeze off the lake, the rolling farmland, and cute southern Ontario towns, and wildflowers everywhere made it a beautiful (though longer than expected) day.

Grandma has fed us a hot supper, and let me shower. I'm going to bed.

Larissa

Day 1: Blast off!!!!

VROOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!

Thats the sound of a rocket taking off!

crinkle...crinkle..huff...puff..."be safe!!!"...hufff....crinkle..."watch for cars"....pufff..

The sound to be heard as we left 22 Rosemount on our geared up bicycles at about 5:30pm on July 15th, 2009; only 10 hours later and 20 pounds heavier then

Larissa was handeling her mighty steed "sap" whilst Sean was rearing behind the majestic "esteban" on a modest first day journey from Larissa's home in Toronto to a friends home in Pickering.

Although the original layout of our trip had us travelling to cobourg on the first day we thought this to be a bit extreme considering we would likely have to make some adjustments along the way and the trip through the busy city would be quite slow.
also...it took us forever to pack and we left at 5:30 pm....surprised?

It took us a few hours to get out the city with only minor glitches (bags falling off of bikes and a few wrong turns).
We took a few breaks, one by a lovely park full of garbage in toronto, and made our way to the twin rivers drive through rouge park.
Overall only a few stretches seemed to be unfriendly to cyclist. We chose to ride on some sidewalks in those cases (hence the bags falling off).

Twin rivers was a beautiful ride where we felt our first adrenaline rush down some nice hills, 43 kmh!!! (downhill means uphill soon!)

We arrived at a friends home in pickering shortly after 9, a bit later then expected but safe and sound and 48kms into our trip.
Dawn's family was so generous with their time and their space and really put a smile on our faces after the first day of adventuring.
the only minor inconveniance was the dogs tendancy to take our socks and cylcing gloves and run around the house with them.

Thank you so much to the Rupert/Pierson family for hosting us.

Day 1: Success!!!!

-Sean

Trip Layout

This is our expected cycle trip plan (as determined before trip using maps and google maps)
Distances are approximations using google maps.


Day 1: toronto to cobourg 112 km (stay with family)-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------July 15 (0km)
Day 2: Cobourg to sandbanks park: 100 km (tent!)
Day 3: sandbanks to kingston 80 km (stay with friends)
Day 4: kingston to murphy's point provincial park 80 km (tent)
Day 5: Murphy's to smith's falls (through perth, tent) 40 km EASY DAY!! YEY
Day 6: Smiths falls to ottawa: 75 km (stay with someone) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------July 20 (487km)
Day 7: ottawa to somewhere: about 100km
Day 8: somewhere to Montreal: about 100km (friends)
Day 9: Rest day 0km (stay in montreal another night maybe go sailing!)
Day 10: montreal to joliette 70km (stay with someone)
Day 11: Joliette to trois rivieres: 91km (stay with friend -----------------------------------------------------------------------------July 25 (848km)
Day 12: trois rivieres to quebec city: 130km (stay in friends)
Day 13*: cross fleuve quebec-lévis for 6 dollars, bike included, bike to saint jean port joli: 90km (tent)
Day 14*: Port joli to riviere du loup 94km (tent)
Day 15*: Rest
>Day13 alternate: Quebec city to baie saint paul 95km (tent)
>Day14 alternate: Baie saint paul to st limeon 78km tent near st limeon
>Day15 alternate: take ferry to riviere de loup (3 hours, 20 bucks, leaves at 9:30) Rest.
Day 16: Loup to Trois pistoles 50km (stay with friends)-------------------------July 30 (1200km)
Day 17: trois pistoles to parc du bic 40km
Day 18: Parc du Bic to mont joli 60km (stay with friends)
Day 19: Mont joli to somewhere about 100km
Day 20: somewhere to dalhousie about 100km
Day 21: dal to bathurst 80km----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Aug 4 (1600km)
Day 22: bathurst to kouchibouguac national park 130km
Day 23: kouchibouguac to moncton 130: stay with friends and see magnetic hill
Day 24: moncton to sackville 50km (stay on farm by coast with friends)
Day 25: sackville to tatamagouche 110 km (stay on community farm)
Day 26: tatamagouche to truro 50km (stay with friend)
Day 27: 40km Truro to HALIFAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Aug 10 (2100km)


yeeeeehaw! If you know anyone in these towns willing to put us up for a night or even just let us use a shower or tent in their backyard please let us know.

Thank you!
-Sean and Larissa

Sunday, July 12, 2009

T minus 2 days!

Hey everyone!

Welcome to our very first blog!
If you're here you know the jist of our trip but for those who don't here we go:

Larissa and I will be leaving on the 15th of july (two days!) on a cycling journey that begins in Toronto and will take us all the way to the east coast of Canada!
We have anticipated this trip for so long that we are a little shocked that its so close to the departure date now.
Our trip is both a long awaited adventure and a fund raising challenge for both of us (read below for fund raising details).
Please follow our blog for details on our whereabouts on the trip and send us messages of encouragement (I'm sure they will be helpful after the first 500kms....eeeeek!).
Also, please take some time to look up our charity, Ride for Refugees, and consider sponsoring or joining our team for the ride detailed below.

Specs: The plan is to start in Toronto on the 15th of july and arrive in Halifax on August the 8th. When will we actually arrive? Who knows? (place bets now!). The 2000km trip will take us through some beautiful parts of our country that neither of us have been to. If you have any suggestions for places to check out or have a friend who might put us up for a night please send us a quick message. Seriously!

To donate, follow this link:

http://my.e2rm.com/TeamPage.aspx?teamID=117402&LangPref=en-CA


or look for Larissa Koniuk or Sean Gallagher on team "the branches" in waterloo on rideforrefugees.com.

Info:
Ride for Refugees is an annual event happening in Waterloo that supports a variety of Refugee-support organizations. On October 3rd Larissa and I will take part in a 100km ride around the city of Waterloo with the other fundraisers for the event. Larissa and I somehow decided that 100kms really wasn't enough sweat for us and figured we should tack an extra 2000 kms on our total to really convince people to support the cause. So essentially, we are biking to Halifax to try and raise as much money as possible before the ride day in October.

Anyways, Larissa and I are going on a little bike ride...

Catch ya later!

Sean