10/06/10 Bowmanville to Mississauga

Only day where we really needed to get somewhere, as Rohit was waiting for us in Mississauga but things were going really slow. We left around 11:30am after some problems with trying to connect to the internet. Biked a bit and then in Whitby we needed some food so Xavier went to Metro to get some bread and ham. He came out 45min later with 7$ worth of grocery. We’ll never know what happened in the Metro that day.

We’ve been following the Waterfront bicycle trail on our way to Toronto, but at this point things got a bit iffy.  It was really hard to follow the indications, we were making 5km loops that were getting us back 200m from where we were before, it was getting us on roads with no shoulder where cars were going 100km/h and had never seen bikes. There are indications for the Waterfront trail about every 3 turns. We finished having lunch it was 4pm, we still had 70km to go. By 7pm we were in Scarborough, where we got some things to cook spaghetti in a grocery store where people were screaming at each other. Things were not going very well, until we saw this guy, David, biking with a big box of Tide at the back of his bag between his 2 panniers. He offered to bring us to the nicest spot in Scarborough where you see the cliffs, the port and the vastness of Lake Ontario. We decided to go. He went to fill our water bottles at his house while we were trying to cook our dinner. We realized we had no more gas, so it was peanut butter and jelly sandwich again. David came back with hot tea and homemade rhubarb pie. Thank you David, that made our day!

 So we left Scarborough at 9pm. Biking down Kingston St. was pretty nice despite bad road conditions and arriving in Toronto by night was great too. Now it was 10:30pm. So we went to Union Station to catch a train to Mississauga. So I asked the lady 2 tickets. And she asked where are you going in Mississauga? I mumbled some street names and asked for a map. Now maps don’t exist in Central Station. So I was screaming to Xavier that was holding the bikes 100m further, where are we going? What are the streets? Eventually the lady said I’ll send you on a bus. It’s at 11:30pm. Thank you but that’s a bit late. So I left the counter.
Suddenly some guy that was speaking French came to us: “You should take this line, there, get out there, ride your bike up there, turn there and you’ll be there.” So we ran like crazy with the fully loaded bikes to catch the train. We finally got to Mississauga and after a 30min bike ride we knocked at Rohit’s door. It was midnight. He was waiting for us with pizza and drink. Wow! Finally we’re home!
Distance: 102km