Days 52 & 53 Riding with a new crew

Toronto -> Oshawa 80km??

Left Anubha's after a great stay in Toronto. I was shown that my preconcieved notions about Toronto were completely wrong and it is a very down to earth and friendly city after all. Thanks too very much to Anubha for having me stay and showing me a great time!

I met with the new crew at union station and got ready to ride out of the city. The majority of the group decided to ride the GO train to Pickering but, the west coast crew plus Leslie decided to brave the busy streets and pedal our way out.

Stopped in Pickering for a photo shoot in front of N.A's largest wind turbine, largest but solo...and in front of a nuclear station... let's think about that for a minute. After that the whole group rode into Ajax and there we met the mayor Steve Perry who rode with us through town. We stopped for lunch at a park on lake Ontario and then got back on the Waterfront Trail to continue east along the lakeshore.

We spent the night camping in Darlington Provincial Park, our site was on the cliffside looking out onto lake Ontario, pretty stunning! It was fun to be part of a larger group again, we had a campfire and played games by the firelight before retiring to our tents.

Oshawa -> Grafton 65km so far

Odometer number 5 is now functioning! Hopefully knock on wood this one will last the rest of the trip! It should considering there are only 5 days left!

We left the campground around 10, our group having already shrunken by 2. Emma had to head back to TO for work and Ted was heading into town to have a broken spoke repaired before he could rejoin the tour. He left me with the map and directions to continue east, assuring me that they were straightforward and easy to follow... I don't know if I'm just bad at directions or he is exceptionally good but we managed to split the group into three, spend time backtracking and do some bushwacking all within the first hour! After trying to leave hints for groups further back as we twisted and turned through the forest we finally gave up and left the trail for a service road running parallel to the highway.

We met back up with Ted at lunch time just outside of Port Hope and I was happy to relinquish the role of "leader" back to him. We stopped in Cobourg for a tour of a geothermal company and then continued on to a press conference at a local cafe, we chatted with local press and did a mock ride by for a good photo opportunity. Check out these links later today or tomorrow to see the articles. Northumberland View, Today.com, The Northumberland News

That brings me up to right now where I am currently blogging away at the Go Green Together office. Big thanks to them for organizing the press conference, riding with us into the city and letting us use their office for blogging! We have a few more clicks to go but have been revitalized by fresh lemonade, fruit and coconut cookies at the cafe next door. End destination is Ted's families farm.