Days 54 & 55 on the home stretch

Grafton -> Belleville 78km



The highlight of this day was a stop at Earthwalk, Eco Education Centre. Located just outside of Colborne on a 5 acre plot of land it seems eons away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Peace and quiet surrounded us as we coasted down the driveway to the centre. There we had a snack of freshly picked beans and tomatoes before heading to one of the classrooms for a workshop on "getting your message through" some helpful hints on how to engage your audience were shared with us by Garnet McPherson the program's director. We also learned about the house and how it had been built, essentially carbon neutral using solar power to both heat and cool the house. We had lunch there and were then joined on our ride by a couple of locals who pedalled with us to Brighton.


We stopped for ice creams in Carrying Place a small town about half way through the ride. There we determined that yet again we had managed to lose a member of the group. Eddy was nowhere to be seen and only after some thorough searching by the support vehicle did he turn up having taken a substantial detour! The rest of the ride was uneventful and we arrived in Belleville about 6pm only 2 hours behind schedule! We were supposed to meet with the mayor there but I guess he got tired of waiting around and the town hall was quiet when we arrived. We headed on over to Organic Undgeround a great cafe/multi-use space where we were spending the night. The space didn't have showers so we decided to go the Y we heard was just a few blocks away. We started walking and 45 minutes later were still walking, I guess we should have asked just how far a "few" blocks is. The sauna there made it worthwhile and I had a great sleep that night.

Belleville -> Kingston 92km

Just me and the guys. again. Rita had to return to Toronto for the day and Eddy had to get back to school so our group had dwindled to 7. We left early and made great time as we followed the shoreline east towards Kingston. I finally finished all the Harry Potter books, perfect timing as the tour is almost over! We stopped in Bath for lunch and had arrived in Kingston by 3:30pm.

We went to a tar-sands teach in at Queen's led by Clayton Thomas Muller of the Indigenous Environment Network. He is a great speaker and I was happy to learn more from him. He also told us that Mercury is in retrograde which apparently makes people late, miss connections and generally behind schedule. This makes sense as we proceeded to miss two ferries and a train all within the next two hours! We finally made it over to Wolfe Island by 10:30pm our final destination for the night. While waiting for the ferry we amused ourselves by playing Zoom, Schwartz, Bflude..something, Kingston's citizens were probably wondering what kind of crazies were in town as we crawled, hopped and ran barefoot around the ferry terminal. Or maybe they took no notice since it's frosh week at Queen's and many weirder things are going on!

Today we are having a rest day, this morning we had a tour of the wind farm on Wolfe Island which was very interesting. The structures are very impressive once you get up close. I don't know about you but I would much rather have a wind turbine in my backyard then a coal-fired or nuclear plant! I guess tonight we will just chill out and try and get a good night's sleep before we head out for Westport tomorrow!

Apologies for the lack of pictures but I forgot my camera cord! Will post some next time I have reliable internet!