July 17 – Sharbot Lake to Brockville

Bike log: 114.0 km, 617m of vertical, avg. speed 29.1 km/h

Made it to the old homestead! Kind of a neat feeling, to ride into the old home town, having come all this way. As I got closer in to town, things started to look more and more familiar. Cheryl is not familiar with Brockville, so we met just on the outskirts, and then she followed me in! Actually, she had directions but I was pretty anxious to hit the pool so I passed her and raced ahead for the last few blocks. She took this picture of me from the van as I cornered onto Ann St. where my parents live.

Incidentally, I have always said that my parents live “about 5000km away”. At the end of today, we are at 5,026km for the trip – pretty close! However, my parents will soon be moving to Victoria – in fact they will be moved out there before Cheryl and I get back. So this is my last visit back to the old house, and probably the last time to Brockville for quite some time. It is nice that it is part of this larger trip as it takes the edge of what could be a sad goodbye. It is also very strange to think that when we get back to Victoria my parents will already be living there!


It was a really great ride today (though still as hot as ever, and had to deal with a minor headwind for the first half). We were on backroads and secondary highways all the way in from Sharbot Lake. Very scenic and lots of small towns and villages to pass through. As we go east, in a sense we are going back in time in terms of the age of the towns. Many of these villages have been around way before Victoria was on the map. They were probably a bit more bustling then as well. It is strange to ride for a half hour or so through farm land, then come to a crossroads with a couple of buildings and a big church and a railway station! It’s also neat (and differenct compared to BC or the part of Northern Ontario we’ve come through) that there are many intersections and side roads that actually go somewhere – to more towns, or a lake, or whatever. It is more like being on a grid, rather than living along a single dimensional strip of highway with towns every so often. It would take a long time to explore it all! A cyclist’s dream as well, you could pick a different training route every day.