Total distance: 5037km
Average speed: 24.5km/h
Weather: sunny
From city to farm! After breakfast I said goodbye to the Warden family and biked away from Ottawa on the Canal for the last time. Crossing into Gatineau I went back onto Highway 148 which became quieter and quieter as the big box stores disappeared. Unlike northern Ontario and the prairies I was never too far from services though. There were always houses on the side of the road and it seemed like the outskirts of one small town met the beginning of another. The Route Verte runs along a large part of this section of the highway so I was able to enjoy segregated paths and wide clean shoulders. I took a short break in Plaisance, which had a very nice welcome sign featuring a bicycle, where for the first time everything was in French. You can learn quite a bit just by reading signs! A short ride down was the pretty town of Montebello and I did a little detour to the Fairmont Chateau Montebello for a look. Every town that I passed had Casse-Croutes and beautiful churches. Around 3 I entered Brownsburg-Chatham and arrived at the organic cooperative farm which also hosts touring cyclists! The farm delivers vegetable baskets as well as operate a bakery and is run by three awesome women. I got to see all the animals with Jenna when she went out to feed them later in the afternoon. After coming in from the day's work, Heather made a great trio of raw salads for dinner before we all indulged in some ice cream dessert.
It's definitely the home stretch now and it makes me nostalgic to think that I'm almost at the final destination. On the one hand I'm really excited to see and live in Quebec for 5 weeks, but I've come love this biking business so much that I don't want it to end. It's crazy to believe that it's been just over a month because it feels like the only lifestyle that I've ever known.
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