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October 3 Monday Bicycle touring from L'Original Ontario to past Oka Quebec I had a good sleep last night ... only slept about twelve hours. The sun rose around 7 AM. We eat breakfast in Hawksbury before cycling across the bridge over the St Lawrence River. Halfway across, we officially enter the province of Quebec. Bonjour. I pull my bike to a stop on the bridge to take a picture of a church steeple against some red leaves. Between the wind and the trucks bouncing the bridge, I'm sure the result will be blurred. We cycle Hwy 344 along the river until Hwy 158, and then pedal into Lachute. Hwy 158 at this point became congested with trucks. After looking at a map in a gas station, we find that Hwy 344 continues past Laval. Our map shows it ending in Lachute. We jump on our fully loaded touring bikes and head south and try to link up with it again. The road we are following ends, so we cycle east, then south, then east until we run into Hwy 148. Oops, I guess we should have gone south again somewhere. We weave around. We skirt Oka as we want to keep our scalps intact. We hit Hwy 344. It is time to buy supper. Milk is half the price I paid this morning in Ontario. Can you say subsidy? And soft drinks are really cheap here. Maybe Quebec isn't going to be such a bad place to cycle tour after all. We cycle down the road and find a municipal park, but there are no tables. We drop our bicycles on the ground and hunker down by a building out of the wind and fire up our tiny bike touring stove. Macaroni with cheese and tomatoes never tasted so fine. We've refilled our hot chocolate pantry too and enjoy steaming mugs of hot cocoa. There is a church and graveyard across the way. It is my turn to ask permission for free cycle camping. "J'mapelle Neil Anderson. I'll mapelle Sharon Anderson," I say. "Say," the monsieur says, snickering, "you're not from around here are you?" |
