SWOddysey – Day 5 – Sarnia to Forest

Once again, David and Dayle kindly delivered breakfast to my room so I could sleep a little longer, and eat while I decided what would go in my pannier bags, and what would go in my suitcase, and get my bike loaded onto the bike rack and belongings in the car. The land remained extremely flat all the way to Sarnia and we encountered only three small hills near Forest on Highway 21. The day was much cooler, much lower humidity with no rain, but it was windy.

As I was riding along into the headwind this image popped into my head so I made it for the blog tonight.

We stopped briefly at Burn’s Cemetery where Dayle’s ancestors are buried. She told us that there had been a split in the family and one of the brothers changed the spelling of his name, thus the two different spellings on the gravestones.

There was a lovely red barn across the street from the cemetery.

When we arrived in Sarnia we stopped at McDonald’s for an early lunch: I ate my second breakfast in the car while Wayne drove. Then we drove to the hotel where we will be staying on Tuesday night, and unpacked our bikes and bags that we were taking with us. The hotel allowed us to leave the cars in the parking lot until we return.

Right next to the hotel I saw this establishment. Perhaps we will eat there on Tuesday night.

Dave decided to add air to his tires and Dayle’s and broke the stem off Dayle’s when he removed the pump. I reconsidered filling mine since thy felt petty firm. So, while he and Dayle replaced Dayle’s tube, I walked over to the waterfront to take a few pictures of the silos and ships.

Here we are ready to set off just before noon.

Shortly after leaving the hotel we crossed the 402. I have circled the bridge crossing to the US. There were cars lined up in both directions as far as we could see waiting to cross the border.

Once again many of the roads that we travelled on in town had bike lanes.

The bike lanes didn’t go all the way to the trail though, but it was still a pleasant street to ride on.

We soon navigated to the Howard Watson nature trail which began with a much better surface than the rail trail we cycled yesterday. However, after a few kilometres it deteriorated, although not to the extent of yesterday’s trail.

Wayne explained to me that the smoothest trails have a mixture of stone dust and limestone screenings, which is what we had on the first section today. Slightly less smooth is limestone screenings without the stone dust, which is what we had on the bulk of the trail today, but it is also cheaper. Wayne has been significantly involved with the Caledon Trailway over the years.

We had second lunch just before leaving the trail, which veered away from our destination, to ride on Highway 21. The speed limit was 70 or 80 km an hour, which means many cars were doing more than that, however, traffic wasn’t overly heavy travelling north, which was our direction of travel, and the shoulders were paved. This is part of the Waterfront Trail and most people I know, myself included , would not consider this a trail, nor would they be comfortable riding here, even on the shoulder.

We turned off Highway 21 onto a road which was signed is 90 kph, and had no shoulders, however, it was lightly travelled, and we were able to ride two abreast with very few passes.

Shortly before we got to our accommodation for the next two nights, we stopped at Tim Hortons for a snack and Wayne walked across to Foodland for some Gatorade. I get mocked for the amount of stuff I bring with me, but I was the one that had room to haul Wayne’s Gatorade six pack back to the hotel.

We have arrived at the Forest Golf Club & Inn.

One bed for me and one bed for my bike! The rooms are adequate, but not nearly as nicely appointed as the motel we stayed at in Leamington. There is an indoor pool, though, with a whirlpool and sauna, so David, Dayle and I took advantage of that this afternoon.

We would have been the youngest people by quite a bit in the golf club restaurant tonight. Wayne looked on TripAdvisor and found this restaurant 130 m walk down the road. We all ordered pickerel and it was delicious.