SWOdyssey – Day 6 – Forest to Grand Bend via Port Franks and Back

We met for breakfast in the hotel restaurant at 7:30 and, as so often seems to happen, all four of us of us ordered same thing – eggs, toast, home fries, bacon or sausage, and fruit – all for less than $7. We will eat there tomorrow, as well.

Here we are ready to go at 8:45 AM.

The buildings at the main intersection in Forest are quite interesting. It looks like the roads were laid out before the buildings were built, and the building shape was optimized for the odd shapes of the corner properties that were created by the roads not crossing at right angles.

We spent most of the day on Highway 21 with the exception of two small parallel sections that were less travelled and more pleasant, on our way north. When we returned, the entire journey was on Highway 21. Highway 21 has a speed limit of 80 kph and only a 1 foot wide paved shoulder with an additional gravel shoulder. Traffic was frequent and fast. One truck deliberately punishment passed all four of us and we were somewhat spread out at that point. The waterfront trail does follow parts of this road.

Roger Geller theorized that cyclists could be divided into four categories.

I found it an unpleasant road to travel on, and I fall into category number one: Strong and Fearless. This category makes up 1-7% of the population. Communities that want to promote cycle tourism and more cycling in general need to provide for more than category one.

This was a pleasant road with little traffic that led to Port Franks, an idyllic little community on Lake Huron.

There was an old army base in the area and this sign was posted at regular intervals.

I couldn’t resist capturing David and Dayle on this lovely s-curve.

This road leading out of Port Franks had a nice wide paved shoulder, but only on one side of the road. Fortunately for us, it happened to be the side that we were travelling on.

There were some large grass covered sand dunes near Port Franks.

We turned off Highway 21 again, a few kilometres later, near The Pinery which gave us another break from the fast moving traffic.

8 km out of Grand Bend was the Rotary Nature Trail. It was a delightful, if slightly narrow, trail parallelling Highway 21 with trees on one or both sides, with gentle undulations and a few short, steep hills. I really enjoyed riding it in both directions.

It even had little stop signs!

Even though this was a Monday afternoon, the traffic jam to get into Grand Bend extended a couple kilometers. We were able the fly right past on our bikes.

Unfortunately, the asphalt path turned into a sidewalk for about the last kilometre into town. But, it seems the intention is that bikes use the sidewalk except for over the river. I rarely ever ride on the sidewalk, but with the traffic jam filling the road we made an exception.

Grand Bend is a tourist trap that holds little interest for me. We skipped all the shops and found a good restaurant with a patio overlooking the beach.

We had to flip through most of the pages and the menu to get past the alcohol to the food items.

I’ve been so hungry this week that today I even had dessert after lunch.

There is a beautiful beach with lovely white sand and great views from this building. The beach was packed but very few people were swimming. I went down to the water and put my feet in, but it was quite cool, especially compared to Lake Erie, which was almost too warm to be refreshing.

The restaurant where we had lunch is the one on the right with the blue and yellow umbrellas.

These murals were on the wall of the pharmacy on the way out of town and I couldn’t resist using them as a backdrop for my bike.

Here are a few more views of the Rotary Trail

I saw quite a few more wind turbines here than I did down in the Leamington area.

I stopped at Tim Hortons just before going back to the hotel to get my afternoon and evening snacks.

This was my dinner. Even though I burned 2000 calories riding today I think I might have actually consumed more than I burned!

I’m always happy to explore a new place on my bike, but unless something were done to improve conditions on Highway 21 I could not recommend this route to most people, and would be unlikely to do it again myself.

As usual for this trip, there was very little change in elevation: the route was mostly flat. Fortunately there was little wind today and the temperature was pleasant with little humidity.


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