Mont-Tremblant – Day 1-3 – And Cornwall

Cindy and I are heading out to complete the P’Tit Train du Nord, which is the 232 km, one way section, of the Route Vert 2 in Quebec. On the way, we will be stopping at my cousins’ in Cornwall, and on the way back, we will be stopping in Ottawa.

Last fall on the way to the P’Tit Train du Nord we stopped at my cousins’. I hadn’t seen my cousin for quite a few years, but she has been following this blog and enjoying bike tourism vicariously. Laurie used to bike quite a bit, but health issues have kept her off the bike on recent years. When we were visiting last year, Laurie told us that she had tried to find a pedal assist e-bike, but been unable to, due to pandemic shortages.

A couple months ago I messaged to see if it would be all right if we visited again on our way to Quebec. I also asked if she had had any luck sourcing a bike. She replied that it has been a very busy winter and she had not, plus she was about to have knee replacement surgery.

A few hours later Laurie messaged to tell me she had sourced a bike in Ottawa, and would be going on Monday to pick it up! Monday she sent me this picture. I told her that I loved that her latest mobility device matched her cane.

We left Brampton at 8:30 and were in Cornwall by 1:30.

We had a coffee with Laurie while she ate her lunch, and then headed out with her for her inaugural ride. Laurie is just seven weeks post knee replacement. She did a short ride down her street, and then came back for some fitting adjustments, and then we went off for 3 km neighbourhood ride that went so well that we loaded the bikes onto the cars and headed down to one of Laurie’s favourite places on the Waterfront Trail at Ingleside for a 10 km ride.

With her bike set to the touring mode which is the second of four power levels, she made us work to keep up with her. Laurie also kindly allowed us to try the E-bike when we returned to the cars. It has four modes – eco, touring, sport, and turbo. Turbo was super fun.

We all realized that this bike will be a game changer for Laurie.

We spent the evening visiting on the deck and had a delicious meal prepared by Bruce.

On Saturday, Bruce and Laurie headed to Ottawa to take their granddaughter out for her birthday and Cindy and I headed out for a ride.

I used to do all the route planning for our trips from scratch, but I’ve recently become aware that a number of organizations are creating routes for tourists to follow. When an organization becomes an Ambassador on Ride with GPS, and shares routes, it allows tourists who navigate the route from the Ambassador’s page, to receive voice navigation with a free Ride with GPS account, something that normally is only available with a paid account that costs $70 a year or more. We decided to do a 62 km route by Cycle Cornwall & SDG Counties called “Cheese and Crankers”.

The first third of the route was on the Waterfront Trail on a paved shoulder of County Road 2 near Lake Ontario.

As we rode past this church, Cindy called out, “Oh look, we can vote here”, and pulled in. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but followed.

Cindy explained that the Ontario Health Coalition was holding aprovince-wide community referendum to “Stop the Ford Government’s Privatization of Our Public Hospitals”. She has a sign on her lawn. We went in and both voted. Apparently there are a thousand stations set up across the province this weekend. I hope it makes a difference.

We ate lunch at Subway in Lancaster and shortly thereafter reached our turnaround point at the Glengarry Fine Cheese store. Fortunately, Cindy had room in her trunk bag for a couple pieces of their award winning Gouda.

Stormont, Dundas, and Glengary Counties use the tagline “Where Ontario Began”. They were formally established in 1850, 17 years before Confederation. This single lane bridge leads to Loyalist Road, named for the United Empire Loyalists, “generally those who had been settled in the thirteen colonies at the outbreak of the American Revolution, who remained loyal to and took up the Royal Standard, and who settled in what is now Canada at the end of the war.”

There were several farms along this road that had this plaque commemorating the fact that the farm has been “owned and operated continuously by the same family for over 200 years”.

It was a nice ride with quiet roads and pastoral scenes.

We took Bruce and Laurie out to dinner at their favourite restaurant, Esca. It was a delicious meal. We finished the evening on their lovely deck.

We began day three, also on their lovely deck, with coffee and breakfast, before getting ready for a local ride with the four of us. Laurie couldn’t wait to get out again after her successful ride on Friday afternoon.

We rode our bikes down to the Saunders Hydro Dam Visitor Centre. This dam is the second most powerful in the province after the Adam Beck dam in Niagara Falls. We saw an interesting film made 60 years ago when the dam opened.

We continued along a multiuse path between the St. Lawrence Seaway and the old canal.

Then we rode into downtown Cornwall for lunch at Carrots ‘n Dates.

By the time we returned to the house, Laurie had gone even further than she did two days earlier. We were all very impressed.

Cindy and I packed up and headed for Mont-Tremblant. We crossed the Ottawa River at Hawkesbury to Grenville, Quebec. Even if we hadn’t seen the Bienvenu à Quebec sign, we would’ve known we were in Quebec from the traffic lights.

Despite the fact that we had not told Google to avoid highways, it took us the back way, and we were on washboard gravel roads for more than 20 km. The bikes were very dusty when we arrived.

Near our destination we spotted this old covered wooden bridge in Prud’homme, but unfortunately, it’s been allowed to deteriorate, and is closed even for walking and cycling. The sun was also situated in such a way that I couldn’t really get a good picture of it.

We had to check in at a different resort than we are staying at, but arrived after the office staff had gone home. Fortunately, our key cards were left in a box, and we were able to check in the next morning.

Unfortunately, there was no one to tell that we would prefer a ground floor room, and we had been assigned one on the third floor. There is no elevator. Many trips later we had all of our stuff carried up three flights of stairs, including our bikes.

We do have a very nice apartment with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room, and balcony. It feels like a very luxurious amount of space for two.

Fortunately we had groceries that we had brought from home and were able to pull together a quick dinner. We ate, unpacked, relaxed for a short while, planned tomorrow’s activities, and hit the sack.