Whitby 2023 – Day 1

Dayle, Cindy and I set off for an adventure in Whitby today. It’s the second annual Whitby adventure for Cindy and me. I wrote about it last year here. David couldn’t get away today, but will be joining us tomorrow. I have downsized from the giant pink suitcase I took to Ottawa 6 years ago, to a medium one on the last few trips, to a cabin sized one for this trip. Along with my bike, bike box, and coolers of food, though, so it still looks like a lot.

Cindy’s sister is away in England and we will be dog sitting once again. Cindy has had Oakley at her house for the last few days, but today, Dayle drove the four of us to Whitby, so we could look after Oakley here, and ride our bikes somewhere we don’t often get to.

We are in a September heat wave and the forecast high for the day was 31°, feeling like 39°. None of us were particularly looking forward to riding in the heat, so we didn’t worry about heading out from Brampton too early. Dayle picked me up, and then Cindy and Oakley. The 401 was stop and go traffic all the way from the 409 to the 404.

As we slowly travelled behind this Saputo truck, I noticed that they had a bicycle stencilled on the back. I wondered why I looked it up and found that the company started in 1954 in Montreal and a bicycle was used for deliveries in the early years of the company.

Cindy and I were last here in May in 2022 and we were having an extremely cold spring as you can see from how we are bundled up here on our first day of riding. Today was quite the contrast weather wise.

We took our time unpacking, and Cindy took Oakley for a walk. We ate our lunch and then somewhat unenthusiastically headed out into the heat. It is a 5 km ride from here to the waterfront. The winds were relatively calm and it was somewhat downhill, so the heat wasn’t as bad as we were expecting.

We stopped briefly to show Dayle Trafalgar Castle School which I wrote about last year. It’s a private school for girls with tuition starting at $26,000. As we rode up to it, Dayle realized that her aunt went to the school in the 1930s and promised to share photos with us this evening. We rode to it on a street that didn’t exist last year that is still a building site we couldn’t get close to the school due to a construction fence, so we turned around and continued south to the Waterfront Trail, which we were hoping would provide a more comfortable ride in the heat.

We weren’t disappointed. There was a slight breeze off the water and a fair bit of shade along the trail.

We rode out to the end of a pier with a lighthouse, at Whitby Harbour, and sat chatting for quite a while in the shade, enjoying the breeze.

There is a lovely gazebo just east of the pier framing the view.

As we continued east, there was construction blocking the Waterfront Trail. I was very impressed to see that a trail detour has been paved just to the north along Water Street connecting the two bits of Waterfront Trail, rather than the usual type of detour which puts cyclists onto the road.

While on this replacement section, we ran into this man who was driving the small electric vehicle to promote a local company called Victory Electric. Dayle stopped to chat with Wesley, and he gave her a gift bag with a company mug. When we got back to the house, I was curious about the vehicle, and used Google lens on my photo to find that it can be purchased from Alibaba according to this blog post.

We continued along the Waterfront Trail for a few kilometres and then turned back, hoping to find a coffee or ice cream somewhere.

There’s a large building at the marina which we thought might have snacks, but looked like it’s only available for catered events. We sat in the shade on the outdoor patio, anyway, while I used Google Maps to find a coffee shop about 3 km north in downtown Whitby.

When we arrived at the coffee shop we discovered it was on the sunny side of the street, so I looked at Google Maps again, and found, on the other side of the street and a few shops north, the Eight Bit Beans Café and Gaming Arcade.

We bought drinks, but didn’t play the games, and sat on the shaded patio outside. It would been a pleasant spot, except for the constant roar of motor vehicle traffic. Brock Road has a highway entrance and exit so it’s quite a busy street. The retail area at Brock and Dundas is a similar size to downtown Brampton‘s, but with much higher quality retail and restaurants than we have in downtown Brampton.

A few kilometres later, for a total of just 20 km for the day, we were back at the house and relaxing on the inviting porch.

We agreed to each prepare a meal while we were here, and Cindy made us fish tacos tonight. I made a bean salad to accompany the tacos.

Cindy and Dayle took Oakley for a walk while I worked on the blog. We’re looking forward to a slightly cooler, and longer ride, and meeting up with David, tomorrow.