Visiting the awesome Niagara region and then spending time where I grew up, in the Ottawa/Gatineau region, to catch up with a friend and visit family. Good weather still holding so far.

The Niagara region has endless things to do and see; Wine tours, gambling, dinosaur mini putt. You could spend a week in the region almost no matter what your interest is. One of the best places to check out in the country.

Started on the bike path along this river that connects Lac Erie to lac Ontario

It's called the Welland canal.

Has many bridges and damns that let you cross back and forth.

How about just don't built stuff out of garbage.

As you turn towards the east you enter Niagara wine country.

Just one after the other

There's always lots of fruit stands in these wino areas. Who wouldn't want to bring back a fruit fly infestation?

Of course you can't own a vineyard if you don't own a castle.

These are drunk pods, they lock you in there and you don't come out until you're done with your box of wine.

Sweet view of lake Ontario behind one of these vineyards.

We have to do this one of these days...

This route leads you to the small touristy town of Niagara-One-The-Lake

The Canada store

Further up there's the Fort George historical site.

Apparently where the war of 1812 was fought, to repel Americans trying to steal the syrup.

It was closed though. Nice doors.

The road keeps going along the Niagara River until you reach the tourist attractions. The is the Floral Clock.

The view is pretty spectacular all along the river up to the falls themselves.

The USA is on the other side of this gorge.

The Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Generating Stations.

Further up is the The Niagara Falls botanical Gardens

They have a Butterfly conservatory.

The garden's huge, you could spend half a day there.

Testing the macro on flowers.

Teenagers maintain this, don't forget.

Closer to the falls you have the Whirlpool Aero Car that goes over this... well whirlpool

The actual city of Niagara Falls. It's gotten huge! So much to see there now.

Biggest carved Moose. Getting a little specific there, chum.

Proof of moose legitimacy.

Not sure what that's about.

There's a huge Hershey store there, like in Time Square. No idea if this is the largest anything.

Me

The town really is starting to look like Las Vegas or Time Square.

That wasn't there when I was a kid...

They have nicer dinosaurs then the museums haha.

No matter how well you do, you're always the winner if you play at this miniputt.

I like taking pictures of unsuspecting people.

You can go up that tower and get a nice view. Also has a casino.

There's like 4 streets of things like this.

Making it to the falls themselves. The entire observation platform is people taking selfies and pictures.

Tres beau, tres beau.

Some tourist asked me to take their picture so they took mine.

Once you leave the falls area the river calms down and you see mansion after mansion like this.

With lots of aquatic wildlife. These are Cormorans, very common bird all along Canada's lakes.

I see you

I think these are Royal Terns?

White egret

Keep going down and you reach the Peace Bridge to the USA

I turned west to go to Crystal beach.

Always amazing to see how many large sandy beaches are in Ontario.

Heading back up the canal.

Sunset that night after a long day. Stayed at a farm in the region. Niagara region is definitely worth the detour.

Big cities are always a decent time for a recovery day. Expect to have to stop constantly, swerve around cracks and potholes and to keep the speed low. When you’re just there to look and not to go fast, it can be nice. Cities seem very large when you’re on foot or stuck in traffic but when you bike you can zoom out of them pretty quick and find more remote areas you didn’t think even existed. Toronto seems to have a nice network of little parks, beaches and paths in the woods for you to explore.

First started along the water and came upon these two gentlemen painting scenery.

Not a bad way to spend a summer day. Chatted one of them up for a while. If you ever read this, lmk. Enjoy the postcard!

This path goes along this surprisingly large beach and marina. Makes you forget that Toronto is impossible to live in probably.

Can I just live on this beach? Not buy a dilapidated condo for 700k?

Sell yourself into chattel slavery, feel just like back home.

Toronto is under the protection of Batman ( Adam West's )

There's a large park in the middle of the city with a path that meanders along the river.

Global warming probably.

The path goes along this little area called "The Gargoyles" with a few confusing concrete statues.

I'm kind of impressed this isn't covered in graffiti. Maybe they have a warehouse of these to replace it every week.

On the path you're in the woods and you can forget you're in the middle of a huge city. Just a few reminders when you look up.

Some kind of cool tramway network they have going there.

This is Tommy Thompson park, just a little peninsula with a bird conservation area. One of those places that you can basically only access on a bike.

Pretty nice and quiet area. Tons of speed bumps to force cyclist to go slow. God forbid anyone could go fast in a city.

Behold my macro powers

Super nice view of the city from over there.

Cormorans flying over nonstop. See hundreds of them.

Girl sketching over there. Mwaha you can't do anything to stop me taking this picture.

Quite nice, quite nice.

No idea who Billy Bitcoin is or what he does.

2 hours out is the Big Apple, in Colborne. Love it. It was closed and you can't access it after hours but there seems to be some kind of farm/farmer's market thing there.

45 minutes away from the Apple is The Big Toonie in Campbellford. Looked like a nice little town actually.

Same place with a nice river with rich people's boats.

Ok look, Ontario, you have lots of sand everywhere already so I’m not sure you should be making an entire park dedicated to more sand and beaches. This place is basically just a network of large beaches and campgrounds with a few dunes. The rest of this big ride is mostly just farmland riding with a few small towns in between. Very typical Ontario scenery overall.

Started the ride in Belleville, where you can cross into Prince Edward county.

I guess you might as well do that with old military equipment?

View from the bridge

Looks natural. Yep.

Cows are kind of ripped.

Pretty cool separation in the clouds.

To access the beaches you need to walk over the dunes like some kind of peasant.

No I'm not leaving my bike there while I'm on the other side of the dunes sitting on a beach...

I'm a Dune restorer and my husband is a caterpillar groomer, our budget is 4 million.

They are quite nice beaches though, not going to lie.

Can't walk in sand with the cleats.

At the southern tip of the Sandbanks park there's a network of trails that are somewhat bikeable that offer spectacular views of the inlets and lake.

You wouldn't get to see this just sitting your ass on the beach.

Nobody else there but you, pretty much. That's right ladies, you can post instagram selfies without that fat guy sunbathing in the background.

Boom caught you. These don't taste great in case you're wondering.

Where is this? Bahamas?

The water had this long streak of yellowish goop which I assume is tons of pollen that fell in the water.

Further out there's more beaches. No fun allowed.

I mean. Dunes with plants growing on them? 2/10 sorry. Where's the restauration guy?

These beaches were huge and just deserted because...weekday + threatening sky. More people should retire early. No you're to good for it, forget I said anything.

Beach is littered with tiny shells.

Last view of the beaches before going back up north to finish this long ride with not a whole lot to see.

People dealing with inflation as best they can.

Pretty quaint tourist destination there.

Not everyone is allowed to be handicapped in Ontario. Budget cuts are real.

Stopped for a bit of beer/food because the day was getting long and I didn't have much to eat. #deserve

Sat outside in front of a little lake with a swan infestation.

Haha nice.

Saw quite a few vintage vehicles on this ride. This guy wins though.

Taking a break here from the epic solo riding to visit an old friend in Gatineau, where I grew up. Gonna get more sparse with the pictures because people don’t tend to enjoy stopping at random points in rides to take pictures of lakes.

Yeah we're back in Quebec alright. Ottawa region is also like this. No idea how many millions in damage this causes cars in these cities.

Just a quick group shot. Thanks for hanging out guys, hope to see you again on the way back.

Just did a nice long easy day in the region with some new people. Was great to ride slow and chat for a while. Not very many great views in the region though. Gatineau area is mostly a collection of flat residential / farm area and little forested rolling hills.

View of the Ottawa river from the Champlain bridge.

Been there 40 years, city still not underwater. Hmm. I'm sure any day now, any day.

Stopped at a little cafe/bakery that makes cyclist wear covid masks on their feet so the cleats don't wreck the floors.

This is Lake Pink, one of the few things to see in the Gatineau Parc.

Top of the belvedere Champlain, with a nice view of the Gatineau region extending out west.

I grew up in this region but never rode very far. Most cyclists here seem to do the same loop in the Parc de la Gatineau. It’s like that anywhere, I suppose. Once you live in an area there’s never that many different places for you to go bike and very few actual nice areas to train.
Case in point: This somewhat larger loop has horrible roads and over 10km of clay/gravel. Not at all suited for group riding or training. Just bike destroying potholed pavement and cars getting angry at you as you are forced to take up more of the road to swerve around the cracks.

Me and Nik. Just proving this happened.

The foot of the gatineau parc hills. Very typical Quebec geography now: Rolling farmland and little 100-200m hills covered in forests.

Last ride of the week was a recovery pace tourism ride around the paths I used to do as a kid growing up. As usual with city riding: Endless confusing detours, construction, people in the way etc. But it doesn’t matter if you’re just there to recover and stop constantly to take pictures.

This is in Hull on the bike path near parc Moussette.

This route goes around Lac Lemay and behind the Casino. This is a kid putting a canoe in the water. He suspects nothing.

View of Ottawa from the Gatineau side of the Ottawa River.

I have to do this some day. What's the throwing up policy on a tiki boat?

The path will bring you to the Musée canadien des civilisations, one of Canada's most interesting architectures.

That's new. The platform was flooded though. Whoops.

Keep going and you'll pass in font of the Canada War Museum, where they glorify governments throwing taxpayers into the meat grinder.

View of Hull from behind the Parliament in Ottawa

You can see the Civilization Museum over there.

The nation's cancer with a bunch of people dancing in front of it.

View of downtown Ottawa. Mix of new and old architecture.

Lots and lots of lookouts along the river near Parliament hill.

Two gay guys taking a seflie.

More tourists.

National art gallery with the famous spider thing.

Has a nice mix of real art and modern art.

Keep following the bike path/river east and you get to Rockcliffe. Never been there before but it looks nice.

Aviation museum

Plane jail

Yeah looks weird I guess. Not sure what they were going for with this.

Back in town, going along the rideau canal. I've never seen a boat there, ever.

Little restaurant on the Ottawa river

Canoe/Kayak rental very popular in the Gatineau/Ottawa area. Saw tons of people paddling around the canal.

The canal as you get closer to downtown Ottawa.

The more touristy part of the Canal. Saw tour guides with a group but didn't want to steal all that free historical knowledge without paying for the tour.

So ends the biggest week of biking so far, at 25 hours. Enjoying just doing all this junk volume and almost never going hard. Just get the rides done, take pictures and get fat eating fries.

Montreal next week!

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Touring Canada Week 5