Thursday August 27, 2015

A very late start, we left Melinda’s at 10:30 am! We didn’t get as much stuff done as we should have done over the last two days and I was frantically sending emails out to warmshowers hosts and double-checking the route.

The weather looked a bit grey although the forecast wasn’t for rain.

We headed out on Huronia towards Cookstown and then down to Bradford on County Road 4.  Again, this was an area we were familiar with and forgot to take pictures. We got to Bradford and stopped at the Vintage Car place. Both of us wandered in, me to see the bikes and Ralf to see the cars. Ralf said, all the times we passed this place on our Lake Simcoe Ride and we never came in – we are on a world trip and we stop in!

County Road 4 was busy and had a bit of a paved shoulder, as we headed out of Bradford. It was a lovely ride with some rolling hills and really pretty scenery of southern Ontario and farmland.

We stopped near Newmarket for lunch. I had been thinking that as we were in Southern Ontario people might not be as friendly as other places we have been.

As we cycled towards Mount Albert an older fella stopped us and asked us if he could chat to us. He was a touring cyclist, although he didn’t camp, and he was interested in what we were doing. We chatted to him for a while, I guess I was wrong in thinking people might not be as friendly.

Time was passing, and we still hadn’t found the campsite. We passed the Lions Park near Mount Albert and considered wild camping, it had a couple of toilets, and we figured we could hide the tent behind some trees. However, we opted to carry on and find the campsite in Sandford.

We were almost at the campsite and an older fella were asked if we had been in Collingwood on Sunday. We stopped for a chat and invited us back to the farmhouse for a drink. We hummed and ahhed and said we should really find the campsite. He said we could pitch the tent at the farm. We said o.k. and thank you for the offer of a drink.

By the time we got to the farmhouse he offered us a spare room. As we arrived at the back door, he called his wife (Marg) and told her they had company and we would be sleeping in the “girls” bedroom.

After dinner of roast beef, fresh corn, beans and potatoes (all from the farm) we spent a great evening chatting to them, both of them had a great sense of humour.  Carm said that the campsite we were going to stay at used to be a nudist camp.  He couldn\’t understand why anyone would be nude in the spring and summer in Ontario – too many mosquitos and blackflies. We chatted about farming, he has 200 acres of corn, soya beans and used to farm cattle.

Carm is 81 and Marg is 79 they look about 60ish.  They have a place in Collingwood where they go to relax, the bike in the summer and ski in the winter. Both of them are avid skiers (downhill) because “cross-country is too hard work”.

Kindness of strangers. – unbelievable.

I had been thinking that as we were heading south and towards more populated areas, we might not have as many “act of kindness” Was I ever wrong.