Ottawa to Fredericton - Day 4

Monday, September 10 - Cookshire, QC - 117 km

The sun in Bromont rises earlier. I got up at 06:00 and it was already light out. Gord cooked up a feast as I readied my bike. A couple of kittens enjoyed climbing the panniers and standing on the rack. I think they wanted to come with me. After eating until I was stuffed, I made off about 07:45. It was all downhill into town, where I got onto a rail trail which took me to Waterloo. All along the trail were interesting sculptures. One, which at first looked like an outhouse of some sort, was a big concrete pillar with faces molded into the outside. Inside was a giant sculpture of an ear. I reached Waterloo and there was a map posted that indicated that the bike path continued, unpaved, all the way to Magog. I decided to take it. I followed the crushed stone trail along a power line cut and then onto a dirt road. I followed this road fora a while and came across another touring cyclist so tried to say hi. I tried both french and english, but he was not much for conversation, so I passed and went on my way. I consulted another posted map and decided on a route to Magog off of the dedicated "La Route Verte" because it was much shorter. The road became paved here which was nice, but quite hilly, with some sizable mountains serving as the scenery backdrop. In Magog I looked for a grocery store with no luck. I got onto the 108 and headed on to Sainte-Catherine de Hatley where I stopped at a depanneur and picked up some bread and delicious fresh cheese curd. I rode through several km of gravel road construction to North Hatley where another beautiful lake was completely surrounded by private beaches. Most people even put up fences so you could not even see the lake from the road. At the northern tip of the lake was a nice park so I sat and ate my lunch there. I continued on and found a market stall by the roadside where I bought a bunch of green beans and some potatoes. The 108 got pretty busy at this point until I got to Cookshire where several other roads split off and took most of the traffic. This section was nice though, because it had a decent paved shoulder the entire way. I stopped at a tourist information booth to ask about camping along the way to Bury and to fill some water bottles, as it was very hot, so I had drunk about 2L by this point. Unfortunately the place was closed with a sign written in french that I believe said "Due to funding cuts, we are only open Saturday and Sunday". Oh well, at least there was a picnic table so I stopped for a snack on some muffins that Gord had sent me off with. A few km down the road I found a very overgrown trail into the woods. I am camped on top of an old asphalt road bed that is being reclaimed by the forest. The vegetation is incredibly dense made up of young jack pine trees, but if you push through them the forest opens up into a mixed hard/soft wood. There is even a small, swift running stream so I may fill my water bottles.

Rail trail to Waterloo.

The end of the line.

Apparently cows and pigs need more R&D. (There are still a few bugs)

Christmas tree farm.

Overgrown trail.

Camped on a road bed.

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