Apart from a small climb up to our warmshowers hosts house we had a good day on the relative flat of the canal path and some fairly quiet roads. Going on the roads after being on the gravel paths you realise how much quicker tarmac is over gravel.

I haven’t been taking that many picture lately as the scenery has been fairly similar for the last few days.

We arrived at our warmshowers hosts after google maps got a tiny bit mixed up with the street numbers, it was 200 off, but street numbering in america seems to be a very strange thing as there were not 200 houses between where google maps thought we should be and were in reality we should be.

13.9.11

Another day spent mainly. Cycling along the canal path. We met our warmshower host on the canal path and cycled to his brother football (soccer) game, we watched this for a bit, they had a very hightech score board and timer as well as a very nice stand.

We went back to our hosts house where we were feed some burgers that he called trashbin burgers, as they had a lot of different ingredients in. It was a good dinner and good chats.

After dinner we spent a little bit of time making newspaper poetry and reading a book called The Art of Looking Sideways.

Today we cycled along some of the canal path and some roads. Again it was relaxing riding and nothing much happened apart from a fallen tree that blocked our path on the trail so we had to carry our bikes over that.

Yesterday I forgot to say that we camped near this bridge that was designed so that horses pulling boats a long the canal didn’t have to be untied from the boat when crossing the bridge. It looked pretty good but it was just sort of in the middle of a field, I should have taken a picture of it but I didn’t.

We arrived in Syracuse in good time and waited a little while for our warmshowers host to get home. Then we went out for Mexican and ate rice and pop corn made in a Whirley Pop Popcorn Popper well I think this was a different brand but the same idea. It made some pretty good pop corn.

There is also a husky dog in the house it is very placid.

The last two days have been spent cycling the Erie canal bike trail it is pretty good and a relaxing ride.

Nothing eventful happened whilst cycling for the past two days it was just pleasant riding. It seems strange that there few and few days cycling before we arrive in NYC. The trip is really drawing to a close now.

We camped in the local bike shop owners garden in Brockport, I went in to buy a spare inner tube and asked if there was anywhere good to stay and he kindly offered up his backyard. He had a very big english Labrador called sprocket. We watched some Nascar racing on TV before going to bed. I learnt a lot about Nascar, more than I have ever done before. They drive about 400 to 500 miles in an oval in about 4 hours.

Today we cycled along the path and just came off the path to go to the dinosaur BBQ and supermarket in Rochester. The BBQ was recommended to us by the bike shop owner as well as somebody else we stayed with a few nights ago so we thought it would be worth a try it was pretty good but there could have been a bit more food! We got back onto the path and found somewhere good to camp in a park in Palmyra.

French toast maple syrup and a vegi sausage is always a good way to stay a day. We rode out of the St Catherines with our host, to Niagara Falls, it was a good ride along the Welland Canal there were some massive locks and bridges that lifted up. We saw one boat/ship in the lock. The canal closes in the winter as it freezes over. It is always good to ride out of a city with somebody who knows it as it makes navigation easy, you don’t have to do it and you get a little tour too.

We got to the falls which although being very touristy it was a lot less tacky than I was expecting and the falls and the mist that blows from there was pretty impressive.

We crossed over the Rainbow Bridge back into america, the board control guard was friendly enough and asked a lot of questions it was hard to tell if there were interrogation or just curiosity probably interrogation.

We had a bit of lunch on the america side of the falls before continuing on to our couchsurfing host in Lockport. We head off to the video games store he works in for a mario cart tournament. I was very bad and got knocked out at the earliest opportunity it was good fun but pretty intense with all the screens and noise but it was a good experience. We had some good pizza for dinner.

8.9.11

Today was more riding in the rain and wind. We cycled along for a while, and I cannot remember that much of what happened apart from eating lunch in a bus stop. We arrived at our warmshowers hosts and had a great mexican meal after taking a shower in their very advanced shower. We had some wine from the area, due to the geography of the area they can grow grapes their but because of the weather the vintage is very important 2007 was a good year for red. We had some wine from Wayne Gretzky Estates who is a famous hockey player. The wine tasted good to me I don’t no much about wine. We stayed up fairly late chatting about cycle touring and looking at Cliff`s website, it was good to see the photos from the trip.

 

Today started with saying goodbye to our host as he headed to work and having breakfast in a cafe called Mary’s Place it was pretty good and bottomless coffee is always a plus.

We headed onwards into the headwind and ran until we got to Woodstock were we found a Fish and Chip shop, (english style), that offered all you can eat fish and chips so after 4 fish and two plates of chips we were pretty fully and headed out into the wind again. The rain had stopped. There was a lady from England who had moved out to Canada who we chatted with for a bit.

We got to Brantford and found our hosts house and after showering eat a great stir-fry, with a mystery sauce, we were later told what was in it but I have forgotten now I think it was tomato ketchup, sugar, vinegar and some other thing.

After dinner we sat around talking and a friend of our hosts came round. It was good to talk to everyone. The friend said that we were balls crazy and that we must have rocket legs!

My pictures have been a bit dull for the last few days this is because it has been rainy and dull, (weather not overall).

Just a very quick post to say we cycled to London, and couch surfed we went out for a good meal and a little walk around the neighbourhood we came back and went to bed.

I sleep very well last night and awoke to find the temperature had decreased a bit, in fact it was a little chilly. We headed of saying goodbye to our host, and headed to Marine City which is on a river and has a $1 ferry for bikes cars and other vehicles it just costs a dollar for bikes not sure how much it costs for other vehicles, into Canada.

Entering Canada was very laid back and did prove to be any problem. We check with a USA border guard and we should be able to get back in to the USA!

I forgot to say that before we came into Canada we went to a Sandwich/Coffee franchise shop I have forgotten the name off. I think it was Tim or Tom and then the surname began with H.

It got very Windy in Canada lucky not a head wind. We cycled on a bit but not that far to a village park with shelter but surprisingly few benches. We asked some people playing street Hockey if we could camp there and they said that nobody would care.

Within a few minutes a truck and trailer arrived loaded with benches. They had borrowed them for a party the night before. They also said that it would be fine to camp. We helped them unload, before cooking our dinner.

After breakfast and carry our bike out of the house we left Flint, cycling out of the city wasn’t too bad as there were only a few roads to take, and the rest of the day was spent on the same road, although its name changed once or twice.

We arrived at our next warmshowers host and had an other good dinner with the best sweetcorn and cantaloupe melon I have tasted. After dinner we went on a walk around the little farm were there were quite a few chickens and a goat, which watched a tiny bit of TV before heading to bed.

It looked like it was going to be a rainy day today but somehow we managed to avoid the rain. Tomorrow, we hope to go to Canada, who knows what this new country will hold for us!