Adding Salt to the Wounds
Shrewsbury to Port Burwell – 76 miles
Average Speed – 13.7 mph
Sleeping last night was not especially comfortable, thanks to my wounded arm and knee that screamed when anything touched it. We had a generous breakfast, which got us through the entire day. Early weather reports said that the heat and humidity would subside today. Reality indicated that it would not. It was too hot to even consider eating anything, but we made a few stops for ice cold beverages.
Shortly after that stop, we pedaled on and encountered a couple of self-contained cyclists heading in the opposite direction.
They were from Switzerland and heading to LA, which they planned to reach in November or December. They only had a few more miles to go for the day as they were averaging much shorter daily distances than we. What a luxury. I would have really loved to have reached our destination after 25 or 30 miles today. That isn’t entirely true because we are both getting antsy to get home and live a more stable life. Although we are thoroughly enjoying this trip and we both love to travel, we would like to spend a few days in the same spot.
My knee and arm constantly ached, but both suddenly began to really bother me. I put a bandage on both of them, although had hoped to let them dry out. It wasn’t until we stopped in Port Stanley that I realized what the problem was. I resembled basement concrete blocks with a bad case of efflorescence.
Salty Arm with Scrapes
Robert thought my arms were simply dirty until he tried to sample the white salty looking substance. I had become a human pretzel from sweating so profusely. It was that salt that seeped into my wounds and caused me to suffer.
Our big surprise of the day was several steep hills. Don’t know where they came from or why they are here. The southerly section of the Niagara Escarpment? Sounds good to me. The hill immediately out of Port Stanley climbed so steeply, that I gave up and walked it. Shortly after that, I pedaled as hard as I did up Lolo Pass to reach the top of an Ontario hill. Maybe I should have eaten something after breakfast.
We passed by a brand new wind farm, with 66 turbines in all.
We did have a semi- tailwind today from the SSW direction. The best that we can hope for these days is that one part of the direction has a W in it.
We arrived late in the day to Port Burwell, and checked into the Grey Gables B&B
, which is conveniently just one block from the main street and very popular with cyclists.
It does seem like everything here is located just one block away from the main drag. We showered and then set out to explore Burwell, which has Canada’s oldest wooden lighthouse, a very nice beach and a marine museum.
We even hit the laundromat as these hot days haven’t done much to keep our clothes fresh or even dry. We don’t want to have to worry about a mold problem in the panniers.