July 13, 2017
Blenheim, ON to Erieau, ON
Day 14 - Camping Options?
Rain then overcast. Humid.
Woke up later and looked outside to a wet pavement, it rained in the night but I never heard it. Thinking it was a good idea to get a motel last night.
We had our breakfast then we heard it bucketing down outside again.
The plan for today is to stay at the hotel until check out and hopefully connect with a WS host to stay here for another night. The weather forecast calls for more showers and thunderstorms as the day progresses so it’s a good day for a rest day.
I spent the morning catching up on the journal and uploading photos even though the wifi was slow.
At check out time (11 a.m.) we biked into town and set ourselves up at Tim Hortons with their wifi. Toasted cheese and donuts all round.
I continued working on the journal and photo uploads with one eye on the weather and WS host response. Cameron spent the day on snapchat I believe.
By 2 p.m. we hadn’t heard back on the WS situation and the bad weather wasn’t materializing. Cameron was actually getting bored so we decided to hit the road and see how far we could go. Before we left, I grabbed a BLT and Cameron had more donuts. A quick trip to the grocery store and we blew out of town by 3 p.m.
Just west of town we took a detour off the ACA route to see the Rondeau West Breakwater Range Lighthouse in Erieau.
In 1844, the government built a pair of parallel piers, and erecting a lighthouse. In 1876, two lighthouses were erected on the east pier to form a range.
A new front range light, in the form of an square, skeletal, steel tower was erected in 1905. In 1912 a concrete beacon was built on the outer end of the west pier.
Today the active lights are the 1905 skeletal tower on the outer end of the east pier, the 1912 pyramidal concrete tower on the outer end of the west pier, and a modern tower on the inner end of the west pier.
After walking the bikes out on the breakwater and taking photos, we thought we should ask around for camping options. First stop where I thought I would get a good answer was the Brew Pub, but they told me there was no camping for tents.
Deciding to just start biking and see what happens we were heading away when I saw the library was open, we stopped and I walked in and met Maryann. Her first suggestion was to try the RV park but after we got talking about our trip and where we had been staying she suddenly said maybe we could just camp on her lawn. Bingo, problem solved. Turns out her granddaughter has been living in New Zealand for the last two years so we ended up hanging at the library for another two hours just talking.
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We then went off to the beach to prepare some dinner then rode around to Maryann and Brian’s place to set up.
They kindly offered showers before we bedded down for the night. Here we are sleeping on their lawn in a quiet town next to their gold fish pond.
Today's ride: 13 miles (21 km)
Total: 575 miles (925 km)
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