Gil and Sharon are splendid hosts with a lovely home. They deliver up coffee like pros and
enliven four weary travellers at a very early hour.
We drove to a community playhouse and settled in to our first ever Rotary meeting. The meeting
starts with happy bucks – voluntary contributions that are plunked into a coffee cup following
each happy announcement. What a good idea.
We are introduced and we have an excellent question and answer session with everyone
participating. Afterwards, we head to the Cornwall civic building and we are greeted by the
Mayor, the MP for the region, municipal tourism leads, media, people with PD and their
supporters. It is clear from the speeches and discussions that Cornwall’s leadership is
knowledgeable and cares about PD and related issues. They also care about cycling, which is
evident in the attention that they pay to enhancing their waterfront trails. Smart move, as we
would later see that Quebec has a similar focus with their “green trail” system, and Cornwall
should benefit from the growing cycle tourism along the waterfront. It will be interesting to see
how this grows over time, the way it has in so many of the countries and regions that we have
flown to over the years. It would be amazing to have that scale of travel right here. After
speeches we are presented with a treasure trove of branded items, but my favourite is my
Cornwall “bunny hug” [hoodie], which saves me immediately from a cool morning, and will
doubtless see a lot more use.
We continue on to Quebec. The border is delivered like a whispered secret – just a small sign, 3’
obelisk, and resetting of the street numbers – but it is enormously important to us; we haven’t
crossed a border since July 30th. This is progress, as our odometer clicks past 6,000 km cycled.
We make our way past Montreal to Laval, where we decided to celebrate with a hotel stay and
some joie de vivre. When in Quebec …