Cycling to Rockport

Today, we decided to bicycle another third of the 1000 Islands Waterfront Trail, this time from Mallorytown upriver to Rockport, a little village with shops, restaurants and small boat tours.

The Waterfront Trail is 50 km long, and travels the length of the 1000 Islands Parkway through the entire 1000 Islands region, from Gananoque upstream, to the west, to Brockville downstream, to the east.  Our village, Mallorytown, is set almost in the middle, which makes it the perfect hopping-off point for bicycle trips both directions.

Saturday, we cycled up toward Brockville, and were introduced to the beauty of the St. Lawrence in this 1000 Islands region.  Today we were hoping to get more of the same, and to look more closely at the communities along this stretch of the river.

Today's trip takes us from one township with a unique name - Front of Yonge - into the neighboring township - which has an equally unusual name:  Leeds and the Thousand Islands:

No sooner did we set on our way, then we spotted the first denizen who was out walking about. This little turtle decided to stroll across the Parkway toward the river.  Only she (or he) knew the reason.  We hoped that he would survive this little asphalt adventure:

As throughout the 1000 Islands region, this section of the St. Lawrence shore is dotted with islands both large and small, and there is clearly no island too small for a cottage:

Many families like to summer in the 1000 Islands, including this huge family.  I guess they need one of the bigger mansions on one of the islands to hold their entire brood:

As we say, there is no island too small for a cottage.  This small cottage added a boathouse on the bank and connected to solid land by a small pedestrian bridge:

Eventually, we arrived at the village of Rockport, which is quite picturesque and advertises its touristic importance with this welcoming gateway banner:

Our destination was Cornwall's Pub, advertised to serve the tastiest fare west of the City of Quebec - not to mention its beer.  Well, we can't attest to whether its cuisine is especially unique, but it was tasty -

- and we did have a chance to sample a wonderful local ale brewed by Beau's All Natural Brewing Co., based in Vankleek Hill, Ontario, near Ottawa.  Beau's makes a very interesting flight of tasty beers, and we look forward to trying many of them.  Here's Kathy embarking on this wonderful journey, hoisting a coup of the blonde ales:

From the veranda at Cornwall's Pub, we had an excellent view of the river, with various boats pottering around among the small islands nearby:

The village is cute, and we could have given you photos of several houses and churches that are historic and quaint.  However, this garage of a local boatwright caught our eye with its tromp l'oeil mural on the front:

It's always a little depressing to start the trip home, even when it's a bicycle trip and you have over an hour's peddling left to enjoy.  However, we did happen to see some things on our way home that we had not lingered to enjoy in our eagerness to get to lunch.

One was this homemade observatory:

Another was this exquisite wildflower garden nestled at the base of one of the many sandstone-and-limestone cliffs sprinkled along this shore of the river:

We'll be back in the 1000 Islands area again at least two more times, so we expect to complete the last third of the Waterfront Trail on a future stay.  We'll be sure to invite you along.