Toads Go East - Day 17

Sticky the Stick Insect comes to see us off

Monday.

So, our final day of this tour and we have 500 Km to go. Check out is at 11am although I've noticed that on previous days, the KOA management haven't been overly zealous in kicking people off their sites; some have been in situ at gone 1pm. Still, we needed to get going as it was going to be around seven or eight hours on the road and we had to clear Toronto.

Breakfast was fun as we used up our supplies. For me it was carrot cake and ice cream, which is the breakfast of champions of course, and Mrs Toad had some nice pasta salad which beats bacon any day. He lied.

Nothing to report in the packing up process other than a thorough sloosh out of the poo tank as we won't be dumping again for a while (you really needed to know that, didn't you?). Just as we were hitching up, a couple came by to ask us about our tow vehicle, mainly because hubby had just bought a nice new new pick-up truck and wifey was doubting the wisdom of that decision when it came to put gas in it. Unlike our mad medic neighbour medic the other day ("you're all going to jail!"), this couple listened patiently to how we were set up, sucked their gums a bit and said "Wow! That's interesting". No censure, no unsubstantiated claims, just an acceptance that there are alternatives to using a gas-hungry pick-up to tow a trailer. Lovely.

The weather was fine as we set off, behind another Minivan, this one towing a "Lite" caravan, probably half the weight of ours. They had no weight distribution system installed, and no anti-sway measures, which is why the back of the van was low down and the front end high. They'd have had less steering, less braking force and the much greater possibility of the trailer getting into a nasty sway situation. How can people tell us that we're doing it wrong? Anyway, we breezed past them on the motorway and set course for the south west. 

It seemed to take us an age to get towards the outskirts of Toronto. I called a fuel stop at the service centre near Oshawa, which we doubled with lunch. We came across the service centre weakness again in that the traffic signs point us trailer folk to park with the big trucks in the long bays at the back (nothing wrong with that), but in so doing, you can't then double back to get into the gas station without going the wrong way up a one-way road. Yes, it's only the service centre so with care it's quite do-able, but how about a recognition that not everyone in the truck parking area uses diesel? A simple division of the rear access road to the gas station to make it two-way would do it; are you listening Ministry of Transport Ontario?

In true UK fashion, the 407 ETR Toronto toll road that allows an alternative to the urban disaster that is Highway 401 doesn't actually connect up with said highway at it's eastern end and, unless you drive someway into Toronto you have to strike north on a lesser road for a few kilometres. This we did, preferring a slower run towards the ETR than risking getting snarled up in stationary traffic on the 401 trying to get to a faster link road. It provided a break in the monotony of the highway driving and in no time at all we were adding money to the ETR's coffers but speeding along on Toronto's northern fringes. The road has four lanes and I drove in lane 2, not the extreme right hand lane, lane 1. This was to allow people joining the highway at speed to avoid us as we are considered to be moving slowly, even though I was on or slightly above the speed limit. As the locals might say, "go figure". On this toll road, though, people seemed to take great delight in ignoring the two lanes to the right of me and passing on the left, normally at great speed. It's not an issue really as I just sit there at the regulation speed, but I can't help thinking that driving at well in excess of the speed limit and overtaking on the wrong side is just tad dangerous. Still, this is Toronto.

Auspiciously, Highway 1, Yonge Street, marked our halfway mark for the day. Yonge Street is quite interesting and if you have a bit of time, have a look at this link here. 

We rejoined Highway 401 west of Toronto and, on very familiar ground now, we made our way home into the setting sun. It was showing 28 degrees Celsius on the car's thermometer, as warm as we'd seen over the previous two weeks, although the wind was still present, keeping our gas mileage at 20.5 litres per 100 Km, which was better than the run from Quebec but still not good. 

Back home we parked up and emptied Towed Haul of all the dirty laundry, of which there was plenty, and set the washing machine going. Delivered pizza was our treat for the evening and we settled in to catching up with two weeks of Coronation Street.

I asked Mrs T what she thought of this year's tour. "Not the best" she said, honestly "but still pretty good". 

I'll do a summary post later, complete with the statistics that I remembered to gather, so please, tune in for one more episode of Toads Go East....