Day 74: Borden-Carleton to Green Bay

July 17, 2025

Day 74: Borden-Carleton to Green Bay

Yesterday, I rode on the Confederation Trail for most of the trip. It’s a bike trail that reminded me of the GAP trail that runs from Cumberland, MD, to Pittsburgh, PA. The fine gravel and the shaded trees made the trail ideal to ride on. In fact, I did something that I rarely do on a bike ride, putting on some music.

Around 11 AM, I took a short detour from the trail to Route 2 Diner and had lunch that consisted of meatloaf and corn chowder. I had wanted fish chowder, but the waitress gave me the wrong one.

I rested well there before getting on the road again. The temperature became hotter in the afternoon due to the heatwave. I was able to ride on the trail a bit more before using Google Maps to guide me to my Couchsurfing host’s house.

Unfortunately, one of roads that I was on wasn’t a real road, but more fitted for an ATV. I had to bike through some mud and ended up walking my bike since the road was more like a hiking trail. Google Maps failed me this time.

After cycling up some hills, I arrived at my Couchsurfing host Mike’s farm in Green Bay around 2 PM, having ridden about 32.1 miles for the day. Mike and his partner, Paul, live on this farm for over 25 years. Mike used to work in the hotel industry and owned three hotels. Paul worked as a landscape architect. No wonder their property is so nicely kept.

Mike gave me a tour of the 150 acres farm. They have some cows, vegetable gardens, and a walking trail in the back, in addition to a guest house, a barn, a garage, and the main house. They even have a pigeonnier, which is a free standing tower that houses pigeons and collects their droppings to use as fertilizers. Mike and Paul don’t have pigeons, they use the tower as a place of rest.

This is the biggest farm that I’ve ever been to. I thought Donna’s 100 acre farm in Ontario was big. This one is 50% bigger. This farm is also situated on top of a hill so the main house has a great view of the surrounding areas.

After taking an outdoor shower, I chatted with Mike and Paul a bit more. They hiked the Camino de Santiago from the French side back in 2012 and wrote a blog, which Mike turned it into a book. They also have traveled to many countries over the years and hosted many people through Couchsurfing. Not only that, they are also on HelpX.net and WorkAway.info where they host volunteers to work on their farm.

Mike was telling me that it’s a shame that I’ll only be on PEI for a couple of days where it’s so beautiful here. He offered to host me as a volunteer on the farm if I choose to stay longer. I wish I didn’t purchase my plane ticket to Edinburgh. Since I bought the cheapest ticket there is no refund or reschedule. I have to think about it as a sunk cost if I want to stay for a week or longer at the farm.

My goal is to get to Turkey before winter. I have up to 90 days to travel in the Schengen Area of the European Union. The more time I spend in Canada and the United Kingdom the greater the possibility of cycling in the cold, which I don’t want to do.

There is also the option to come back to Mike and Paul’s farm after my travels, but who knows when that will be. I definitely want to volunteer at a farm to see if that’s something I enjoy doing. Maybe the farm can wait for now.

I was reading Mike and Paul’s blog book about their walk on the Camino. Each day reads like a short story and the book is so well written. It made me think about my approach to his blog.

My blog is true to what a blog is. It’s a log on the web of the things that happened to me. But I feel my blog posts have been dry and only present the events and not so much my thoughts and feelings about certain things. I want to include more of that in the future and less about what I did or ate, unless they are important.

I’ll be taking a much needed rest at the farm today. I haven’t taken a real rest day since I stayed at Boro’s place in Quebec City about 20 days ago. Feels good to finally relax a bit, sleep on a bed, and heal from all the mosquito bites.