Thursday July 30, 2015

We said our farewells to Chen and Alison, who cycled with us to the turn to Hwy 115 and then they carried on to a farm market.

Unless it is raining they seem to do everything by bike. I hope we do that when we get home, use our bikes for everything – we might not even get a car. We really enjoyed staying with them and had some great discussions. Alison and Ralf agreed on so many things, both of them are discouraged by the policies of the various governments in the Provinces and Canada.

An early start to the day as we had a long ride ahead of us. We crossed the Red River.  Winnipeg has built a floodway around the City to prevent the Red River flooding.

Fortunately for us the wind was behind us and made the ride easier. You can see by the lean on this small barn which way the prevailing winds are! Those two pieces of wood are really helping to keep it up.

We had our first dog chase us today in months. It was a bit of a half-hearted chase, I took off like Mark Cavendish and Ralf dealt with the dog.

We also were “attacked’ by deer flies. What a pain, sorry about the pun, but they kept buzzing around us, drove me crazy.

The scenery changed today from rural agricultural to Precambrian shield. It looks as though we are in Ontario already, but we have a few kilometres to go yet. The road had soft shoulders, I think it is preparing us for the roads in Ontario.  We will be in Ontario tomorrow – Kenora.

We stopped in Elma for lunch. They didn’t have any pre-made sandwiches so I bought some buns, meat and cheese and made sandwiches on a bench outside of the grocery store.

We carried on to Rennie, where there was supposed to be a campsite. Rennie doesn’t take itself too seriously.

We met a young German touring cyclist as were making the turn to the campground. Oliver had only managed to cycle 50 kms today, into the headwind that we had as a great tailwind.

There is a campground in Rennie but it is for seasonal trailers. We cycled down to the campground and met the owner (Bev). Bev had seen us on the road twice today, once when she was going to Winnipeg and then again on her way home. Ralf at one point today said he was “so over” wanting to live in the middle of nowhere. I agreed with him when Bev told us she drove 132 ks to get her shopping (one-way).

Bev welcomed us to the campground and took us to a spot near the showers and next to the entertainment room. She said we could take our bikes into the entertainment room and if we wanted to we could sleep inside. Bev showed us the showers and then completely blew us away and told us it was free. Her and her husband think cross-country cyclists deserve a free night with a shower. Thank-you Bev.