Wednesday August 12, 2015

A lovely ride today. The sun came out, eventually. The cool start to the day (4.6 degrees) had me digging out my leggings and socks. By the time hour two came by the leggings and socks came off and we were putting on sunscreen.

We stopped at another hunt/camp resort/lodge for an early break. I couldn’t face another mystery meat and cheese sandwich, I had a muffin and some green tea, Ralf went for the mystery meat and cheese sandwich again. Once again the owner chatted to us and we had more discussions about the changes to the hunting regulations for this year. He will be closing early as he has had two cancellations already and is expecting more.

The roads and shoulders were really good until we got to about 15 kms shy of Wawa, then they went pear-shaped, narrow shoulders and rough roads . To make matters worse the wind changed direction and we headed into a full-on headwind for the last 15 kms.

We arrived in Wawa at about 2:00 pm, good time for 92 kms, and had a walk around the Big Goose and the Tourist Information Centre.

Then we headed to the Wawa Motor Inn where Chris Jones had arranged for our nights stay. The room wasn’t ready and check-in is at 4:00 pm. We headed down to downtown Wawa, there is a nice beach and boardwalk, but a lot of the stores are closed.

After having a second lunch at the Tim Horton’s we chatted to a lady outside. Her concern, as is often the case, was for our safety on the narrow shoulders and crappy roads (her words). She had a little rant about the state of the roads in Northern Ontario and the MTO.

I called Chris Wray the CAO of the Township, my friend Chris Jones had told him we were coming though and about the blog and the Mayor wanted to meet us. We arranged to meet Mayor Ron Rody at 6:30ish.

The room was eventually ready for us at 4:30, plenty of time to shower and be ready to meet the Mayor.

What a really nice man the Mayor was, he offered to take us for a drive around Wawa. It was wonderful, he gave us a brief history of the Town and took us to see Lake Superior, two waterfalls, the downtown, beach area, and the neighbourhoods.

The Town was a mining town but the mine closed in 1998. There is work at two other mines and the diamond mines are opening up in the area. Ron told us about Gitchee Goomees, there is an artist in Town who carves them and paints them, they are quite popular and are very colourful.

Thank-you Mayor Ron Rody for spending time with us.