Monday August 17, 2015

We woke up to rain, the forecast was for it to clear up by mid-morning and then sunshine all the way to Thessalon. The rain had stopped and the roads were drying up by the time we were saying our farewells to George and Debbie (the other cyclists) and Doug at 9:00 a.m.

Doug and his neighbour Jim had given us some advice as to which route to take. We were on Hwy 17 for a brief time and then took Hwy 17B which had a wide shoulder and had very little traffic.

We passed the big Loonie in Echo Bay. This is where Robert Ralph Carmichael was a resident and he designed the one dollar coin commonly referred to as the Loonie. If you have a loonie in your pocket it has his initials on the Loon side (RRC).

Hwy 17B was a nice quiet road and minutes before rejoining Hwy 17 we spotted two birds. They were very tall and I think they are Sandhill cranes.

Just before we reached Bruce Mines we had to rejoin Hwy 17, at this point it was a two-lane divided highway, still no paved shoulder but the road wasn’t too busy. Unfortunately at Bruce Mines the road went down to single lane (each-way) and that really “enjoyable” variable shoulder we both love to hate.

Come on Ontario get with the program, a 1 metre paved shoulder not this thick soft gravelly crap.

The sun came out and all in all it was a good ride. We are staying in a motel tonight because the forecast is for rain from early evening all night.

The weather forecasters were right once today, which means they will probably be wrong for the evening rain and we should have camped.

Ralf went into Thessalon and said the campground looked really nice.