Saturday August 22, 2015

An early start after a great breakfast at Gregg’s restaurant in Tobermory. Gregg’s is the only restaurant open at 7:00 a.m. in Tobermory and every table was full. The breakfast was good and kept us going until Wiarton.

As we left Tobermory we spotted this ghost bike. Ghost Bikes usually do not have names on them. This one did and after a google search Meredith McPhee was 32 years old and killed by an “alleged” drunk driver. The charges on the alleged drunk driver were dropped due to poor police procedure. Although he was found to have over the legal limit of alcohol in his blood, the police did not follow the proper road-side procedures. Meredith was cycling at night wearing a reflective vest, but no lights on the bike.

Cyclists have to be visible and ride defensively. Ralf and I pride ourselves on always wearing bright clothing and even when it is raining we put our lights on.

The ride was long, but the weather was good and the wind although not a tail-wind was not a full-on head-wind.

The paved shoulder we had been enjoying on Highway 6 disappeared about 15 kms outside of Wiarton. This stretch of the highway is straight and good pavement, but the motorists were idiots.   On five separate occasions motorists ignored the double yellow centre lines and overtook the cars in front of them not taking any notice of the two cyclists heading towards them. We had to head for the gravel shoulder each time.  Whenever, Ralf saw a line of cars he was watching for the idiot drivers who would overtake, he seems to have a sixth sense for those drivers. Probably because he had to deal with this kind of thing all the time when he was a truck driver.

The scary part of these incidents is the fact that the shoulder can be rough or soft, and as we are loaded and often travelling at 20 kph, hitting the rough shoulder can give us quite the wobble on the bikes. We also add in the “tar snakes” these are sections of the road that have broken up and the municipality “repairs” these lines with tar. On hot days the tar gets very soft and tires can get caught in them, again giving us a wobble. Cars do not notice these and although we always try to stay in a straight line, tar snakes can attack us.

We opted to drop down to a quieter road which would take us through Lions Head.

This is a pretty village, with a lovely harbor.

A lady offered to take our photo behind the photo frame.  It is nice when we get a photo together.

There was a farmer’s market open and we pushed our bikes through the area. We became quite the attraction and were asked numerous times where we were going and how far we had come. We were going to have a fruit-filled crepe, but there was quite the line up. By the time we had answered all the questions we decided to pop into a little café and had a home-baked raspberry muffin and a chocolate milk, lovely.

We stopped briefly in Wiarton for lunch, and took photos of Wiarton Willie. Wiarton Willie predicts whether we will have a long winter or an early spring by whether he can see his shadow or not!

The road had some interesting houses and we were able to stop and take photos.

We arrived in Owen Sound hot and tired. As we were heading to our warmshowers house, he came along side us on his bike. He had seen us passing the bank and caught up with us.

Don was very nice but his house was a mess. I know some of you out there are thinking well Jacky and Ralf are clean freaks. Maybe this photo will show you how bad this place was.

How do you politely refuse to stay in a place like this? Don washed the sheets before we made up the bed and yes we did stay the night. However, we cooked our own food and washed the plates before using them!

Friday August 21, 2015

A good relaxing day in Tobermory. We left the rental cottage at 10:30 and headed the short distance back into Tobermory downtown. We found the Belrose Inn, the rooms were above the Marco Polo Trading Post. The hallways were a little musty but the rooms were clean and adequate.

Ralf and I were last in Tobermory about 24 years ago. We had rented a cottage for the week on the Bruce Peninsula. Tobermory hasn’t changed very much, a few more touristy shops. The area is very popular with scuba divers, as there are a lot of shipwrecks in the area that are in quite shallow waters. The Bruce Peninsula is also very popular with walkers/hikers.

It was nice to spend the day being tourists.

We wandered down one side of Little Tub Harbour and then down the other side.

We were back at our room at about 3:00 pm. We had to eat out as there was nowhere to cook in the room. We had a long ride to Owen Sound tomorrow where we had another warmshowers host.

After eating our body weight in pizza we waddled back to our room. At 9:00 pm a band from a local bar started to play. They carried on playing past midnight, even though I had earplugs in I could still hear them. They were good and were playing some nice music, but… I needed my sleep.

Thursday August 20, 2015

We woke up to rain again. Dave our host had to leave at 7:30 am and said we could wait out the rain until it clears up. We checked the forecast and it was supposed to be raining all day. Sheila said we could stay another day, but I got the feeling that they would prefer us to carry on our trip. Ralf wanted to hang out for another day. I spoke to him quietly and told him they were just being polite, by inviting us to stay.

We headed out in the rain much to Ralf’s chagrin, but when the rain stopped he was glad we had opted to ride that day.

The ride to South Baymouth was going to be 96 kms and I knew we would have a headwind or at least winds that were not tail winds.

We met four touring cyclists before we came into Little Current. They said they are cycling across Canada four days at a time! They were enjoying the great tail-wind.

The wind was brutal today, coming from every direction except from behind. We had gusts of up to 35 ks per hour it was a tough ride.

We saw this beautiful stone with a plaque on it that read: \”Franklin Delano Roosevelt 32^nd President of the United States of America during his vacation in Canada immediately prior to the historic Quebec conference fished these waters August 1^st to August 8^th 1943\”. I guess I should know what the historic Quebec conference was all about but I don’t.  Either that, or nothing happened here before August 1, 1943 and not much since that day.

We were coming through Birch Island, which is an Indian Reserve, when I noticed that the British flag was hung the wrong way. There were two guys outside of the band office. I told Ralf that the flag was up side down, he said go tell the guys.

I did, I said “Sorry to bother you but the British flag is upside down.” They walked me over to the flag poles and asked me which way it was supposed to go. I showed them the fat white strip and told them that should be in the bottom corner, closest to the flagpole. They promptly took the flag down and hung it the right way.

Ralf was laughing and shaking his head, he took photos of them doing it. One of the guys said to me “What\’s he doing – taking a photo of an Indian working” I couldn’t stop laughing, I said “No he is taking a photo of his wife who keeps telling people the flag is upside down and you are the only guys who has ever corrected the flag when I told them it is hanging upside down”. Nice guys.

When we got to the swing bridge at Little Current there was a motor bike in front of us with two Austrians who were riding across Canada. She was amazed at how much we were carrying.

We got into Little Current and had a second breakfast/lunch.

Then we headed back into the wind, Ralf took the lead all the way as Highway 6 had a bit of a shoulder and the traffic was not too busy.

We stopped at a lookout point and met Lisa and Sage. A woman who is cycling across Canada to raise money for the Ride to Conquer Cancer with her dog in the trailer, her total weight that she is carrying is over 300lbs including trailer dog and panniers. That is crazy.

We were only half-way and it was already 2:00, once again back into the wind.

We arrived in South Baymouth at 5:20 pm, the ferry to Tobermory left at 5:50pm. We hadn’t planned on taking the ferry today but if we got on it we would be able to have a full rest day in Tobermory tomorrow, save the cost of a motel in South Baymouth and spending two nights in Tobermory. We lined up with the motorcyclists and the two Austrians were in front of us. She couldn’t believe that we had caught up to them, saying \”Where\’s your motor\”?

We went straight to the cafeteria to have our supper. Chicken pot pie, mashed potatoes and corn with a bread roll for $8.75, good price and it tasted good as well.

However, it was a very rough crossing and within minutes people were rushing for the barf bags. At one point one of the women in the cafeteria shouted to another crew member “I need more barf bags”.

Ralf and I were fine.

We got off the ferry and headed to the first motel – no vacancies, second motel – no vacancies! Crap it was 7:45 pm and we had nowhere to sleep. Fortunately the Tourist Info office was open she told me there was a bunkie (small cabin) available at Mermaids Dream across the road. By the time we got there it was gone, back to Tourist Office for a campsite, she called the campsite to make sure it was still available. The campsite was 5 ks down the road, we headed out with lights on, as it was getting dark.  We have never pitched the tent in the dark before.

About 200 metres down the road a lady stopped her car in front of us and told us she knew someone who had a cottage to rent that night. We followed her another 200 metres and asked the owner how much to rent for the night? He responded $250 per night, but would give it to us for $140. We took it, the cottage has two bedrooms and can sleep 5 adults and has 2 roll-away beds as well. As we were getting our bags into the cottage it started to rain.

Tomorrow we are staying in a motel in the downtown core, only $80.

Wednesday August 19, 2015

Highway 17 out of Serpent River was busy and once again had no paved shoulder. I had found an alternate route from Massey to Espanola and I was very pleased to get to Massey and make the right turn along Lea Valley Road.

Massey was a quiet little town with a couple of restaurants and motels. Massey had a Rona and Home Hardware, which we thought was a bit odd, two large hardware stores for such a small town. However, as we cycled along we noticed that the scenery had changed to a more rural/agricultural region. I went into the Rona to inquire whether Lea Valley Road was paved.  The cashier said it was but there might be a few areas where there had been some roadworks which may be a bit gravelly.

Massey had a number of plaques and signs commemorating their history. Massey was the home of broom ball!

The route along Lea Valley Road was a quiet winding country lane with little traffic.

Unfortunately it started to rain again.

We arrived in Espanola cold and wet. I was looking for a café where we could have a hot meal, but could only spot a Subway that was open. I asked where there was a café that was serving something hot as I was cold. She offered to make us the hot breakfast sandwich and they had soup.

By the time we had eaten it had stopped raining and the sun was coming out.

Espanola has a large pulp and paper mill. This mill produces specialized paper, including the paper used to wrap medical instruments.

We went to supermarket chatted to a First Nations lady who said she had passed us a couple of times since Thunder Bay. She was visiting the Pow Wows along the way and suggested that we should go and see one – Rama this week-end. I don’t think we will get to Rama by the week-end, we should be in Barrie by Monday.

After Ralf had resupplied we headed out to our warmshowers host in Whitefish Falls.

We thought this was going to be a pitch the tent or sleep in the gazebo, but when we arrived Dave told us that they had a problem bear who would probably like to share the gazebo with us.

The ‘problem’ bear had actually got into their house a week or so ago. Dave and Sheila were in the gazebo and Dave went back into the house for his glasses. Fortunately Dave had gone into the house through the front door and disturbed the bear who had gone into the house via the screen door at the back of the house. The bear made a run for it through the screen door. We slept in the basement on sleeping mats. The dinner was lovely.

Tuesday August 18, 2015

A rather uncomfortable bed in our motel room and it was warm as there was no air conditioning, not a good nights sleep for me. At least we were dry, the forecasted rain did happen and we woke up to grey, drizzly skies again. Once again by the time we left the motel the rain had stopped but the roads were wet.

We cycled through the small Town of Thessalon and it looked like quite a nice Town. The downtown core had some closed stores, but not as many as other Towns we have cycled through. There were some nice houses and it is located on the lake and a river.

We joined Hwy 17 again and once again the shoulders were unpaved and narrow. We turned our back lights on as it had begun to drizzle and we like to be visible.

We followed the North Shore River for a while and could see how low it was, there were a lot of sandbars.

I was feeling a little stiff, due to the uncomfortable bed, the weather was grey and so was my mood. We had two options today; cycle 55 kms to Blind River and stay in a motel or cycle 85 kms to Spragge and camp. I knew I was going to have to lead all day because of the awful shoulders. Ralf likes to be behind me on these narrow roads and warns me about the traffic. This means that if it is windy, which it was today, I don’t get a break from the wind. I didn’t think it was going to be a fun ride and I was prepared to stop at Blind River.

However, we got to Blind River at noon, too early to stop and I was feeling good. We had a good lunch at Subway. The sun had come out and the road had a reasonably sized shoulder coming into Blind River and all the way to Spragge. The traffic was behaving, giving us lots of room when they passed and I didn’t feel as if I was taking my life into my hands by continuing cycling to Spragge. For the first time in Ontario we spotted the Warning bicycle sign.

Ralf had found a motel in Spragge on google. However, when we got there it looked dismal. It had a For Sale sign on it, we did cycle up to the office and a fella came out. The motel was open, I asked if I could see one of the rooms. We have stayed in worse rooms, but it had a really bad smell in the room, cigarette smoke and the smell of your Great Grandmother just before she dies. For the pleasure of staying in this wonderful room the cost would be $85.00.

I opted for the campsite two more kilometres down the road. I knew it had cabins and if we were lucky we might be able to sleep under a roof again for less than $85.00.

We were lucky, we had a lovely rustic cabin, very basic but nice. The forecast is for rain again tonight, but at the moment it is very hot and humid. The internet is bad, really intermittent, I was able to contact our warmshowers host for Thursday night and hopefully we can stay with him tomorrow night instead as we should make it to Whitefish Falls tomorrow.

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.

Sunday August 16, 2015

A great rest day. We are staying with Doug Cuddy who is a warm and funny person. He has a great house and is hosting another couple who are cycling across the country, taking it one section at a time.

Doug allowed me to use his bike stand and some tools for cleaning the bikes. Both bikes are clean again and ready for the road, laundry is done and I am feeling very relaxed. Drinking Doug’s home-brewed beer helps.

Doug allowed Ralf to use his car so that Ralf could try and sort out the phone situation, we have not had cell service since Kenora and get resupplied.

Ralf spent over an hour on the phone trying to determine why we have not had cell service from Kenora. We may have to change carriers to Rogers, what a total waste of time. Ralf was surprisingly calm and polite with all the people he spoke to on the phone! Doug and I were in the kitchen laughing at Ralf being so calm.

Doug has had a problem with bears in the past, and has a bear skull in an alcove in his fireplace. The bear wanted to get into the house, possibly hoping to have a romantic encounter with Doug’s dog, Kali. Doug protecting the females of his household, shot it.

The garden at this place is amazing and both nights we have had fresh veggies from the garden. Doug asked what veggies I like, I told him I wasn’t keen on beets, but Ralf really likes them. What a very astute man, he made a big pile of beets for dinner because he knew that Ralf didn’t get to eat beets very often!

We had a late night chatting, eventually getting to bed about midnight. Very bad, we have quite a long ride tomorrow and should have been in bed earlier. It was nice to have a good chat and put the world’s to rights with a funny, intelligent man.

Saturday August 16, 2015

A lovely start to the day, then it went pear-shaped.

What an absolutely horrendous ride. The road was narrow with no paved shoulders, the car and camper van drivers drove too close.

I can’t exactly say what the route was like because the roads were so bad, and all I was doing was concentrating on staying alive.

I had a meltdown at one time because I felt at risk. Ralf gave me a big hug, and after I was able to breathe again we carried on to our warmshowers host.

Doug is a great host, and has a lovely dog, Kali.

Friday August 14, 2015

Today is our 30^th wedding anniversary. I had day dreamed about how I wanted this day to unfold. I was going to wake up in a nice hotel bed, I would put my head on my wonderful hubby\’s chest and listen to his heart-beat as I have done many times before. After a lovely cuddle I would get up and shower and wrap myself in a big fluffy white towel. Then we would have breakfast together, that someone else would cook for us. Eggs Benedict, good coffee and buck’s fizz (mimosas). Then the rest of the day would be a day off the bikes and relaxing.

I woke up in a cold damp sleeping bag, with rain dripping on the tent. I snuggled up to my wonderful hubby (to steal his body heat) and went back to sleep for half an hour. I got out of the tent and went to the shower block, being attacked by mossies along the way and had a quick wash, using a micro-fibre towel! Then back to the picnic table where Ralf had set up the breakfast of muesli, peanut butter and jam sandwiches and instant coffee. Then we packed the tent away and got on our bikes and cycled 78 kms up hill and down dale with a slight headwind. Not quite what I had imagined.

I had however, booked us into Salzburger Hof Resort and Motel for the evening – this didn’t quite turn out to be what I imagined either. The Resort was 7 kms off the highway and the last 2 kms were on a rutted gravel road. The room is very nice and the area is very private and quiet. I was hoping for good German/Austrian food but tonight is the fish fry – not as romantic a meal as I was hoping for, but you can’t have everything.

The sun is out, the room is very nice and I am spending the evening with my lovely hubby, what more could I ask for . . . Everything in paragraph one please – lol.

The route today was much the same as yesterday, going through the Provincial Park. As we left the Park, we passed the Montreal River Hydro generating plant.

The scenic lookout showed Theano Point, this is where Dr. John Le Conte first discovered Uranium in Canada.

We passed a lighthouse that was completely surrounded by trees, I am guessing it has been out of commission for a while.

The weather station at Pancake Bay is very funny. I have read some of these before, but this actually states that Environment Canada’s guesses at future climate conditions.

What a great sunset view of Lake Superior.

Thursday August 13, 2015

First and foremost I have to thank Chris Jones for arranging our nights stay at the Wawa Motor Inn. Thanks Chris it was really nice of you to do that for us – although you didn’t know it, it was an early anniversary present for us. Tomorrow August 14, 2015 we will be celebrating 30 years of married life.

After a pretty good breakfast we headed out towards Lake Superior and sunshine. The hills and headwinds started straight away and Ralf got progressively grumpier. As usual we took it in turns to be at the front, but it didn’t seem to help much.

The scenery was nice but not stunning, yet.

We have been told that this section of the road is comparable to some of the “Great Scenic Drives” including the Great Ocean Road, Australia; Big Sur, California; the Pacific Coast Highway, U.S. and Cape Breton, as we have cycled the first three and have driven the last one, we will see if it is comparable. There were a couple of nice areas as we came over a hill and Lake Superior opened up in front of us.

We stopped at a few of the little bays. One was called Old Woman Bay, the rocks have the face of an old woman in them looking over the Bay.

Katherine’s Cove was very popular for kayakers.

We stopped at Katherine’s Cove for a pit stop. Interesting composting toilets. Ralf had gone to the shoreline to take some photos and as I went to join him a fells in a pickup truck asked if we had stayed at the Wawa Motor In last night. Yes I responded. He handed me Ralf’s horse whip. He was the maintenance man from the Wawa Motor Inn, he had driven 26 kms to find us to return the horse whip. He said it seemed pretty important to Ralf when I spoke to him about it. Ralf happened to mention to him how boring it got in the tent sometimes and that is why he has the whip!

We met a young touring cyclist (Adam) who is cycling from Toronto to Vancouver, he had wild camped for the first time last night. I asked him if he had slept much. His honest answer was “no not really, kept waking up at the slightest noise”. He is trying to do 150 ks a day. Ralf and I have decided that these longer distances are not fun and we are looking forward to getting into Southern Ontario where the Town’s are closer together and we can go back to our 60 to 80 ks a day.

At the moment all we seem to be doing is cycling, eating and sleeping. Although last night having the tour of Wawa with Ron was a lot of fun and we really appreciated it.

From Wawa to Agawa there is nowhere to stop for lunch. Fortunately we have oatmeal bars and trail mix to keep us going.

We are staying tonight at the Agawa Bay Provincial Park Campground which put Ralf into a bigger funk. The very expensive piece of real estate we are staying at tonight costs $40.00 and has a boil water advisory.

We can drink the water if we boil it for one minute. If we buy water from a vending machine it is $2.00 per 500 ml bottle. Agawa Provincial Park would definitely get my award for daylight robbery.

Although they do get a bonus point for having a laundry which is reasonably priced and we didn’t have to pay for the showers.

As soon as we pitched the tent we boiled some water and had one of our emergency ration meals – chilli. That was our lunch, it was pretty good for a dehydrated meal.

Later tonight there is a free concert at the amphi-theatre (if we can find it) and of course we get to see the free meteor showers.

Tomorrow is going to be another hilly day, but we are staying at a nice resort for our anniversary evening.