After a toasty night in Haven Hostel, I woke up a bit late, my phone not switching over the Eastern Time yet.
Still made it downstairs in time for the continental breakfast, where I made quick work of a stack of toast, a pot of coffee, and the remains of a blueberry cheesecake while chatting with another cycle tourist (sorry! Forgot your name already).
By the time I got my grocery shopping done and hit the road, it was already 10:30 and about +22.
I stopped in at the Terry Fox monument to pay my respects and top off a water bottle. Side note: a lot of tap water around Superior has a weird salt/alkaline aftertaste. Hopefully I don't get sick again.
I am now firmly entrenched in the Trans Canada Highway and not super happy about it. Since it is the only road east from Thunder Bay, it has an absurd amount of truck traffic. Not only that but the shoulder situation is hit and miss. You can go from beautiful, 2 meter wide paved shoulder to a 6 inch paltry strip, to no shoulder at all with no warning. You think that the main (and only) highway across Canada would be nicer. For shame Governments of Canada and Ontario.
While sitting down with an ice cream cone, I had a woman ask me how I could stand the heat. I honestly thought it was a cooler day until I checked the weather and saw it was actually +31. I guess I'm just used to it now.
Only went 100 km to Nipigon, and headed down to the campground for some expensive Ontario camping along the shore of Lake Superior. I met two other cyclists Guy and Risto (the Trans Canada is apparently crawling with us), and despite feeling a bit anti social, ended up having a long chat about our trips so far, Thunder Bay accomodations and the crazy dude yelling his head off a few hundred meters away.
Instead of a shower, I opted for a swim in the lake. Superior is definitely a bit chilly, rivalling some Yukon lakes for temperature. Or maybe this heat wave has made me soft?
Prepared a gorgeous dinner of instsnt noodles with smoked fish and broccoli slaw, accompanied by a beer of course.
Waking up in Nipigon, I stopped to say goodbye to Risto and Guy before heading off east along the shore of Superior. The weather had shifted dramatically, from +32 the day before, down to about +15 in the morning. I expected the worst: bad shoulder, scorching heat and extreme traffic. However, I was pleasantly suprised by relatively wide, well paved shoulders, cooler temperatures, and low traffic (it was a Sunday). Lake Superior was often hidden by a screen of boreal forest, but the 2 or 3 big climbs of the day brought me to some great lookouts.
All in all, I took a fairly relaxing day. I stopped for some mid afternoon pizza and coffee at a combination Pizza Hut-Subway-Robin's Donuts-Gas Station-Motel before heading to my final destination of Terrace Bay. I had heard from a website that there is free camping allowed at the beach and I had told my two cycling buds from the Nipigon campground about it the night before. As I was pulling up the last hill to Terrace Bay, I heard someone shouting from behind me and, lo and behold, it was my new friend Guy (Risto opted for the provincial campground 20 km back).
We popped into the visitor center together and confirmed that we would be allowed to camp on the beach before sitting down at the gas station next door for coffee and fig bars.
Going our seperate ways for some fast snack shopping, I went on ahead to the beach.
And it was amazing. The fog off Superior was rolling across the grass-dappled beach, and a small river rushed over a series of rapids into a deep, still lagoon beside the bay.
When Guy showed up, he was just as excited as I was. I do not think he has done much wilderness or free camping so when we set up our tents and got a beach fire going, he was quite pumped.
Just as we were ready to call it in for the night, a german hitchhiker joined us on the beach for the night, so we stayed up a bit later to keep him company.
The next morning the dew was unbelievable. My tent has taken some poundings from various thunderstorms but the dew on the beach was thick enough to swim in and my poor tent was soaked.
Guy and I exchanged chilly greetings in the dense fog and agreed to meet up in Marathon, an 'easy' 80 kms away for a shared campsite. We hit up the small grocery store and then I left Guy behind to fill his bottles while I got on the road
Keeping in mind the fog and damp, I started off the day wearing gloves and my rainjacket, and strapped on my blinking taillight for extra visibility.
What followed was not really the easy day we had expected.
The elevation profile for the day resembled a roller coaster viewed sideways, and I managed to somehow experience headwind from all four cardinal directions.
It ended up taking about 5 hours to do the 80 km to Marathon, counting a lunch break with Fred, a german cyclist I had met briefly the day before.
Finally getting into Marathon, peddling downhill and only doing 24 km/hr into the wind, I took a coffee break at A&W. While I got settled from groceries to last me two days to Wawa, I got a message from Guy that he had locked down a spot at the campground.
Turns out that Fred was in the spot next to us too, so I did some laundry, and then settled in to eat as much as I could (have to reduce the weight in my front panniers), and chatted with Guy and Fred for the rest of the night before catching up on two days of blogging.
Tomorrow I head away from Superior for two days through White River until Wawa, where I rejoin the lake and the first Tim Hortons for almost 450 km awaits.
Guy's mantra for these remote, hilly days around Superior: "It's not a race".
My mantra: "I'm on vacation"
Basically, no need to rush. The towns are far apart and there isn't much between them so may as well take it easy.
No comments:
Post a Comment