DEREK
Following our last post in Huntsville, Ontario, we were unfortunately overcome by the unbearable stench of cycle touring and committed to spending the money to stay at a nearby campground for the night. The Deer Lake RV Resort and Campground was just a few kilometers outside of town, and conveniently in the direction we were headed. Around 7:30 p.m. we rolled up to the office to inquire about available tent sites, and by 7:45 we were on our way back out, with the owner of the campground behind us, threatening to call the police. How did this happen, you ask? Well, we were not quite sure, but we figure he just carried a hatred for cyclists. I guess the best thing to do would be to put it into dialogue…
“Hi there, we have a small tent and two bicycles, how much for the night?” was our opening line.
“Wow, look, bicycles, that doesn’t impress me at all. That really doesn’t impress me. Thirty-two dollars, plus GST.”
“Oh wow, okay, just a moment,” I looked over at Erika to see what she thought of the price.
“Thirty-two dollars! Thirty-two dollars! If you can’t afford thirty-two dollars, I suggest you go home right now and get a job, or go live in the bush where you belong.” He was talking serious. Baffled, we began to leave.
I said, “Hey, if you don’t want us here just say so, there’s no need to be rude.”
An explosion of foul words and pointing fingers quickly ensued, and he then threatened to call the police. We were back on the road in need of a place to sleep before sunset.
ERIKA
Feeling dismayed and bewildered, we resorted back to our usual stealth camping. We ended up the evening hidden in a patch of trees inside a skate park/ball field that even had bathrooms and clean water–a better setup than we likely would have found at Deer Lake.
Two days later we were off to Magnetawan, where Derek planned to meet his friends Tony and Elaine.
When we rolled into charming little Magnetawan, we didn’t know where we would stay for the night. We decided to shop in the General Store for dinner eats, and figure it out afterward. We hadn’t been in the General Store for ten minutes before Carey approached us.
"Are you the bikers?" he asked excitedly.
That would be us, we said. We got to talking, and before long, we were being invited to his stay at his lakefront property for as long as we needed. This was great news because we needed to stay in town for a few days before we could meet up with Tony and Elaine.
DEREK
Artist, actor, and postman, Carey was a colorful character. He led us to his lakefront property three kilometers out of town. He visits his property only twice a year on the weekends, so naturally, the place was unkempt and overgrown, but charming nonetheless. He offered his musty trailer for sleeping quarters but we decided to pitch the tent instead. We enjoyed Carey’s company for three days of fun, including swimming, paddle boating, sunset gazing, and several fantastical conversations around a campfire. We chatted about music, movies, traveling, and how to go about building an enormous and excessive tourist resort in Magnetawan, a scheme to become filthy rich. The "Shim Sham Shoo Resort" may be opening soon. Northern Ontario’s first all-inclusive resort including golf course, spa, boat-in movie theatre, nightly live music and dance floor, underwater tunnel, airline excursions, ATV and snowmobile tours and its very own cruise line on Whalley Lake, all endorsed by Tiger Woods himself! Aside from the delusional conversations, we enjoyed a canoe trip up a canal to a nearby waterfall where we soaked in the current and enjoyed a snack.
Our spot with Carey:
As peculiar as he was, we were sad to see Carey leave. He offered his property for as long as we needed, and took off, back to his stomping grounds in Toronto.
ERIKA
Now that Carey was gone, who would enthrall us with tales of foreign imprisonment to conclude his months of backpacking around Europe, and the joys and woes of life as a postie in Toronto?
Luckily, Tony and Elaine arrived on schedule. Derek had first met them in Bacalar, a small town on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, earlier on his tour.
DEREK
Following four months of cycling through three countries I was reunited with my friends from Mexico. Tony and Elaine were my hosts, swimming partners, and a source of entertainment during the two weeks I rested my legs in Bacalar. They had traveled to Magnetawan to attend a wedding. We met up for a schnitzel dinner to catch up on each others’ adventures, spent the night in a local motel, and enjoyed breakfast the next morning. We had an amazing time Tony and Elaine, thank you, thank you, thank you for everything and I know I’ll see you again soon!
ERIKA
Thanks from me too, Tony and Elaine!
We got a late start on the day out of Magnetawan, 2 PM. Looking at the map, it appeared that our best way to get to our next stop was to take a series of back roads toward Sudbury until we reached the highway. Judging from previous patterns, we were fairly certain the roads would be dirt or gravel. Neither of us were thrilled about this, especially not me.
So far on this trip, the most intolerable nuisance has not been mosquitoes or deer flies or headwinds or rain–but dirt roads, especially unmaintained ones. They can be especially frustrating when using a lot of energy and strategy to climb a hill, and just when you think you are making progress, the rear wheel spins in place because it cannot grip the dirt, in effect causing some of your exertion to be for nothing. This–as much as the uncomfortable bumpiness and the inability to enjoy downhills for fear of taking a spill from sand, loose gravel, or unexpected potholes–is the reason I despise dirt roads.
I was not looking forward to it, to say the least. Derek guessed we would have to deal with dirt roads for about fifteen kilometers. After that, he said, we’d be home free, no more dirt roads all the way to Vancouver. I thought, okay, I can handle that.
We’d only been pedaling for a few kilometers before the road diverged. Straight ahead, a goat path. To the right, an under maintained but passable road. I looked at rocky stretch, sure that it couldn’t possibly be the road we had to take. We were following a road map that was meant for cars, after all. I would have been impressed to watch one surmount the hill ahead. And yet, forward we went.
The "road" had started out a little wider than a regular car. Kilometer after agonizing kilometer, it narrowed and became increasingly rough, mixed with random intervals of sand, which were hard to spot without paying close attention, and were even more hazardous than riding on stones. It was relentlessly hilly.
To add some variety, we occasionally came across large puddles of overflowed swamp water which required the removal of shoes and the carrying of bikes across. This was actually more a highlight than a hassle.
We started to question whether we were actually on a mapped road. If we were, then according to the map, the ATV trail we were maneuvering was no different than other well-paved, well-shouldered roads we had cycled on. We had no choice but to continue on, and hope that we wouldn’t have to back-track. I was incredibly frustrated by the extremely poor condition of the "road." My only consolation was that it was almost over. Only a few kilometers to go until we reached an intersection. I could handle it.
About thirty minutes later, we came to an intersection. Another dirt road. Derek had come to it first. His body language told me something was wrong. "We have to turn around," he said.
But we had already gone more than fifteen kilometers. My patience was wearing thin. Nonetheless, we set off back in the opposite direction. It seemed unimaginable that we would encounter any more roads like the first rough one. And yet, at the next intersection, we were diverted onto yet another. :/
I should mention here that Derek did not seem to mind these roads. He even asserted that they were "fun." Hm, well, if by "fun" you mean insanely challenging, unpredictable, and injury causing, then yes, loads of fun.
Roughly five kilometers from the end (and by "end" I mean the haven of pavement we had taken for granted), a man named Dave in a pickup truck descended from heaven and stopped to ask us if we wanted a place to stay, offering to drive us out to the pavement in the morning. Then we were bouncing along, bikes in the back, toward showers, food, and comfy beds.
Later I calculated we had come nearly fifty kilometers on dirt that day. Now I’m holding you to your word, Derek. No more dirt roads, ever!
DEREK
All right, all right...I promise...I guess. But you can’t say that wasn’t an adventure, and any adventure is a good one if you escape with all digits intact. I too was glad when Dave rolled up in his truck.
Dave is a cyclist as well, hence the immediate offer for food and shelter for the night. He’s spent most of his life in the bush in northern Ontario, living for the endless list of outdoor activities that this rural, lake-abundant region offers, all the while timber framing for money. His wife, Linda, lives the same way.
We were given the grand tour, fed a delicious dinner, exchanged stories, and fell into a deep sleep on a proper mattress for the night. The following morning we were given a ride out to the pavement and were on our way. Thanks Dave and Linda!
Westward we cycled on paved highway towards Lake Huron and Highway 69. Following advice from Dave and Linda, we opted to take a seventy-kilometer detour to the town of Killarney, which sits on the shores of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. This area offers some remarkable scenery, "World Famous" fish and chips, and all with a relaxing small town feel. Since the only access to Killarney is a single road, and we weren’t keen on backtracking, we rolled into town with a plan to hitch a ride on a boat to Manitoulin Island. On our second day we had some luck.
Derek and Mr. Frog (can you find him?):
Looking out on Georgian Bay:
ERIKA
By the docks in Killarney, we sketched out a plan for how we would get across. Tourists were everywhere milling about near the fish and chips. We sat there with our bikes, debating how we were going to manage to convince a stranger to take us on their boat to Little Current, assuming we found a stranger, with a boat, who was going to Little Current.
We sat there next to our loaded bikes, conspicuously. (I think this was part of the plan.) Before we knew it, groups of people were approaching us, asking us what we were doing, where we were going, and commenting in their predictable way, “You rode a bicycle from where?!” With each encounter, we made a point of asserting our angle:
“We’re trying to get to Little Current. We were hoping to find a boat going there that would take us along.” Every time it seemed they weren’t going there or they didn’t have a boat. I was feeling hopeless about the situation and decided to distract myself by going to retrieve our clothes from the laundromat.
I took my time getting there, pulling the clothes out, folding, stewing about how it probably wasn't going to work and we’d have to ride sixty-seven kilometers back out to the highway, and then go through Sudbury, which we wanted to avoid. A woman standing by the washer began talking to me, and I was answering her absently. My ears perked up when she mentioned she had a boat. Bingo. I gave my speech, and ten minutes later I was trotting triumphantly back to the dock, fresh laundry in hand, to tell Derek the good news.
DEREK
Where was Erika? She had been gone for over a half-hour, and just to retrieve our laundry that was a few doors down. Meanwhile, I had a myriad of visitors bombarding me with questions, and none of them were piloting a boat to Little Current. There were moments during this half-hour that I had an audience gathered around me, listening to the facts of my journey, and asking the same questions repeatedly. Not long before my vocal chords withdrew from the conversation and left me to act out my story, I glimpsed Erika gleefully skipping back with the bag of clean clothes. “Did you have any luck?” she asked.
“No, but I think the whole town knows we’re here and looking for a ride.”
“Well, I have one definite ride,” was her reply.
“Oh…what? Fantastic!”
Frank and Terry from the boat “Frankly Terryfic” were offering a ride to Little Current if we were willing to join them on a one day excursion into Baie Fine, a long narrow bay on the north end of Lake Huron, not far from Manitoulin Island.
We loaded our bikes onto Frankly Terryfic and were on our way, weaving through the coastal islands and inlets of northern Lake Huron at six knots, the fastest our boat could jog. By the end of the day, we had arrived at the northern tip of Baie Fine, where we dropped an anchor and jumped in for a swim.
Frank and Terry have been living on their boat for three years, and have been traveling "The Great Loop" for the past year. The route takes them from the southern tip of Florida, up the east coast, inland via a series of locks to the Great Lakes, through Lake Michigan, down the Mississippi and the Tennessee Rivers to Mobile, Alabama, and back along the Gulf of Mexico to Florida.
We chatted about our travels as we enjoyed dinner while anchored in Baie Fine, a finer experience I could not imagine. It was shortly after dinner that we were visited by a lake monster so horrifying that Erika vowed never to swim in a lake again…EVER!
ERIKA
I’d like to take this moment to remind you, Derek, of all the times you’ve assured me about the safety of lakes. All the times you’ve watched me with a puzzled expression as I floated with quiet apprehension, stealing nervous glances at the darkness below. Less than an hour after our swim, we were paid a visit by exactly the kind of creature that I imagine lurks just inches beneath my pinky toe: a snapping turtle.
Rah!!!
Following our last post in Huntsville, Ontario, we were unfortunately overcome by the unbearable stench of cycle touring and committed to spending the money to stay at a nearby campground for the night. The Deer Lake RV Resort and Campground was just a few kilometers outside of town, and conveniently in the direction we were headed. Around 7:30 p.m. we rolled up to the office to inquire about available tent sites, and by 7:45 we were on our way back out, with the owner of the campground behind us, threatening to call the police. How did this happen, you ask? Well, we were not quite sure, but we figure he just carried a hatred for cyclists. I guess the best thing to do would be to put it into dialogue…
“Hi there, we have a small tent and two bicycles, how much for the night?” was our opening line.
“Wow, look, bicycles, that doesn’t impress me at all. That really doesn’t impress me. Thirty-two dollars, plus GST.”
“Oh wow, okay, just a moment,” I looked over at Erika to see what she thought of the price.
“Thirty-two dollars! Thirty-two dollars! If you can’t afford thirty-two dollars, I suggest you go home right now and get a job, or go live in the bush where you belong.” He was talking serious. Baffled, we began to leave.
I said, “Hey, if you don’t want us here just say so, there’s no need to be rude.”
An explosion of foul words and pointing fingers quickly ensued, and he then threatened to call the police. We were back on the road in need of a place to sleep before sunset.
ERIKA
Feeling dismayed and bewildered, we resorted back to our usual stealth camping. We ended up the evening hidden in a patch of trees inside a skate park/ball field that even had bathrooms and clean water–a better setup than we likely would have found at Deer Lake.
Two days later we were off to Magnetawan, where Derek planned to meet his friends Tony and Elaine.
When we rolled into charming little Magnetawan, we didn’t know where we would stay for the night. We decided to shop in the General Store for dinner eats, and figure it out afterward. We hadn’t been in the General Store for ten minutes before Carey approached us.
"Are you the bikers?" he asked excitedly.
That would be us, we said. We got to talking, and before long, we were being invited to his stay at his lakefront property for as long as we needed. This was great news because we needed to stay in town for a few days before we could meet up with Tony and Elaine.
DEREK
Artist, actor, and postman, Carey was a colorful character. He led us to his lakefront property three kilometers out of town. He visits his property only twice a year on the weekends, so naturally, the place was unkempt and overgrown, but charming nonetheless. He offered his musty trailer for sleeping quarters but we decided to pitch the tent instead. We enjoyed Carey’s company for three days of fun, including swimming, paddle boating, sunset gazing, and several fantastical conversations around a campfire. We chatted about music, movies, traveling, and how to go about building an enormous and excessive tourist resort in Magnetawan, a scheme to become filthy rich. The "Shim Sham Shoo Resort" may be opening soon. Northern Ontario’s first all-inclusive resort including golf course, spa, boat-in movie theatre, nightly live music and dance floor, underwater tunnel, airline excursions, ATV and snowmobile tours and its very own cruise line on Whalley Lake, all endorsed by Tiger Woods himself! Aside from the delusional conversations, we enjoyed a canoe trip up a canal to a nearby waterfall where we soaked in the current and enjoyed a snack.
Our spot with Carey:
As peculiar as he was, we were sad to see Carey leave. He offered his property for as long as we needed, and took off, back to his stomping grounds in Toronto.
ERIKA
Now that Carey was gone, who would enthrall us with tales of foreign imprisonment to conclude his months of backpacking around Europe, and the joys and woes of life as a postie in Toronto?
Luckily, Tony and Elaine arrived on schedule. Derek had first met them in Bacalar, a small town on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, earlier on his tour.
DEREK
Following four months of cycling through three countries I was reunited with my friends from Mexico. Tony and Elaine were my hosts, swimming partners, and a source of entertainment during the two weeks I rested my legs in Bacalar. They had traveled to Magnetawan to attend a wedding. We met up for a schnitzel dinner to catch up on each others’ adventures, spent the night in a local motel, and enjoyed breakfast the next morning. We had an amazing time Tony and Elaine, thank you, thank you, thank you for everything and I know I’ll see you again soon!
ERIKA
Thanks from me too, Tony and Elaine!
We got a late start on the day out of Magnetawan, 2 PM. Looking at the map, it appeared that our best way to get to our next stop was to take a series of back roads toward Sudbury until we reached the highway. Judging from previous patterns, we were fairly certain the roads would be dirt or gravel. Neither of us were thrilled about this, especially not me.
So far on this trip, the most intolerable nuisance has not been mosquitoes or deer flies or headwinds or rain–but dirt roads, especially unmaintained ones. They can be especially frustrating when using a lot of energy and strategy to climb a hill, and just when you think you are making progress, the rear wheel spins in place because it cannot grip the dirt, in effect causing some of your exertion to be for nothing. This–as much as the uncomfortable bumpiness and the inability to enjoy downhills for fear of taking a spill from sand, loose gravel, or unexpected potholes–is the reason I despise dirt roads.
I was not looking forward to it, to say the least. Derek guessed we would have to deal with dirt roads for about fifteen kilometers. After that, he said, we’d be home free, no more dirt roads all the way to Vancouver. I thought, okay, I can handle that.
We’d only been pedaling for a few kilometers before the road diverged. Straight ahead, a goat path. To the right, an under maintained but passable road. I looked at rocky stretch, sure that it couldn’t possibly be the road we had to take. We were following a road map that was meant for cars, after all. I would have been impressed to watch one surmount the hill ahead. And yet, forward we went.
The "road" had started out a little wider than a regular car. Kilometer after agonizing kilometer, it narrowed and became increasingly rough, mixed with random intervals of sand, which were hard to spot without paying close attention, and were even more hazardous than riding on stones. It was relentlessly hilly.
To add some variety, we occasionally came across large puddles of overflowed swamp water which required the removal of shoes and the carrying of bikes across. This was actually more a highlight than a hassle.
About thirty minutes later, we came to an intersection. Another dirt road. Derek had come to it first. His body language told me something was wrong. "We have to turn around," he said.
But we had already gone more than fifteen kilometers. My patience was wearing thin. Nonetheless, we set off back in the opposite direction. It seemed unimaginable that we would encounter any more roads like the first rough one. And yet, at the next intersection, we were diverted onto yet another. :/
I should mention here that Derek did not seem to mind these roads. He even asserted that they were "fun." Hm, well, if by "fun" you mean insanely challenging, unpredictable, and injury causing, then yes, loads of fun.
Roughly five kilometers from the end (and by "end" I mean the haven of pavement we had taken for granted), a man named Dave in a pickup truck descended from heaven and stopped to ask us if we wanted a place to stay, offering to drive us out to the pavement in the morning. Then we were bouncing along, bikes in the back, toward showers, food, and comfy beds.
Later I calculated we had come nearly fifty kilometers on dirt that day. Now I’m holding you to your word, Derek. No more dirt roads, ever!
DEREK
All right, all right...I promise...I guess. But you can’t say that wasn’t an adventure, and any adventure is a good one if you escape with all digits intact. I too was glad when Dave rolled up in his truck.
Dave is a cyclist as well, hence the immediate offer for food and shelter for the night. He’s spent most of his life in the bush in northern Ontario, living for the endless list of outdoor activities that this rural, lake-abundant region offers, all the while timber framing for money. His wife, Linda, lives the same way.
We were given the grand tour, fed a delicious dinner, exchanged stories, and fell into a deep sleep on a proper mattress for the night. The following morning we were given a ride out to the pavement and were on our way. Thanks Dave and Linda!
Westward we cycled on paved highway towards Lake Huron and Highway 69. Following advice from Dave and Linda, we opted to take a seventy-kilometer detour to the town of Killarney, which sits on the shores of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. This area offers some remarkable scenery, "World Famous" fish and chips, and all with a relaxing small town feel. Since the only access to Killarney is a single road, and we weren’t keen on backtracking, we rolled into town with a plan to hitch a ride on a boat to Manitoulin Island. On our second day we had some luck.
Derek and Mr. Frog (can you find him?):
Looking out on Georgian Bay:
ERIKA
By the docks in Killarney, we sketched out a plan for how we would get across. Tourists were everywhere milling about near the fish and chips. We sat there with our bikes, debating how we were going to manage to convince a stranger to take us on their boat to Little Current, assuming we found a stranger, with a boat, who was going to Little Current.
We sat there next to our loaded bikes, conspicuously. (I think this was part of the plan.) Before we knew it, groups of people were approaching us, asking us what we were doing, where we were going, and commenting in their predictable way, “You rode a bicycle from where?!” With each encounter, we made a point of asserting our angle:
“We’re trying to get to Little Current. We were hoping to find a boat going there that would take us along.” Every time it seemed they weren’t going there or they didn’t have a boat. I was feeling hopeless about the situation and decided to distract myself by going to retrieve our clothes from the laundromat.
I took my time getting there, pulling the clothes out, folding, stewing about how it probably wasn't going to work and we’d have to ride sixty-seven kilometers back out to the highway, and then go through Sudbury, which we wanted to avoid. A woman standing by the washer began talking to me, and I was answering her absently. My ears perked up when she mentioned she had a boat. Bingo. I gave my speech, and ten minutes later I was trotting triumphantly back to the dock, fresh laundry in hand, to tell Derek the good news.
DEREK
Where was Erika? She had been gone for over a half-hour, and just to retrieve our laundry that was a few doors down. Meanwhile, I had a myriad of visitors bombarding me with questions, and none of them were piloting a boat to Little Current. There were moments during this half-hour that I had an audience gathered around me, listening to the facts of my journey, and asking the same questions repeatedly. Not long before my vocal chords withdrew from the conversation and left me to act out my story, I glimpsed Erika gleefully skipping back with the bag of clean clothes. “Did you have any luck?” she asked.
“No, but I think the whole town knows we’re here and looking for a ride.”
“Well, I have one definite ride,” was her reply.
“Oh…what? Fantastic!”
Frank and Terry from the boat “Frankly Terryfic” were offering a ride to Little Current if we were willing to join them on a one day excursion into Baie Fine, a long narrow bay on the north end of Lake Huron, not far from Manitoulin Island.
We loaded our bikes onto Frankly Terryfic and were on our way, weaving through the coastal islands and inlets of northern Lake Huron at six knots, the fastest our boat could jog. By the end of the day, we had arrived at the northern tip of Baie Fine, where we dropped an anchor and jumped in for a swim.
Frank and Terry have been living on their boat for three years, and have been traveling "The Great Loop" for the past year. The route takes them from the southern tip of Florida, up the east coast, inland via a series of locks to the Great Lakes, through Lake Michigan, down the Mississippi and the Tennessee Rivers to Mobile, Alabama, and back along the Gulf of Mexico to Florida.
We chatted about our travels as we enjoyed dinner while anchored in Baie Fine, a finer experience I could not imagine. It was shortly after dinner that we were visited by a lake monster so horrifying that Erika vowed never to swim in a lake again…EVER!
ERIKA
I’d like to take this moment to remind you, Derek, of all the times you’ve assured me about the safety of lakes. All the times you’ve watched me with a puzzled expression as I floated with quiet apprehension, stealing nervous glances at the darkness below. Less than an hour after our swim, we were paid a visit by exactly the kind of creature that I imagine lurks just inches beneath my pinky toe: a snapping turtle.
Rah!!!
After two days of fabulous boating, we have arrived in Little Current, ON, at the tip of Manitoulin Island. From here we plan to pick up our pace considerably, and we are psyching ourselves up to tackle the rest of northern Ontario, and then through Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and finally British Columbia. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and not much time to cover it before snow starts falling on the Rockies, possibly in late September or early October.
I like your photos! (Better than on Derek's, no offense) and the turtle video.... you are so funny!
ReplyDelete(Of course, taking videos of turtles is exactly the kind of thing I would do...)
lots of snuggles!
xoxo