The road was absolutely fantastic: I think Kevin appreciated it

June 23, 2016

All day I was cycling up and down hills, getting frustrated as I was getting hot on the way up and cold on the way down, but the climbs weren’t long enough to justify changing clothes every time. I met a few cyclists coming the other way. The first was a nice guy named Al who was on his way from Niagara to Vancouver. I liked Al, and not just because he was bright orange, but also because he was nice. He told me that he’d met Vivian a day and a bit ago and bought her dinner. After my decision to stay on the southern route we were back going the same way, but it seemed she was moving fast, pulling ahead of me, and I had no chance to catch her now.

Away from the big lake now, but still plenty of small ones

By far the best thing that happened to me on Tuesday was to visit Mink Falls. These were not advertised or signposted, but I had been tipped off about them by Frank, and he’d given me some very detailed instructions to find them. They were just past kilometre marker 821, next to an electric pylon with a cable of yellow housing, where I had to leave my bike and follow a trail into the forest. The trail was easy enough to locate, and a couple of hundred metres later I was staring at the falls. ‘I really must remember to thank Frank for this!’ I thought as I stared in amazement. Definitely a top ten contender.

Mink Falls - they look even better in real life

This is the place where you have to stop and take the trail. You're welcome for the directions. Don't thank me though, thank Frank

I don't know what this sign means actually

Wednesday nothing happened.

Thursday was much more eventful. It was sunny again, the little sandflies were very annoying, and the road was getting busier the further I went for some reason. Fortunately this was my last day on the highway before I could turn off on a quieter route. Early in the morning I came across another cyclist going in the opposite direction, a solo female cyclist if you can believe it. I wasn’t interested though, because she was quite a bit older than me, and married, and not my type, and, you know, not Dea. Her name was Cherie and she lived in Squamish, which was the first town I passed through after leaving Vancouver. She was on her way back there from Halifax and she was very cool. “Thanks for stopping to chat,” she said, “I always stop. Not all cyclists do.”

Within a few hundred metres of leaving Cherie I saw this moose. True story

As if this day could not get any more eventful I was soon passed by yet another cyclist. This time it was a bit more embarrassing, because he was going the same way as me, only much, much faster. Usually I’m okay with that, but this guy was rather older than me, like 40 years older, and he looked like he was actually lugging more weight too. Luckily I saw him coming in my mirror and I stopped as if I was taking a break, to save a bit of face. He looked like he wanted to zoom straight past but I made him stop, because not all cyclists do, and they should. We cycle tourists are a community, and we must stop and complain to one another if at all possible. Having been forced to stop Bill and I complained to one another about the unbearable flies and the frustrating traffic, then I asked him if he’d met Cherie going the other way. “I saw her.” he replied, “but she didn’t look like she wanted to stop and chat.”

Bill also did not believe in cycling on gravel shoulders

I watched Bill cycle off at approximately twice my speed, then I resumed my own plod across Canada. After a while I reached Wawa, where I could leave the #17 highway and follow the #101 directly east, bypassing the major cities and major traffic further along the shoreline of Lake Superior. At Wawa there was a tremendous information centre with a tremendously large goose, one of many tremendously large geese that decorate the town. I saw Bill’s heavy bike leaning up outside and went to look for him. Now that we were in a more relaxed setting (next to a giant goose) we had a better conversation. Actually it was pretty much just Bill talking, but that was alright because he was an interesting man. He’d been cycling in Africa a few times and once he got started on a story he could really go on for a while, so I just listened and enjoyed. He was immensely likeable as he told these stories. often laughing heartily and not always appropriately or for good reason.

Ah yes, Canada, quite a tremendous goose you've got there

Eventually I had to pull myself away from Bill’s tales as I had a Skype date with Dea, and I made my way downtown to the library. I sat outside on a bench and used the wifi to Skype with Dea, who was back in Copenhagen after her successful first test tour. After that I had no power left on my laptop so I went inside the library and plugged it into an electric socket with intentions to sit a while and do some writing. “Sorry” said the librarian, “But we don’t allow patrons to plug in electrical devices.”

This was the silliest library in the world. I think I told her that too, and left in a bit of a huff. That was a mistake, because I’d planned to fill up my water bottles at the library too, and now I couldn’t go back and ask. Presumably the water wasn’t for patrons either, anyway. I went to the very nice beach and had a think. The road I was now going on was another very remote one, and I knew it was silly to leave town without water, but the beach was at the very end of town, it was several kilometres back to the information centre, and there didn’t seem to be anywhere else convenient to ask. I remembered that in the information centre I’d asked where I’d be able to get water along the way and they’d mentioned that there was a motel in about 25 kilometres, so I decided to just take my chances and head out without much water.

26 kilometres later I was beginning to regret that decision. There had been no sign of any motel, and in fact no real sign of anything along this road besides forest. I felt like I was really heading into the wilderness here, and doing so without water was silly, especially as the next settlement of any kind was still over 100 kilometres away. I had 500ml of water and 600ml of juice, and I was beginning to seriously think about how I was going to ration that out for a full day. But then I remembered that I had a stove, and I could boil river water and drink that if I needed to. My brain needed congratulating, I thought, as I clambered over slippery rocks and almost fell into a fast flowing river to get myself something to boil. Around the very next corner I came to a set of cabins.

I couldn’t be bothered with boiling anything, so I stopped at the cabins to ask for some proper water. They were advertised as hunting and fishing cabins, which made sense because there wasn’t much else to be done out here. The owner was real friendly, a big fella with long grey hair sprouting from under a well-worn baseball cap, a real man of the woods. He invited me into the reception area and I accepted, mostly because I wanted to get away from the flies for a moment. Inside I noticed (it was hard to miss) a big bear head hanging on the wall. The hunter told me that there were an awful lot of bears around here, and through the cabin they mostly ran bear hunts. Perhaps sensing my concern about all the bears, he went on to clarify that these woods didn’t just have bears, but also lots of wolves too. In fact I had seen a wolf just a little earlier run across the road in front of me. It seemed I was in for an interesting couple of days.

But the road was absolutely fantastic. There were almost no cars at all and once again I was in my element. This just felt like the real Canada - endless forest and wild animals, and no signs of human habitation for the rest of the day. I made one more stop - at Potholes Provincial Park - where a trail led a short distance into the woods to a small waterfall. I took Kevin along for company, and perhaps protection, as I scanned the forest for bears and wolves, making noise to scare them away. The park got its name from the circular shapes carved into the rocks over centuries by the water, and the stones and boulders it carried as it sloshed its way down. It was a nice little excursion. I think Kevin appreciated it.

The waterfall above the potholes. I couldn't get a good photo of them really

But Kevin was having a great time learning about geology

That evening was pure cycling bliss (apart from the flies.) There was no traffic at all, the sky was blue, the forest was beautiful, everything was good (apart from the flies.) I felt like I could cycle on this road forever, but I could not do that because it was going to get dark soon, and I wanted to be tucked up in my sleeping bag before the animals started flying around. I found a good place down an old abandoned logging road. It was a great site because it was flat and there was no access for vehicles from the road anymore so there was no chance at all of any cars coming this way. The only slight concern I had was that I thought it might be used as a sort of transport corridor by certain animals, particularly as there seemed to be rather a lot of faeces around. I decided not to worry about it too much and set up camp. Shortly after I’d retired to bed I heard the sound of panicked hooves running away. It was too late to move anywhere now, it was dark and I was stuck, so I fell asleep to dreams of being trampled in the night.

I'm sure everything will be just fine. It usually is...

Tuesday 21st June – 85km

Wednesday 22nd June – 117km

Thursday 23rd June – 129km

Today's ride: 331 km (206 miles)
Total: 52,963 km (32,890 miles)

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