July 14 –Elmvale to Balsam Lake Provincial Park

Bike log: 113.0km, 573m of vertical, avg. speed 26.9 km/h

It was a humid one out there today! There was also a reasonably strong headwind for a good part of the day as well, and those two factors definitely slowed me down today. But it was a beautiful ride on country roads for much of it. Only the bit just east and west of Orillia was tough to deal with. Otherwise, we were travelling through farmland on country roads with little traffic. For me, it is starting to look very familiar, much the same as eastern Ontario where I lived for many years. I did a lot of bike riding around roads similar to this a long time ago. I am trying to pick a route towards Brockville that is mainly on backroads, so hopefully it will stay like this for some time. The heatwave is projected to be settling in for a good while here, so most likely the next few days will be quite similar.


We went swimming several times today! I took a break from about 1 to 3PM due to the heat, and we went swimming in Lake Couchiching in Orrilia. I went straight from the bike to the water as soon as I got there, and just bobbed for about 10 minutes. Then, after some lunch, we went back in just before getting moving again. Made the first half hour or so pretty bearable. We also went swimming as soon as we got to the campsite (we are across the road from the lake) and again just now before going to bed. Things have cooled down too, and there is now a nice breeze blowing in off the lake, which our pop top is catching very nicely! Should be no problem sleeping tonight.

I drank close to 6 litres of water today. When the hot weather started in, I started wearing a headband to keep the sweat out of my eyes. However, I had to give up on it today because it was just too hot – and it was not really helping anyway! Once you get past a certain point of meltdown, there is not much that can be done. I also stopped wearing my bike gloves since my hands were just too hot in them. I am not concerned about getting heat stroke, but I am concerned that the local health authorities are going to cart me away to a mental institution if they spot me out riding in this weather. I was told to avoid Midland for this reason.

I stopped for an ice cream in a variety store in the middle of nowhere (just outside Dalrymple, actually), and got chatting to a farmer who was hanging out inside in the airconditioning. He said that it is shaping up to be a pretty bad year for his crops due to the heat and lack of water. There has been very little rain since April, and what little bit that has been falling lately disappears immediately due to the heat. It is weird how we went from floods on the prairies, to rain and cold in Northern Ontario, to this. If you average it out, it seems pretty good though!