July 4 –Terrace Bay to White Lake Provincial Park

Bike log: 142.6 km, 1246m of vertical, avg. speed 27.9 km/h

Today was a great day in many ways. First of all, it didn’t rain, although it was extremely foggy for the first couple of hours. The sun came out for the last hour or so, and at the same time, the headwind which I had been going into all day turned into a tailwind. Secondly, the scenery was truly spectacular all along the way. Lots of great views of Lake Superior, lots of small lakes, cliffs, forests, cool bridges and rock cuts for the train – just about everything you could ask for. The fog obscured some of the view, but also gave a really interesting look to some of the forests, small lakes, and streams. And finally, it was great to be back into some hills! There was quite a bit of up and down today, very reminiscent of the roads back home on Vancouver Island, though the hills were a bit shorter – probably nothing more than 120m vertical. Still, it was enough to get the heart rate up, and the downhills were a blast! Oh yeah - the shoulder was very good the whole day too!

The cyclist I met yesterday, Jordan, did the same route I did today, but with panniers. A very good workout. He broke a spoke about halfway along, and I helped him to repair it. We were lucky that we could replace it without removing the gear cluster – we had to bend the spoke a bit but it straigtened out when we tightened it up. This would be a bad place to get a serious bike problem – the towns are few and far between! We only went through 1 town today (Marathon), and looks like the next couple of days will be similar.

The provincial park we are staying at is really nice. Inexplicably, there are very few bugs! We were really worried that the flies would be terrible here in Northern Ontario, but so far we have been lucky. Maybe the cold, windy, and wet weather is keeping them down. Or they may have all moved to Manitoba. This campground is a little ways off Lake Superior, on a small lake. If it was just a bit warmer today I would have been in there swimming – it looked inviting! From our campsite, we can hear loons calling.