The Nomads

Left Magog, Québec

Temps: 10C

Raining and cold

We left Denis’ place for the last leg of the journey at quarter after nine NB time.

Our last day of the trip and it had to be in wind and cold, heavy, pouring rain so thick that I had to squint to see ten yards in front of the bike. We were in four lanes of heavy traffic and doing eighty to ninety miles an hour to keep up and every time a truck went by I couldn’t see anything for the next fifty feet. It was the worst driving conditions we had yet encountered and within two hours my rain suit was useless and I was soaked through, for the first time, from helmet to bootstraps!

The first part of the ride through the townships toward Sherbrooke was quite scenic. This area is surrounded by ski country: Sutton, Mount Orford, Owl’s Head, and further south, Jay Peak.

Can’t say much about the ride once we hit the Sherbrooke Expressway or the 20 because I couldn’t see much past the highway until we got to dégélis!

By the time we got to NB the sky was cloudy and threatening but we didn’t get any rain.

We stopped in to Sue’s folks on the way but there was no-one home, back on the road and home in Fredericton not much after nine, cold, wet and tired but glad to be back!

We got out of the wet gear, had a leisurely late supper and celebrated with a cold bottle of our favourite Moselle, had a hot shower, and , well you don’t need to know the rest….!

Kilometres - Daytrip: 892 km TRIP TOTAL: 31,212

Gas: $73
Lodging: Be it ever so humble, HOME SWEET HOME!

# posted by Richard and Susie @ 3:21 PM 1 Comments

Left Aspey Park & Campground, Espanola, Ont.

Temps: 15C

Sunny and cool

It rained all night and, again, we had to pack a very wet tent.

By nine we were on our way, hoping to make it from Espanola past Thunder Bay, Sault Ste Marie, and Sudbury, in through Ottawa in the rush hour traffic of suppertime.

Dianne, We watched for you in the Ottawa traffic, but we didn't see you...

On through Montreal, where we hit the Metropolitan just after their rush hour, then down past Sherbrooke to the eastern townships and Denis’ place in Magog through a cold, heavy downpour from the south shore of Montreal on. We arrived after dark around nine thirty, tired and very wet, and after a quick supper of soft cheeses, pâtés, and baguette we hit the sack and were out like a light until eight thirty the next morning.

Denis bought a small camp/cottage with five acres for $3600 back in his “hippy” days(1983) and has transformed it into a large, amazing showcase home with some of the nicest woodwork and construction I’ve seen, and he did it all himself. Quite an accomplished finish carpenter now, he built most of it with wood he had custom sawn from a selection of special large trees he accumulated, pine, ash, yellow birch, oak...... The twenty foot beams are fourteen by eight and all one piece. The detail work is beautiful! This is a home he could easily sell for a hundred times what he paid initially. Very Impressive work!

OUR LONGEST DAY ON THIS TRIP!

Kilometres - Daytrip: 933 km total: 30,321

Gas: $74

Lodging: Chez Denis Massicotte, Magog, Québec

# posted by Richard and Susie @ 3:14 PM 0 Comments

Left Stillwater tent & trailer park, Nipigon Bay, Ont.

Temps: 12C

Sunny and cool

After a cold night (10 C) we again packed damp to hit the road. It was actually sunny for the first fifteen minutes but once we were along the shores of Lake Superior we were enshrouded in very heavy mist and fog. It might as well have been raining, we wouldn’t have got wetter!

The first view of Lake Superior was breathtakingly spectacular. Our vantage point was very high and we could see well out into the lake with surrounding high precipitous headlands and a large blocky mountainous island in view…not sure of the name of it.

From there almost all the way to Thunder Bay the view was mostly obscured with fog or trees, then, got progressively better as we went along. We came across some beautiful beaches and small lakes regularly.

We saw two more black bears along the way.

We also saw eight police cars with speed guns but never got stopped, lucky us!

We had a few small showers but the sky was looking pretty black by the time we wanted to stop. We pulled into the Aspey Park and Campground and got their very last site ten feet from the edge of a beautiful lake. While we were setting up the sky opened and dumped such a heavy rain on us that the ground was covered in two inches of running water. The lightning flashed, the thunder roared, and after half an hour the sun came out and we had a gorgeous rainbow and a very wet tent!

We had gone a long way and were so tired that we were all asleep by nine thirty!

Kilometres - Daytrip: 874 km total: 29,388

Gas: $62

Lodging: Aspey Park & Campground, Espanola, Ont.

# posted by Richard and Susie @ 3:07 PM 0 Comments

Left Blue Lake Prov. Park, Vermillion Bay, Ont.

Temps: 15C

Cloudy and cool

It was another wet night and the gear was put away damp.

We stopped so late last night that there were no campsites left but at a reduced rate they provided us with a flat grassy place for our tent. So, in the morning we had no picnic table and the ground was too wet to sit on and make coffee and breakfast so we headed out without and planned to stop somewhere on the way. We found a tourist info center with picnic tables about an hour later and stopped for coffee and oatmeal then headed out again. The weather was cold and damp so we didn’t stop until several hours later when we pulled in to a Tim Horton’s for a warm up.

While there I got to talking in French with some bikers from Quebec who were doing the same thing. There we met a couple, Eric and Jocelyn from Répentigny with each their own bike, and Denis from L’Éstrie, well actually, Magog in the eastern townships to be exact. The couple were headed to Whistler but Denis was headed the same direction as us so we decided to travel together. Denis doesn’t spare the horses so it was a fast ride with him as a radar decoy, which he had agreed to. He was on his way back from Alaska, couldn’t speak a word of English to save his soul, and was extremely happy to have company he could communicate with as well as an interpreter for the rest of his trip home. He had encountered some problems with his bike on the trip and had had great difficulty trying to resolve them with no English.

Denis was camping as well and we pulled up for the night in the Stillwater tent and trailer park on the outskirts of Nipigon, northwest of Lake Superior just before dark.

Kilometres - Daytrip: 540 km total: 28,514

Gas: $48

# posted by Richard and Susie @ 3:01 PM 0 Comments

Left Fieldstone campground, Moosomin, Saskatchewan

Temps: 25C

Cloudy and Warm

We got a late start because of the wet tent, it rained in the night. The weather had let up a bit but threatened rain all day.

The drive across Manitoba was like the last few days in Saskatchewan except that there were more trees. It was still flat and in some places a bit like rolling grass covered sand dunes.

Of course, after some of the impressive landscapes we’ve been through, it would seem rather drab and unimpressive but I’m sure that the locals quite think they have nice countryside.

We avoided Winnipeg as the weather was looking stormy for as far as we could see and we wanted to get to our next provincial park the other side of the Ontario border and set up the tent before the rain hit.

Once in Ontario the landscape became much more interesting with a wealth of lakes from large to small in the north. Very Pretty…!

A quarter of an hour before stopping we came upon a large black bear digging and rooting in the dirt atop a large rock outcrop beside the road. I thought of him while we were having supper and packed the food high in the trees, well away from the campsite.

We saw several deer in Ontario that day as well.

Now that we’re so close to the Maritimes, I’m almost sorry that the trip is almost over.

Kilometres - Daytrip: 720 km total: 27,974

Gas: $64

Lodging: Blue Lake Prov. Park, Vermillion Bay, Ont.

# posted by Richard and Susie @ 2:58 PM 0 Comments