July 25; 127 km 605m vertical, hot and sunny

Orillia to Bowmanville
Tim’s keen to get to his mum and dad’s place so he had me up well before 8 for an early start. We were on the road just after 9 aiming to arrive around 4pm. As it was hot and sunny right from the start we decided to take a 10min. break every 20km to try and avoid doing too much too soon and getting dehydrated. We managed the 80km to Port Perry inside 4hours so we stopped there for our lunch break and then made good time for the rest of stage and, despite having to battle a head wind for the last 30km, we arrived on his parents doorstep at 4:02. That’s better timekeeping than the Bundesbahn can do these days.
The Rickards Red was out of the fridge and on the patio table before I’d got my gloves off and boy did it taste good. When I had the second one in my hand I started to wonder if it was really necessary to get on my bike tomorrow to start on the 500km to Montreal in the next 4 days. I think I can feel a bad back coming on so I’ll just crawl into bed. Night night.

July 24; 122 km 701 vertical, hot and sunny and just scraped past a thunderstorm

Parry Sound to Orillia
Our original plan had us heading for Gravenhurst today but when we got on the dual carriageway we had such a wide shoulder to ourselves we decided to stay on it for about 90km and take the exit for Coldwater. After about 50km we saw storm clouds building on our left but it looked as though they would stay off on that side. At 60km there was suddenly an almighty crash of thunder behind us that made me jump six inches off my saddle. If I hadn’t been locked in the pedals I might well have shot clean off the bike. We stopped and had a look at the way the storm was building and decided to drop of the highway and look for somewhere to have lunch at Crooked Lake while the storm passed over. It turned out that there was a small Marina and store but nowhere for a lunch so we sat at a picnic table on the shore of the lake and watched the storm approach. The storm was going west to east just north of us and the closest lightning strike was a mile away so we decided to get back on the highway and carry on south. We reached the exit for Coldwater without getting wet and stopped in the town for a late lunch after which we carried on for the remaining 23km to Orillia. We are a little further on than Gravenhurst and now in a good position for tomorrow’s stage to visit Tim’s Dad in Bowmanville.

July 23; 169km; 823M vertical

Sudbury to Parry Sound
We headed south from Sudbury to Parry Sound on highway 69. We have criticized the roads often enough in Ontario, but today the road was the highlight of our Ontario travels. We passed through some minor construction and then the road was perfect. Six feet of clean, wide shoulder with a rumble strip separating the cars and the bicycles. We felt safe and comfortable sharing the road with the trucks and cars. We were aided by a north wind and set a fast pace. We covered 170 km before the day was finished. Along the way we passed the French River where the voyagers used to travel from Montreal to Fort William by canoe.

July 22

Rest day in Sudbury
We went to Dynamic Earth in Sudbury and got a great introduction to mining life. After that we toured Sudbury - a city with 330 lakes inside the city boundary.

July 21; 80km; 414M vertical, cool and east wind

Espanola to Sudbury
We started with breakfast at Tim Horton’s. We were on the road at 10:30 and heading for Whitefish and lunch. However Whitefish was a ghost town at we ended up at Tim Horton’s in Lively for lunch. After fighting the wind all morning we overindulged in Chilli and tea. When we headed for Sudbury we were still burping, but we had a short afternoon and arrived in Sudbury around 3. Finding a motel was a challenge since we were staying for 2 night and didn’t want to pay $120 per night. When we flagged down a motorist for directions he recommended a good motel and then told us he had seen us on the Trans-Canada that morning. It’s a small world. We ended up at the Cardinal Motel that has the best Karaoke (on Mondays) in town. We enjoyed the singers and the Rickards White beer.

July 20; 124km, 444m vertical, hot and humid

Iron Bridge to Espanola
We got a quick start this morning. We were off at 9:20 without breakfast because we wanted to eat in Blind River 26km down the road. We got to the restaurant at 10:30 - and loaded up on sausage, eggs, toast and coffee. Then after a few pictures of Blind River we on the road again.

We headed due east into an east wind and the day was hot and humid. I always carry 2 bottles of Gatorade, each 1.2 litres and today for the first time I used both before we finished the day. We had planned to stop along the way to eat and drink, but we stopped at the wrong place today. The whole store had only junk food and junkier food. I was short of Gatorade so tried a bottle of vitamin water and a Nutribar. Both were pure sugar. Twenty km later we came to Massey and my head was floating 2 feet head above my body and I was having trouble keeping my bike on the road. We stopped at the Country Cook restaurant and each had 2 bowls of the soup of the day and the largest pot of tea we’ve seen to date. The nourishment worked wonders and we carried on to Espanola, our stop for the night.

Near Massey we passed a horse drawn carriages travelling along the shoulder of the Trans-Canada. We were faster than 2 horses.