Day 33 – Ompah to Hardwood Lake, ON

Day 33 – Ompah to Hardwood Lake

After a wonderful oatmeal and coffee breakfast made by Pete, we got back on our trusty bikes and said good bye to Pete, Ellan, and their grand daughter who we had just met that morning. After about 10 min of biking we stopped at the marina in Ompah and got a chocolate milk and an orange juice and chatted to the owner a bit. In the store they had some photos of the fish that were caught from the local lake and they were fairly impressive sized fish.

After more climbing of hills we got to the town of Plevna and stocked up on groceries as we knew stores will be in short supply on our route. While we ate some of the food that we had just bought outside the grocery store (the usual pattern), we also used the public wifi to check our e-mail and catch up with our blog.

We stopped in the town of Vennachar, which wasn’t much of a town, and had lunch in front of the old church. The church was fixed up in 1995 to be a showcase to visitors but it looked to have been abandoned. There was a sign that said inquire at the local store to enter but the local store was also closed!

The rest of the day was quite uneventful, except for the number of hills. It was basically hill after hill after hill. We later found out that we were on an actual area bike route that is considered one of the toughest in the area because of the number of hills. And we were on fully loaded touring bikes! It is good training for the Rockies or Northern Ontario I suppose. We never knew this area of Ontario would be so hilly. Although there wasn’t a shoulder, there was very little traffic and the pavement was very good. The downhill part was great and I hit my record speed of 59km/h without even knowing. Usually if there is any wind (cross wind the worst), the loaded bike feels a little too unpredictable at anything around 50km/h or so. But with no traffic and no wind it was great going downhill especially after the climbs. The important thing is to use your brakes often and always be in control of your bike because a fully loaded bike doesn’t come to a stop that quickly.

After a tip from the lady of the Maple Syrup Store (which closed the moment we got there.. even though they were suppose to be open), we biked to a local park in Hardwood lake where she said was a picnic area with running water. Although there wasn’t any running water, there were multiple brand new outhouses, a nice lake, a great covered picnic area and it was very quiet. It seemed like the ideal place to camp for the day. We had a snack and rested our tired legs at the picnic area and contemplated where to camp for the night. We decided to get back on our bikes and check out the camp that was supposedly down the road according to the GPS. When we got to the camp, we quickly discovered that it wasn’t a campground but an actual camp for kids (seemed like all ages even University kids – did I just call them kids?). After we refilled our water bottles, we decided the park was probably going to be our only and best place to camp for the night for quite a few miles.

After we got back to the park, we parked our bikes with the bike covers in the corner of the park, tucked away from sight. We hoped in the lake for a quick dip and made dinner in the picnic area. We boiled the lake water for 10 min and cooked our pasta in them. A few people launched their boats from the boat launch, and a few kids from the camp with their counsellors came by the park but they all left after a short while. It startled to sprinkle a little and sunset was only 45 min away. When the sprinkle stopped we quickly set up our tent by our bikes as the mosquitoes were starting to get quite bad. There was a brand new outhouse just around the corner where we decided to keep our food bag in for the night as we weren’t entirely sure of the area’s wildlife situation.

It thundered and down poured in the middle of the night which woke us up a couple times. It was incredible how much it rained! It was so loud it could have easily have been 50mm for the night. Luckily we had no problems and the tent kept us bone dry. Katherine said a fox or a coyote also came to visit us and sniff our tent in the middle of the night, but I somehow slept through that event. In the end, the park became a wonderful rustic campsite that was more than what we could have asked for. It made sense that there wasn’t a campground near by as there were hardly any people even at this nice park. We did decide that we should stock up on bear spray and a munch longer rope to tree our food sometime soon!

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