Day 46 – Manitoulin Island to Espanola

We started out the day in Mindemoya and headed towards Little Current via the back roads. Shortly after starting out, we passed a sign that told us that we were in an area where they are reintroducing black bears! The roads were really nice, with hardly any traffic until we got to the turn onto HIghway 6. Highway 6 was very narrow and had lots of traffic because it was a holiday weekend with a fair on in Little Currrent.

We made it into Little Current and met Shaun from England. He is cycling from Vancouver to St. John’s. He had some good tips about the highway to Sault Ste. Marie, and we had a great time chatting to him and comparing our gear (his bike was very cool – from England!). Click here to check out his awesome blog. We got some food at Valu-Mart and headed to the waterfront to enjoy it. The waterfront was really nice and we watched the swinging bridge open up.

After lunch, we headed to the tourist office and then across the swinging bridge, which was actually quite pleasant to cycle on as it was one-way and had a 10km/h speed limit. Highway 6 to Espanola was wonderful, with huge shoulders and relatively flat until near the end of the day. We met Ray from Saitn John, NB who was cycling from Vancouver to Halifax???. He gave us a brochure for the bike shop in Sault Ste. Marie with the free camping, Velorution.

We came into Espanola and decided to bunk down for the night at the Apsey Lake Resort. It was a nice small campground with a very friendly owner and free hot showers. We met some folks from Quebec who are planning a bike trip to PEI next summer and invited them to come and visit us. We also got to watch the MNR helicopter land right next to the campground. Apparently, they were using to swap crew and equipment for a forest fire in the area. It was very new looking and Adam took some nice pictures. I made a pasta/veggie/chicken creation for dinner and we called it a night.

Click here for today’s photos

GPX