We woke up to the sunrise and the mist on the lake. It was a very quiet and peaceful morning. Fog came and went while we had breakfast and packed out stuff away.
We had to bike up hill to get out of Marathon which was a bit tiring first thing in the morning. We hit a few more hills along the way, with some incredible views. Lake Superior was still covered in fog but it was slowly clearing away. While we were stopped for a snack on a bunch of rocks over looking the railroad, we met Gilles from Montreal. He was very excited to see us and we had a great chat. He recommended Rainbow Falls Provincial Park as the place to stay. Henri from the day before also recommended the campground so our minds were set. There are two, and one is right on the water and just beautiful.
We stopped in Terrace Bay for lunch at the Tourist Office and to get some rest. We were quite tired and hungry as it was later in the afternoon and we hadn’t had lunch yet. Afterwards we climbed up to a look out point that overlooked Lake Superior. On the way down we found some wild blueberries and had a few! There were so many we could have been there all day but it was a very hot day.
We picked up some groceries in town before we headed out. We usually stop everyday to pick up groceries. Just around the corner was the Red Dog Inn Motel. We read at the tourist office that this was where Terry Fox had stayed on August 27th, 1980, four days before he had to stop running just before Thunder Bay. On our way out of town we decided to stop at the falls that was advertised as a major attraction in Terrace Bay. It was a couple kilometers off the road. It was okay, but the view of Lake Superior through the ravine was nicer.
We carried onto Schreiber, the next town. The stretch from Terrace Bay to Schreiber was the best stretch of shoulder we have biked on so far on our trip (it probably felt more so because we had been biking on a long stretch that didn’t always have a huge shoulder). To top it off it was pretty much flat the entire way with a view of Lake Superior. It also went the entire way from Terrace Bay to Schreiber. We are not sure why, but we would like to think it was because we were on the Terry Fox Courage Highway.
Once we arrived in Schreiber, we tried to find the plaque commemorating the Japanese-Canadians who helped build Schreiber during the Second World War. They forcefully taken away from their families and were sent to camps, many working on building the Trans-Canada Highway through this part of Ontario. I thought it was nice that the Canadian Government recognized this and erected a historical sign. We also entered the tourist office beside the train that was on display. The actual tourist office was also train museum and was inside a train car which was really neat. They had a full course menu from the train back in the day. All for $1.35!
Schreiber felt incredibly strange, because there was absolutely no one downtown or even on the other streets. It was late afternoon on a week night, and it felt like a ghost town. It used to be a bustling train town, and it is still a non-passenger train hub. It was strange because even the TCH that passed through town was empty. We sure weren’t complaining about the lack of traffic though!
We continued our way towards Rainbow Falls. Right before the campground we had about a 200m decline over what seemed like almost 20km. It was terrific!
We finally made it to the campground at 7PM to learn that there was only one tent site left and it was the one beside the highway. The lady at the counter was really nice and suggested we should just save $32 and head down the road and camp on one of the beautiful spots along Lake Superior (surprisingly this Ontario Park wasn’t a ‘premium’ $38 park). This was our second (and only I suppose) choice anyway because Thomas and Yvonne who we had met yesterday suggested it to us as well. We chatted a bit more to the lady about cycling and trucks (she is a cyclist and her husband is a transport truck driver), and after filling up our water bottles cycled a few km down the road.
We probably hadn’t mentioned this before, but along the TCH there are places where you can see the old Hwy just off to the side of the road. It is an overgrown patch of one-lane pavement. It is really neat to think that was the main road back in the day. If only they could turn that into a bike road it would truly be amazing, but that would probably cost a little too much and not enough cyclists to use it.
We kept our eyes open for a good place to camp for the night, until we came to the picnic area of Rossport. Based on Thomas and Yvonne’s recommendation we found a very private flat spot on the rocks a couple minute walk away from the rest stop. It was amusing because while we were looking around we found bicycle tire tracks going in such a direction in the sand. Who else would take their bikes that way? 😉 We had a quick dip in Lake Superior to clean ourselves. The lake wasn’t terribly warm but it wasn’t too cold either. I guess you can say that it was ‘refreshing’!.
It was an amazing location with a great view of the water. After dinner we found a good tree to tree our food up. As we were washing our dishes we even noticed a couple with a camper van pull into the rest area to camp for the night. Somebody had taken the ‘No Parking/Camping” sign off so I guess they thought it would be okay. Katherine pretty much scared the heck out of them the next morning though. You couldn’t see where we camped at all, and we had no car, and next thing you know there is Katherine walking out of the woods in the morning when they thought they were alone! 🙂 I am not sure if they ever figured it out.
The place was so nice we could have easily stayed there another night. At night we even had heated floors in our tent since the rocks gave off so much heat from being in the sun all day!
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Trip Around The World 
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