The nights are much warmer now (the cold front had passed us since Wawa) and our tent no longer gets condensation built up as much in the morning. But it had rained quite a bit over night and we still had to pack our tent up with it still being rather wet today.
We called Sleeping Giant Provincial park in the morning just to make sure that they weren’t fully booked up for the weekend. The girl at the park said that it would be no problem for us and that it would be a worthwhile trip. We were quite looking forward to the kayaking and couldn’t wait to get there to take a rest day off. While using the phone we read the funny blurb on black bears and grizzly bears at the campground – see photo!
We left Nipigon early to try to beat the traffic through the construction zone. We saw the “Terry Fox Courage Highway” sign right away and were inspired to make good progress on our bikes. Luckily the construction had grouped all the traffic together so it made things very easy for us. We had a little bit of a head wind and made great progress on the graded Hwy 17. We stopped at a gas station for lunch, which had spectacular murals on its walls. Apparently the front mural won the world wall mural contest in 2000!
Closer to the Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, we met Peter, who was cycling from Vancouver to St. John’s. He was really glad to see us he even back tracked slightly to chat to us at a rest stop picnic table. There we had some food together and talked about our trip. He had the exact same bike as me, but without the front panniers. He had to get a new rear wheel in Thunder Bay.
After meeting Peter the winds had changed direction and we had a bit of a headwind. We made it to the turn off to the Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. From here it was going to be a 35km detour (each way) off the highway but we had decided this would be a worth while detour. We stopped at the gas station at the corner to rest and get some chocolate milk and ice cream. The lady at the store told us about the owner’s RV outside that was brand new but was already falling apart with all the rivets falling out. They were not impressed!
We headed south along the peninsula to our campground. The road had very little traffic and went through some great scenery. Despite the headwind that was now coming from the South, we made it to campground. It seemed like it was quite far away, but we kept thinking about our rest day and our kayaking.
When we arrived at the campground we learned that they no longer delivered their rental kayaks or canoes down the road 4km to Lake Superior (and with no car that was no good to us!). We were quite disappointed but decided perhaps we could still convince the actual campground store to take them down for us. We went to the store to find out that they actually didn’t have any sea kayaks but only sit-on-tops, despite what we had read in their pamphlet. After biking for so long, and being tired at the end of the day, this was not news we liked. We kept our hopes up and called some outfitter shops in Thunder Bay. It was too far for any of them to deliver, but Diane from the Wilderness Outfitters was very nice and said she had former staff members in the area that would probably let us borrow their kayaks.
All hope was not lost but it was looking more and more like we wouldn’t be able to go kayaking the next day. Instead we read a lot about the hiking trails in the park and decided the hiking would be a good 2nd choice. We were quite tired so after setting up camp we decided to call it a night.
Trip Around The World 
Leave a comment