Day 37 – White Lake to Wawa - 81 miles

After another decent night’s sleep we left Randy behind doing his cooking duty and headed off once again into the Canadian shield safe in the knowledge that only 80 miles or so away was a Motel and a rest day waiting.

Today’s ride was really a continuation of shield riding with a succession of rolling hills and descents to keep us busy all day. The wind was still against us so at times it was hard work making headway and a couple of the longer descents we had to pedal quite hard just to maintain speed downhill. There were also large areas where fire had obviously swept through a couple of years ago, which just served to remind us delicate nature can be around these regions.

After about 40km we pulled into White Lake the birthplace, if that’s the right word, of Winnie the Poo. The original Winnie was the property of a Canadian First World War Soldier, named after Winnipeg and donated to London Zoo whilst in the UK I believe. He was spotted at London Zoo by A.A.Milne and the rest, as they say, is history.

Following coffee and the obligatory snaps we headed off again and managed to maintain a decent pace for most of the day stopping briefly again half way between White Lake and Wawa. At this point I was joined by Trevor and with Tom and I we formed a pace line to try to get the remaining 50 or so KM rattled off ASAP. Trevor is a lot stronger cyclist than me and I had to work my socks off to stay with them but after about an hour and a half we rolled, or should I say wheezed, our way into Wawa, the home of the giant Goose. The Goose comes from the local First Nation Tribe word for Goose and there are a number of giant geese around the town.

I didn’t mess about in town and headed straight for the motel as I wanted to get hold of Z and the family. I have been without a mobile signal for a number of days now and have been told I probably won’t get one for another few days so it was important that I got caught up. Quick use of Face Book and Matt and his mate Lewis managed to get a message to Z and we were able to Skype, I also managed 10 mins with Mark Lee who has now got himself onto the Skype directory, although I cut him at the end by mistake, sorry Mark.

Having caught up with the gossip we had dinner. It is the National Day of Switzerland and so we had a specially cooked meal and singing of traditional songs and anthems by our two Swiss guests. The food was lovely but once again the portions were ridiculously small and many of the gang were left hungry. 

After dinner some went to the bar, it is Holliday weekend here and most things are closed, but I just relaxed in the room and caught up with my blog etc, besides I’d had a few beers during the afternoon whilst catching up with the family. The Motel looks OK but we are three to a room and one of us is on a camp bed! I also can’t find the controls to the air conditioning so it could be a hot night.

Tomorrow is a rest day so its housework time, washing clothes cleaning the bike and repacking my baskets are the priorities and if time permits a look around Wawa, which is only small anyway.

Next week is a long one 900km and 7 days on the trot, although one is very short due to a ferry crossing there are two days of over 100 miles in amongst the 6. I hope to arrive in Alliston next Monday 9^th for a well earned rest day and a chance to meet up with the Lake family, most of which I haven’t seen since I was 18.

Onwards and Upwards!