Day 35 – Halfway (Neys ON – White Lake ON)

Our ride today was one of the shorter of recent days – just a tad over 60 miles, with a lunch (at 10:30 AM) celebrating the half way mark of the tour.  Despite the short ride we still had some pretty good hills to climb.

We started off slowly, with a hiking tour of Prisoner’s Cove, before heading out of the park. On our hike through the woods we saw some of the native wildlife, but didn’t feel too threatened.

The hike itself was pretty neat – apparently the bay we were in, a few hundred million years ago was the crater of an active volcano, which had collapsed.

The rock formations were pretty neat. The granite had been polished smooth by the glaciers, and you could see ridges in the rocks which were gouged out by boulders at the bottom of the glacier.

The views of Lake Superior at the celebration “half way” lunch (cucumber, tomato and cheese sandwiches and ice cream) in Marathon were spectacular. We stopped at a deli on the way to the lunch and bought some cold cuts to supplement the meal.

Serge and Pierre Alain continue to be amazed by the scale of things here – Switzerland could fit in Lake Superior with room to spare.

We stopped for our second lunch with about 50 miles under our belts – I thought I’d include a photo of our bikes for my cycling friends in New Jersey. With all the stuff we are carrying in our packs (vest, camera, peanut butter and jam sandwiches, bananas, ID, lock, spare parts, extra water…) it adds about 10 pounds to the weight of the bike.




The area east of Marathon which we rode through was once a major logging area. Over the past few years, they found major veins of gold, so the large logging mills have been replaced by enormous gold mining operations.

Since today was relatively short, we got to start late and finish early. The provincial parks we are staying in are great – relatively level campsites, good showers. After tomorrow’s ride to Wawa, we have a rest day with another indoor stay – we are beginning to get spoiled.