Day 49: Neys Provincial Park to White Lake (to eat or not to eat)

Eating is a major past time on this trip though we have not discussed it much. It is pretty amazing to be able to eat anything I want and lose weight. And we eat well, doing a grocery store stop every couple of days... macaroni and cheese, pesto, feta cous cous, Indian and Thai curries, etc. Breakfast is always PB on raisin bread with an apple for Leah while the rest of us have granola and snitch a piece of raisin bread.
This morning breakfast was on the spectacular sand beach of Neyes Park on Lake Superior. With waves lapping on the shore, it had the look and feel of an isolated Nova Scotia south shore beach on a calm day (i.e., Hirtles Beach).



We started off cycling with lunch in our paniers but no food for supper or beyond. No problem, there was one significant town on the day's route across the beautifuls hills overlooking Lake Superior- Marathon. It would have a grocery store! It did, but this is where we stumbled into the reoccurring challenge of living in a world planned for cars, not bikes. It turned out that Marathon was not on the main road and it would be 10 km extra round trip for us including a major ascent on the way out. Not a big deal for a car but significant for us especially since Marathon did not seem very appealing seeing the smoke stacks from a distance (the town slogan was "founded on paper and laced with gold").
So we decided to do a very basic supper and breakfast out of the one "convenience" store/gas station on the highway. But this store hit a new low for such places- no eatable food. We asked about small stops on the road ahead and the clerk said there was one. So we called them and they had no food but assured us that a second one just 10 km further would have "something". Perfect as it was right near our camping destination. No one wanted to ride extra down to Marathon... We'd take our chances...
A beautiful, hilly afternoon ride into the wind (as usual) and we arrived very tired at the camp park entrance, having not passed any store. Oops, we can get our site and send someone up the road to get the "something", which by this time was beginning to worry us given the last "store" and the nothing in between. Then the smiling summer student park attendant told us it would be 24 km to the store and back with 8 km of hills for the poor person
among us willing to volunteer. Well no one jumped up to take on this mission at the very end of a long hot day. So what to do?... Beg other campers for food to feed five? Not eat??? Bike the km to the store up the road and try to scrounge a campsite somewhere near there? With our hearts in our hands and no sucker volunteers, we hopped on our bikes and trudged further to the "White Lake Lodge". Now remember this is not exactly the centre of civilization and you cannot always believe what you read. In fact, at this locale, there was no lake and no lodge, of course the "White" was a matter of interpretation. But there was a gas station, a small store and some cabins. The next store was 40km so we knew this was all we had as we enntered the door. Would we eat anything but chips and pop, and maybe Fruit Loops?
The friendly owner greeted us. He was starved for conversation and customers. Eureka! There were noodles, tomato sauce, and the cereal pictured below for breakfast. We would eat!


And to end the story semi happily, there was a small inlet, still water, of a river for a refreshing swim. The down side was that it turned out to be a breeding ground for battalions of mosquitos which attacked us in the evening and morning (the worst yet). And Alan and Leah were faced with the ongoing reality that when all five of us are up for grabs, bugs have clear preferences. Will Alan and Leah be bloodsucked to death in Northern Ontario?? Will they eat or be eaten?? Stay tuned.




Distance: 97.24 km
Time on bikes: 5:18:44
Average speed: 18.3 km/h
Distance from Vancouver: 3923 km
Start: 9:30 am
End: 5:30 pm
Wind: Northwest (light-head)
Conditions: sunny


Cheers
- The Warpotay Team

Location:White Lake Lodge, ON