Spraggue to Sheguindah, 130km: Manitoulin Island, the largest freshwater island in the world

We were reaching Southern Ontario. Today our destination was Manitoulin Island, which is the largest island in the world surrounded by freshwater. There were a few exciting events which transpired today.

One was Lee Valley Road. Highway 17 is a busy road and the closer you get to Espanola the busier it gets. As such, when we reached the town of Massey we had the choice of following Hwy 17 to Espanola or taking Lee Valley Road. Bud did provide a disclaimer that Lee Valley Road was not well maintained; however, since traffic was significantly less on that road, Louise and I opted to take the chance of an unmaintained road.

Lee Valley Road was definitely in rough shape. It was being converted into a hardtop road but there were four sections about 2km long in which it was gravel. Paula was bouncing around like crazy because of the loose gravel and we were swivelling this way and that. I kept singing “just keep pedalling, pedalling, pedalling, just keep pedalling” to make sure I would stay upright and not fall. Despite the gravel sections it was a really nice and quiet road. There were some nice looking fields and a beautiful farmhouse with a rock face in the background.

Another eventful part of the day was the cycle from Espanola to Little Current. It was a challenging cycle because there were rolling hills...we went up, and down, and up again. In addition, there was a headwind. My spirits drastically decreased as a result of that darn headwind. During this section of the ride I noticed the rock had changed colour, it was white quartzite. I had noticed different rock colours since entering Ontario as the rock started grey, black and brown in colour (granite) and then around the Nipigon region the rock was red and orange in colour, which was gorgeous. And now between Espanola and Little Current it was white. I thought it was neat :)

As Louise and I were cycling from Espanola to Little Current we met up with Danny. The 3 of us made it to the swing bridge to get to Manitoulin (finally :P). Once we cycled over the bridge we stopped for ice cream which was super duper yummy :D Then we cycled the last 15km to Batman’s Campground (dan dan dan dan batman :P). The view of Lake Huron from the campground was beautiful. It was a good end to the day.