We had arrived home from our Denmark/Germany trip and went into a mad rush to get the laundry done and pack for the Canada trip. In the morning we finished getting the van ready, picked up dog food at the vet, Pepsi at Holly’s Pride where she had spent the two weeks while we were gone, got our hair cut and had a lovely lunch at our friends Pat and Palma’s house. Well fed and with best wishes we were sent off. The trip wasn’t a long one – we only drove to Markham to spend the afternoon and evening with Martin’s dad. We went for fish dinner and talked for hours before settling in for the night in our van parked in the driveway. Pepsi was really happy to see us after being in the kennel for two weeks.

Breakfast was an hour long three course feast with lots of conversation followed by a short walk for Pepsi’s sake. Then we were off on our six week adventure. This time we chose to use the northern Trans-Canada highway which took us to North Bay. We stayed at the same little campground that we’d stayed at last year. This gave us the opportunity to just march out the side gate to the Champlain Park and go for a swim in Lake Nipissing. The water was a lot warmer than the North Sea had been in Denmark two weeks ago but still felt refreshing on this beautifully warm sunny day. A BBQ chicken dinner at the picnic table followed and we ended the day by re-watching the last two episodes of House of Cards Season 4. Now that we’ve refreshed our memories of what had happened last year, we can move onto Season 5, all downloaded on Martin’s iPhone.

Today was our first full travel day. We got up early, had breakfast in the van because of the helicopter sized mosquitos, dumped and filled all water tanks and headed north. Yesterday we had passed a sign that said we were half way to the North Pole (45 degrees North) and today we made to the 49th parallel.

Highway 11 was our best friend. It took us to Temagami where we almost bought a prefabricated bunkie lego-like kit for $8000. All we needed was some land to put it on!

A short stop at the Information Center and Native Art Gallery followed. The snack bar next door was still closed and so we were deprived of our ice cream, but the moose with the Canadian tie had to do for now…

A short drive up the road we came across the Thornloe cheese factory where we stocked up on a fine selection of local cheeses and a small strawberry milk shake each.

Our next stop was to be TImmins where we wanted to take a Gold Mine tour. Fortunately, thanks to the wonder of the Internet, we discovered this attraction had closed in 2013 so saved ourselves the detour.

We continued on Highway 11 through rain, hail and wind and only briefly stopped at the abandoned Smooth Rock Cafe…

Our home for the night is the Walmart in Kapuskasing, about 600kms from tomorrow’s goal of Thunder Bay.

In the morning we woke up to the usual Walmart scene – a bunch of RVs and a truck with idling diesel engine.

Our drive today took us through some amazing scenery from rocky wooded areas with beautiful lakes to vast plains to spectacular mountainous areas.

On the way we stopped at the Geraldton Information Center to learn about the history of the area, starting with the native people to the gold miners to the forest fire fighters of today.

We stopped at the Trowbridge Campground for the evening and took Pepsi for a walk to investigate the campground and were surprised to find a number of vintage cars and trailers at some of the campsites. We spoke to a couple of the owners of the cars and discovered that they were all part of a coast-to-coast old timers rally and were driving from Victoria, British Columbia to St. John’s, Newfoundland over a period of 70 days. Cars included an old ambulance and fire truck. Definitely a sight to behold.