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Ontario

Got to Guelph and on to Newfoundland

We left Orillia after a brief tour of downtown, where the wildlife is safely behind windows…

Passed some nice Ontario farmland


and kept our eyes peeled in search of characteristic Ontario farmhouses with their steep gables – this one came close:

Encountered more traffic than we were used to

and ran into a touch more rain.

Pile ‘er high. A reuben at one of Orangeville’s fast food joints. Where hunger leads, we follow (wherever we can find a 40 foot space in the parking lot).

The salad had seen better days, but the dressing was pretty good.

Dutch Elm disease killed a lot of trees in Ontario, but some of them have had a second life, like these in Orangeville.

Our only moose sighting for days.

And before we knew it…

A pretty town, Guelph.

Supper in the Slow Fooderie of Guelph: the Artisanale, adjoining the all too tempting Bookshelf, includes a list of the farms and producers who provide its food. Last night’s menu offered some splendid things, like Spot Prawns with spinach (although how they could be described as local to Guelph eluded us, and the kitchen staff – the chef was not around when we dined)

and roast chicken, potatoes and asparagus

(if you need to take your drumstick home with you, the waitress can do some clever things with tinfoil)

and grilled mackerel with tomatoes, peppers and olives. Didn’t manage to find out what kind of mackerel this was, but am guessing Atlantic, which like Spot Prawns at least counts as – on some lists – sustainable (if not exactly local).

And that was pretty much it; the end of the road, the parting of ways. I left this afternoon for Newfoundland, completing by air my coast-to-coast travels. More on that another day.

On to Orillia

So yesterday, it rained when we left Montreal River.

And then it was cloudy.

And then it rained.

And then it was cloudy.

And then it rained.

And then it was cloudy.

And, wait, let me think: then it rained.

Yes, and then it was cloudy.

Then we saw some blue sky.

And some wildflowers, or weeds if you must.

We spent some time admiring the scenery while a logging truck chugged along ahead of us.

And then we hit a flat bit, still with the logging truck ahead,

and finally overtook him at Blind River.

We stopped for lunch at Bobbers in Bruce Mines, where the breakfast special was a bargain at $4.95 and the place was packed.

Some more flat bits.

Bait sold everywhere. There were even signs promising you could buy it 24 hours a day.

And then, finally, the sun shone…

and shone…

and shone…

End of the road, Orillia. A few small things we might need overnight…

Ontari-ar-i-o

Clever old us, we thought leaving Winnipeg bright and early on a Sunday morning would be pretty simple, but we ran into miles of police tape and traffic redirections – nothing that got in our way – because of the Manitoba Marathon.

We drove along for a while, rain and shine,

bought some fruit (California, not BC)

and saw ourselves

and then were welcomed to Ontario

where the landscape is thick with inukshuk, some say erected by hitchhikers, which are also relatively numerous in these parts.

and then just a lot of northern Ontario scenery, as promised: rocks, trees, water (repeat):

We stopped for lunch and met a valiant dog (kept very busy guarding the place from birds and beavers, according to his owner) who kept a close eye on our rig

while we tucked into some excellent pirogies (hand-made by a local Ukranian woman) for lunch.

And passed many such moose signs,

as well as 3 live and 2 dead ones, and other sobering sights.

And finally rolled into Thunder Bay safe and sound about 11 hours after starting. We had a little ramble along the industrial strip in search of food, to provision ourselves for the next leg. This venture raised some interesting questions, like what was the yellow scum round the edge of all the puddles?

We gave up on that one, and it all ended with a splendid feed.