Saturday July 18 Whiteshell Provincial Park

Got up early to get on my way early. Only people up in the hostel kitchen were some guys that were on their way to work. Packed up as quietly as I could but still managed to disturb my roommate I'm sure. I only talked to him the one time when he arrived. Got going ~7:30 and had some difficulties trying to find the best route out of the city. Finally found Raleigh St and it worked very well. The highway starts out as #59, double lanes, divided highway with wide shoulders and as the day went on it became narrow, gravel shoulders and almost no traffic, Saw very few joggers out for a Sat morning run (unlike Regina or Anycity for that matter) but did see one roadie and one triathlete on the highway. I was tempted to keep up for a while with each but resisted. Stopped at one ice cream/ gas stn and talked to the young guy working there, He has a dream to cycle from Vancouver to Mexico so he was quizzing me as much as he could without getting into trouble from the boss. Not much else in the way of towns. Made it out to Whiteshell Prov Park. The gates made it a 140 km day so I went to the nearest campground. It was full. The uniformed ranger was polite but she wouldn't do anything for me. I don't know how they can call this a park when there are cottages all over the place, for sales signs, resorts, B&B's dozens of them. There is some kind of festival going on too. So I went for a swim and now guerrilla camping near the Trans Canada Trail (ha). I obviously didn't get far enough away from the Bereston Lake area as I can hear the madness up here about 2 km away. I'm on the Cdn Shield now. As I got closer to the park I could see the granite outcrops, the birch trees, the muskeg and the swarm of flies that surrounded me while I was cycling. I have the bug hat on now. The route I took today was the original TC Hwy 1. At times I rode the "service road" which probably predates the TCHwy, it was very narrow, has for the most part been abandoned. The part I rode has been replaced with a more direct route about 50 km to the south. I will join up with it tomorrow.

OD 2975.1 km, 8:07:04, 154.60 km, 19.0 km/hr ave, 32.3 max