The downside of sleeping inside a fort is that the large wooden doors are closed at night and not reopened until the owners arrive in the morning. So at 8:30 I was packed and ready to go. However Anna offered me some raisin toast and I was still hungry and it felt rude not to at least buy breakfast. I even had a chai latte, but then she wouldn't accept any money!! She told me to be safe and pay it forward and gave me a big hug.
The fort entrance from the inside.
As I was biking into the wind again I thought it might be a shorter day. With so few towns you pretty much have to stay where you can unless you want to wild camp (both Frank and Paul were big into that but I am still a bit chicken!!). So I was either going to have to stay in Dryden or make a huge push to Ignace for which a much earlier start would have been good. The advantage of being later was that I got to stop at Egli's sheep farm. Yesterday Paul had asked me how my body was holding up. In the last couple of weeks I have had some tingling and numbness in the outer 2 fingers of my left hand. I replaced my old gloves in Regina but that hasn't really helped. I guess I assumed it would be reversible and as it was on my left hand with my shortened and not very sensitive thumb tip it didn't matter so much. Paul had trendy wooly covers on his handlebars and he mentioned he had bought them on an earlier trip at Egli's. It's a good job I was biking with a trailer otherwise I could have spent quite a bit of money at the shop. I discovered the true wonders of wool last winter dog-sledding and this place had an amazing selection of wool pants and shirts as well as gloves and mitts.
I arrived in Dryden at lunchtime and checked out the tourist info for camping options. I took a picture of the moose outside but given that it was a grey and overcast day it didn't come out very well. Then I went to Tim's and ordered a large chilli, cup of tea and cinnamon roll. I poured over the map and camping guides I had picked up. I knew I wouldn't make Ignace today so was not in any rush. Finally I decided to push 20km up the road for a campground at Wabigoon, the weather forecast for tomorrow is wet so I figured it would be better to get those km's in while the clouds were still gathering.
For the Brit's among you.
Great to see that the warm hospitality continues !
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