“After many months of planning and a sleepless night packing, we were finally on our way.” Those were the immortal first words spoken on a video produced by my friends and I after our first camping trip to Algonquin Park back in 1994. Although in the case of this blog post, there wasn’t “several months of planning”, nor was there a “sleepless night packing”. And it didn’t involve a group of friends. It was just the two of us: myself and my beloved V-Strom (my precious).
As mentioned in my previous post, I feel like a drifter. Like a drifter I was born to walk alone, as the song states. I have this restless spirit, this wanderlust, that I must have inherited from my father. He loved to travel throughout his entire life.
I returned from my latest contract on the ships in late July, 2020, after staying two months past my original sign-off date, and followed the two week quarantine protocol as directed by the provincial health officials, all the while planning my next motorcycle trip. My plan was to ride to Northern Ontario, and visit places I’ve never been to and camp along the way to reduce the cost of the trip.
Most of my old camping gear, as well as my riding jacket, was outdated so I decided to purchase a lot of new stuff and hoped to test it out on my trip. I found out that I needed to replace even more of my old equipment as some of the items I took with me had outlived their useful lives. This is a task to be completed for the next trip.
My trip to Northern Ontario began on 1 September, 2020. September in Ontario, southern Ontario in particular, has historically been an extension of the summer. In fact, the warmer weather usually continued until October. With this in mind, I left the inner thermal liner of my new riding jacket at home but I did have layers with me that I could add if it got colder. Was I in for a shock. More on that later.
I planned on visiting some friends along the way that I could visit near the beginning of my trip. Other than that I had no actual plans or destinations in mind, just hit the road and throttle up.
I left Newmarket around 11:00am on 1 September, and headed north on Highway 400 to meet up with a friend, Brian, who was working at a resort in the Muskoka area, near Port Carling. The route took me through the scenic town of Bracebridge along Hwy 118.
I somehow missed a turn and ended up in the town of Falkenburg. After a brief phone call and rerouting my trip I headed south along Hewlitt Rd/Regional Road 47 back to Hwy 118 and on to Brian’s place. The ride along Hewlitt Rd was the first thrilling ride of the trip. It was mostly packed gravel and very curvy. I have this tremendous fear of falling and this made me a bit nervous as I thought the traction would be low. I practiced some of the reduced traction cornering techniques I learned from various websites but this road still made me very uneasy.
It was great seeing Brian again, as it’s been a while since I last saw him. He was one of the original four who were involved in those Algonquin Park camping trips and subsequent video production. We had a nice barbecued steak dinner, had a few drinks, got caught up on old times, and talked about his job at the resort. We also watched some tv and he generously offered the spare room in his house for me to stay in.
The next morning, I was alone as Brian was already at work. While I was eating breakfast he came back to the house on one of his breaks. We chatted a bit and he suggested I make a sandwich for the ride. That was a great idea which came in handy later in the day. I loaded my bike, we said our good-byes, and I was back on the road. Rain was in the forecast so I made sure my rain gear was easily accessible.
My next destination was the east end of Algonquin Park where I was going to meet up with a couple of friends, Kim and Brenda, who were staying at a camp site, in Madawaska. The route took me along Hwy 118 through the beautiful town of Haliburton. It was a fantastic, scenic, and wet ride.
Part of my route included Regional Road 523 which was partly under construction. There was a grader spreading fresh gravel on the road. I was allowed to pass but decided to wait and follow another vehicle. The traction was very loose and even though I stayed in the tracks of the vehicle in front of me I was still very uncomfortable and on edge.
Upon arriving at the camping area in Madawaska, I decided to rent a small cabin so I could dry out my wet riding gear. The cabin had a bed with a mattress but no linens due to the pandemic, so I slept in my sleeping bag and realized that my 25-year-old camping pillow is one of the items that will need to be replaced.
Early the next morning I said bye to my friends and left, heading east along Highway 60 and stopped in the scenic town of Barry’s Bay for a quick breakfast. After doing some research on this town I learned that there is a park, Zurakowski Park, that honours Janusz Zurakowski, one of the test pilots of the Avro Arrow, Canada’s own supersonic jet that was developed in the late 1950’s, but scrapped by then Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker. There’s even a replica of said Avro Arrow. This is something worth returning to Barry’s Bay to visit.
I continued along Highway 60 onto Trans Canada Highway 417 towards Kanata, a suburb in the west end of Ottawa to meet up with another friend. The weather was very warm, still summer-like, and I was hoping to get a chance to test out my new camping gear starting the next day. I spent the rest of that day catching up with my Ottawa buddy, David, had a nice dinner and he offered me the large couch in his living room for the night. I accepted.
To be continued…
The Drifter 