Day 49 Tottenham to Nestleton, Ontario

 76.7 miles, 3,120 ft ascent

We were happy today that our last COVID victim rejoined the tour.  Brad, husband of Jane, is shown taking his bike off of the rack of their vehicle.  Jane had already rejoined us at an earlier date, and she rode the difficult stretch across the Lake Superior northern shore with us.  It took longer for Brad to recover from COVID, and we are glad that he is once again part of our group.  Welcome back, Brad!  Can he keep up with battle tested Jane?  That is the question!

 

 

We had a nice, easy, and slow ride today.  We were instructed by DIR not to arrive at camp before 15:00, as the camp owner apparently gets very irritated at early arrivals.  Riders paused in towns along our route before Nestleton, our destination, in order to carry out DIR's instructions.

We passed this home with rather unusual  architecture, and some elements of Mediterranean or Italian design.  According to my Canadian colleagues, many Italians immigrated to Canada during the 1940s.

This farming area is located in a converted swamp. Constant drainage into a canal prevents it from being too wet and reverting to swamp land.

Below workers labor in onion fields below the canal.

These are some of the pumps that drain water from the converted swamp into the canal.

This is a photo of the canal that drains the farming area, which is called Holland Marsh.  The area is about 10 miles long and a mile wide.  Canadian colleagues said that many of the vegetables consumed in southern Ontario are grown here.

Bridges here were torn down displacing a colony of barn swallows. This nesting area was built to accommodate the colony once the bridges were gone.

We ran out of raging moose signs sometime back.  They have been replaced with these  turtle alert signs indicating a turtle crossing on the roads around Holland Marsh.   We have lots of turtles around our neighborhood in TN, and I have yet to see one with his nose as far up in the air as this Canadian cousin. 

When we stopped for lunch, at the Ultramar gas/restaurant concern, we were surprised that food was less expensive than comparable items in the US.  The gas cost per liter equates to US$4.95/gallon.  Hopefully gas has come down at home.  

We frequently observed alfalfa fields along our route.

This is one of the better country roads we have ridden during the tour with low traffic, and a moderately wide, and relatively clean shoulder for cycling.  I wish some of my American cycling friends could have been along with me on today's enjoyable ride.

Ontario has a system of Line Roads with Sideroads (sometimes called Concession Roads) perpendicular to the Line Roads.  The system was laid out by British surveyors during colonial times.  Our Canadian riders tell us that the numbering system can vary from county to county.  A bit confusing, perhaps?  

 

 

With today's ride we met another turning point.  Coming down from Lake Superior, we had been moving closer and closer to my Tennessee home.  At Tottenham we were 603 miles away, according to the Find My iPhone app, and at this campsite, we are 634 miles away, so we are now moving further away heading generally northeast toward Newfoundland and our final destination.  Here is a colorful shot of our tents at tonight's campsite taken from across the large pond adjacent to it.  Of course you can easily recognize my Tennessee orange tent!

Check in again for the next chapter in our saga.  We have less than one month left in our journey.