Entry 5 - for our Canada adventure 2017

Entry 5 – 31^st  August - Sept 7^th 2017

We decided to return to North Bay via a different route, along highway 11 located further north.

In the distance a white vehicle and its reflection in with water driving in front of us.

Whilst at Neys Provincial Park Steve had struck up a conversation with park staff, who showed him some pictures they had taken of another Canadian phenomenon, “the green northern lights,” they had viewed just 2 nights prior our arrival from the beach at Neys. During the night, we got up a couple of times without any luck. With this still fresh in our mind we located a road side stop on highway 11 late in the afternoon with open views provided by a lake where we camped for the night. We got up just about every hour hoping for the green light show in the sky but it seemed the moon was a bit bright and other conditions for a light show were not happening.

Our afternoon road side stop lake photo

Early morning sunrise and mist

We were awake at first light and decided to drive for a while prior to breakfast. It was cold with the outside temperature displayed on the top right of our vehicles dash showing zero degrees. There was plenty of low cloud or to be more correct pockets of some clear road.

After a couple of hours, it was time for a break and breakfast. We stopped at a roadside stop, still with plenty of fog and a cold temperature. Steve prepared breakfast at a table with Mary staying in the warmth of the car.

Another lake covered by morning fog

Our next stop for the night at Rene Brunelle Provincial Park started out good with the French accented female gate attendant unable to understand Mary but could clearly understand Steve’s speech. Steve was delighted as up till then we had regularly experienced the opposite.

Continuing with Steve’s good roll, our neighbours in the camp spot next to us took Steve out onto the lake in their boat fishing. No fish was landed but we did have a shared fish tea put on by our neighbours with freshly caught fish from their morning fishing catch.

Day 3 after another 500 kilometres of driving we arrived at North Bay near 6 pm staying at Jeff and Tammy’s home. The evening meal consisted of homemade hamburgers complements of Mary and Judith. We chatted away well into the night with Tammy and Jeff which continued at breakfast. 

Sunday night was at the local “The Moose” eatery specialising in chicken wings with endless choices of sauces. We all enjoyed a chocolate and crushed nut banana split back at Jeff and Tammy’s home for a late-night treat.

Thank you Jeff for the picture

Monday was a public holiday, Jeff and Steve cleaned our hire car at the local car wash and we inspected Judith and Corey’s new residence. It looks great and a lovely quiet location. For the evening meal, Tammy cooked up a nice tasty meal and the four of us played cards until bed time. Great fun and very competitive. The girls were allowed to have a win for the night. 

We did enjoy catching up with Judith, Corey, Tammy, Jeff and their extended family finishing off our east Canada, Ontario experience positively beautiful. 

After 4 hours of driving and we were back in Toronto where we are staying at an Airbnb accommodation for a couple of nights. Part of our package was a provided breakfast which turned out to be a dozen eggs and tomatoes in the fridge with a cupboard full of different varieties of cereal. This was more than enough food for us during our stay with no need to go searching for more. The below picture shows the outside of our accommodation with the whole lower level provided for our use. It looked even nicer inside with just about every conceivable option provided.

We spent some of this time on the computer and phone organising a last-minute booking for an Alaskan cruise. Woohoo! 

We were at Toronto airport at 6 am dropping off our hire car and in the air at 8.20 am flying to Vancouver. It was one of our smoothest airport experiences even with Mary being picked out for a drug swipe check and a drug swipe of our personal carry-on baggage.