Day 6 - July 17 - Chapleau to North Bay

Weather: AM: Sunny and Cloudy Periods +22c

PM: Partly Sunny, very humid, +40c

Distance: 567km, time 9hrs 30mins

We got an early start this morning, and after a brief stop at the CP Station in Town and the steam loco display it was time to hit the road, we are travelling down Hwy#129 and #554 to Iron Bridge back on the Trans Canada Hwy#17.  There are NO services on #129 and NO gas for 210km, so the rule in the North is gas often, so with full tanks and ranges around 260km for each of our bikes we will not face any problems.

CP Steam Loco #5433 2-8-2 at Chapleau, ON

About 40km South of Chapleau you cross (ie. hight of land) from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean Watershed, we crossed this back on last Saturday near New Liskard and again near Wawa.  There is a sign board at each crossing point.

That is me with Morley, the only complaint Morley he had was there were NO moose sighting on this trip nor any bear.  There weren't any trains either except the ONR Polar Bear Express back on Sunday.

A view of Hwy#129 somewhere out there!

Hwy#129 along the Mississagi River

Jct of #554 and #129 about 20km North of Thessalon

 

Highway 129 has lots of twists and some breath taking scenery, it is like the Tail of the Dragon, except almost no cars, but there is the Moose and Bear issues, which may not exist on the Dragon, so keep that in mine, plus if you need help it is hours away.

We reach Iron Bridge in about 3 hours, so just a bit before noon, but there are not any restaurants in town and even the gas station has issues in getting the pumps to work and the credit card machine, and this is an Esso, but they do have 91 gas, so many in the North only have 87.

So Blind River will be the lunch stop at 12:30 and it has lots of restaurants, and even a hospital as well.

During lunch we decided to push on to North Bay and skip the tour of Manitoulian Island and taking the ferry to Tobermory.

We did notice around 3pm the temperature dropped to 35c and there was sign of rain before, we never got a drop of rain but appreciated the cooler temperatures, relatively speaking.

 

We stayed on 17 right through Sudbury and on to North Bay, arriving back at Ben's house at 6pm sharp, not bad for a 500+km day, and we did not follow our rule of not exceeding 500km, sometimes you need to live on the edage.

Tomorrow I will drive back down Hwy#11 and home, and completing my Pinetree Line Road Trip, so far I have ridden over 2,600km.