We began our first day in Canada with Chris “the Captain” Weld and my brother, Chris Geggie enjoying the hotel-provided breakfast. Let me tell you, I enjoyed my Canadian yogurt much better than that junk Yoplait we had at the Econolodge in Livingston. Well fed, we gathered our belongings from the room and hauled it all downstairs to the bikes and loaded them up. It was a relatively cool, overcast day.
I had purchased a twin-pack of Cardo Packtalk Neo bluetooth communicators for my brother and I to use on the trip and we spent the next hour in front of the hotel trying everything in the manual to connect our two communicators to the Captain’s Sena at the same time. Frustration built as we started overheating in our riding gear before we eventually gave up and left the Captain to follow along by hand signal instead of futzing with the technology even further.
We made our way out of Sault Ste Marie on the Trans Canada Highway 17 eastbound. Not long out of town we stopped for gas and a coffee to warm up a bit, and while waiting, I decided to look for a Youtube video, instead of using the Cardo app on my phone to help pair the Captain’s Sena to our Cardo mesh. Within 2 minutes, I’d found the undocumented technique in a video. I love Youtube! But as I tried the procedure to set my unit to bridge standard bluetooth communicator with the Sena and the Cardo mesh with my brother, both of us got an awful feedback loop in our helmets. It turns out, we’d paired our two headsets with both mesh and basic bluetooth and nearly caused us both to lose our hearing from the feedback! Yikes! Maybe a pending lawsuit for Cardo?
Anyway, that was a sign that the Cardo could do the task at least, so after bit more messing around with pairing and un-pairing communicators later into the correct topology, and we sorted things out and finally had us all on comms! Hooray! I normally prefer to leave out the tech support from my motorcycle riding for fear of technology-induced frustrations, but once we figured out the procedure for joining the 3 headsets together, we were able to do it reliably each time, which was nice. We got back on the highway, continuing east as the highway pulled up alongside the beautiful Mississagi River.
As we continued on, we made our way to Massey, Ontario where we stopped again for gas. While we stretched our legs we saw a Honda Transalp pull into the station and the friendly rider came over to chat. We told him we were on our way to Espanola, and he let us know that there was heavy construction on the main highway, and advised that there was a parallel secondary road that had no construction, and was a much more interesting ride. He said his goodbyes, and we made our way through Massey and across the river and down the beautiful, and nearly empty, Lee Valley Road and into Espanola.
From Espanola, we turned south onto ON-6 heading for Manitoulin Island. For those unfamiliar, Manitoulin Island is the big island is Lake Huron that is actually the largest freshwater island in the world. Highway 6 is the only fixed link from the mainland of Ontario to the island. ON-6 was absolutely awesome, with gorgeous landscapes, curves and hills, with the typical Ministry of Transportation’s gratuitous use of dynamite to get the road through the Canadian shield’s rocky promotories.
Eventually we arrived at the one-lane swing bridge that was the conduit onto Manitoulin Island at Little Current. We’d planned to ride to the southernmost settlement on Manitoulin Island, South Baymouth and take the 1.5h ferry from there to Tobermory, Ontario and on down the Bruce Peninsula into Ontario cottage country. However, between the relatively leisurely start, the communicator tech support and the cool weather needing warm-ups, we were late for our planned ferry. Luckily we hadn’t actually booked any tickets, so our options were still open.
We rode to a great overlook called 10-mile point for our next break, and had a look over the enormous vista of islands dotting the waters of Lake Huron. By now the sun had started shining more and the temperatures were rising so it was time to doff our warm sweaters.
On down the road we went, and into the tiny town of Manitowaning. We went straight down to the beautiful marina and former grain shipping warehouses down on the bay to have a look. By this point, it was nearly 3:30pm and we hadn’t had anything except our continental hotel breakfasts, so we were starting to get hungry. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a restaurant in Manitowaning, and I found the next settlement of any size nearby was Wikwemikong. I also spotted a road that followed the island’s shoreline to get there, so off I went on quest to find a bite to eat.
As we went, my GPS kept telling me to turn around, and it turned out the road I’d picked, Caldwell St. out of Manitowning, and later Wikwemikong Way, went way out to the end of a 30km peninsula before dead-ending. The entire lobe and peninsula was a massive area of unceded native territory. Luckily, even by 4:00pm, we found a pizza place open in Wikwemikong, and the Captain ordered a pizza for us all to eat. As we waited for our pizza to be prepared, I checked the ferry’s website to check for ticket availability only to find that they didn’t seem to have any tickets available for the final ferry run of the day at 7:45pm. “Huh”, I thought, “this could get complicated”. About 20 minutes later, and we were stuffing our faces with piping hot Hawaiian pizza.
After that misadventure, I plotted a course direct for South Baymouth and the ferry terminal. When we arrived, there was already a large line of cars in the queuing area and we were told to head to the ticket desk. They had lots of room for more motorcycles, thankfully and we were able to buy walk-up tickets without any issues. Phew! If not for that we’d have had to spend the night on Manitoulin Island and start the next day both a full 1.5h ferry ride and 100km (65mi) behind schedule tomorrow with work to do on Monday!
We waited for the ferry to approach, taking in the scenery around South Baymouth. After about 45 minutes, the boat approached and was giant, the MS-Chi Cheemaun, evidently the largest passenger vessel sailing the Great Lakes, celebrating its 50th year of service. Motorcycles, cars, campers, trucks and all manner of vehicle poured out of the ship before they loaded everyone who’d been waiting. Within 30 minutes they’d cycled 300+ vehicles through the vessel and we departed for Tobermory.
We made our way to the cafeteria for some very reasonably priced food and libations as we watched the sunset over Manitoulin Island and later Lake Huron.
Once we finally arrived in Tobermory, it was dark and we were the first to disembark, and we led a parade of vehicles south on the continuing ON-6. Luckily also in Ministry of Transportation fashion, the highway was very well marked and easy to follow. Chris Geggie was starting to run low on fuel on his Honda Rebel 500, and unfortunately, gas stations in these rural areas of Ontario are impossible to find in the darkness, since the none of them had light-up signs if they were even open at all at 10:00pm on a Saturday night.
Luckily, I still had my reserve fuel bottle from Jackpot, Nevada and Rogerson, Idaho fame, and we used it yet again to add some range to my brother’s bike. The Captain was also nearly running on fumes, having skipped the fuel stop that my bother and I made back in Massey. Without any alternative, it was back out onto the long, straight, flat, dark road for another 30 minutes. Finally, with two of our three fuel gauges into low fuel warning territory pulled into a gas station in downtown Owen Sound, Ontario. Our hotel was only 5 blocks away, and we arrived by about 11:00pm. Yikes. Let’s not do that again!
Tomorrow, the plan is to get to our final destination, Ottawa, Ontario. The phone says it’s a 509km journey. If we make it, we won’t have to pack up our things the next night. At this point, that’d be incredible.
Enjoying every word from the comfort of my armchair.
Great update Mike!!!👍🏽
Thank you!!