Month: July 2025

We woke to another nice day. Today we will leave Ontario behind and spend a couple of nights in Manitoba. We had lots of tees and lakes again today. Very picturesque! The winds are light and we have plenty of sunshine to keep our batteries charge while the fridge is on. According to the weather forecast , we’re heading into a weekend of heat – around high 20’s

The next couple of nights will be south of Winnipeg staying on property owned by a past colleague of Joyce’s who moved here. He lives with his daughter and son-in-law. We’ll take an extra night here as a bit of a break before travelling the rest of the way to BC.

We haven’t travelled up past Parry Sound to camp for quite a few years so this trip allows for a few overnights in our Ontario Provincial Parks. First night was at Grundy Lake where we have camped many years ago. It’s a great park if you want to canoe, kayak or paddle board. Lots of beautiful scenery but also mosquitoes! Paul braved them to check out the park via bike. They have redone the main roads and incorporated a separate bicycle lane. Our site had limited cell access, most likely a result of heavy tree cover.

Leaving Grundy for Chutes Provincial Park, we had a short drive of only a couple of hours. We took the opportunity to make a few stops. First was a roadside stand just south of Sudbury where we were able to pick up some beautiful strawberries as well as a basket of wild blueberries. It’s been a long time since I splurged on fresh ones – not cheap but when I look at their size, I can’t imagine how long they take to pick! Then on to Sudbury for fuel. While Paul filled up the truck, Joyce got to a grocery store for a few more veggies.

Arriving at Chutes, we were pleasantly surprised do find few mosquitoes! This was a drastic change from Grundy Lake. Not sure why the difference, but I’ll take it. Very spacious sites greeted us and we decided to take a walk along the river to see the “Chutes”.

Tuesday was a long day for us. Beautiful weather but lots of construction. It seemed we were always travelling the wrong direction and had to wait 5 minutes or more while traffic came through from the other direction. We came through the section of the Trans Canada that was completely closed last week due to major washout. They were in the final stage of paving. We also had a number of views of the mighty Lake Superior.

Our campsite was at Rabbit Blanket Campground in Lake Superior Park. It was an older park, with narrower roads and smaller sites. However, our site was long and wide and we were able to back right in without any problems. This park won’t be on our list to return to, only as a last resort.

We had a few showers overnight but nothing severe. On Wednesday morning after filling with water, we headed out for another day of driving. Although we didn’t have as much construction, we did experience a fair bit of fog off and on during the day.

By the time we got to our overnight destination it was raining fairly steady. We were staying at a private property associated with Boondockers Welcome, an organization we belong to. it allows us to stay a night or two without cost. We’ve met some wonderful people through our stays. Our hosts here, came out in the rain to help us get parked and then, because of the rain, we didn’t get a chance to visit until the next morning before we left.

After some great navigation info from our hosts about getting fuel in Thunder Bay, we set out for the day. Our destination is one more Ontario Provincial Park, east of Kenora. Having filled with 200 litres of fuel and stopping for a few groceries, we carried on our way. We have sun again today, enough to charge our solar and run the fridge off power instead of propane while driving. The road has been good overall. Lots of trees and water – more scrub trees in swampy areas. Also lots of dead trees – you can see how the fires would burn when started either by lightning or human hand. So far we haven’t been impacted by any fires.

We finished our day by checking into a site at Aaron Provincial Park. There were a number of empty sites so I hadn’t made a reservation since it was mid week. We are now in the Central Time Zone. Five days of travelling and we are still in Ontario! Tomorrow we’ll be just south of Winnipeg.