Days 4 and 5: Apsley to Tramore

Day 4: Apsley to Bancroft.

61km/38m, 3hrs37mins, 16.9kph/10.5mph, 477m/1550ft of climbing.

Sorry to be so painfully repetitive, but each day is more glorious than the last. They tell me it's going to rain tomorrow, though, so one day soon I'll be able to gratify my readers - assuming I have any readers- with tales of my toiling miserably through hideous conditions. But today is not that day: it started superbly and got better.

A relatively short ride today along highway 620 from Apsley to Bancroft. A wonderful, rolling, almost empty road through largely forested areas peppered with the inevitable lakes. And it provided the wildlife highlight of the trip so far, in the form of a moose drinking from a pool at the roadside as I rode by. Sadly she was unwilling to pose for a photograph, and ambled away into the trees as soon as I stopped. Not the most elegant of quadrupeds, the moose, but an animal I'd always wanted to see and one that had eluded me on previous trips to Canada.

So the wildlife score is one moose, one beaver, three eagles and a multitude of blackflies. The latter are only abroad in the spring and are enthusiastic enough to make one think twice about stopping - I seem to be able to outpace them on the bike. However, the 30% DEET spray I invested in seems an adequate deeterrent (groan). Scoring the west highland midge as a ten, I'd so far give them a tentative six.

The moose wasn't highway 620's only surprise. About half-way between Apsley and Bancroft, absolutely in the middle of nowhere, I came upon a general store with a bakery attached, turning out superb still-warm-from-the-oven Danish pastries and exceptional slightly chewy ginger biscuits. Quite remarkable; even if they supply absolutely everyone within a ten-mile radius they can only have a few hundred potential customers. But in this case they did well from the passing trade.

I wrote this at my campsite just outside Bancroft. Fairly basic, but plumbing and hot showers, and several cups of green tea courtesy of my jetboil stove. Green tea beats the pants off energy drinks as a restorative. I wonder why that should be, given that it hasn't a calorie to its name.

Day 5: Bancroft to Tramore

109km/68m, 6hrs 33mins, 16.6kph/10.3mph, 606m/2294ft of climbing.
Cumulative distance so far, 411km/255m.

Life on the road is full of surprises. I am blogging this from the comfort of my
Yurt at the Covered Bridge Campground, Tramore - a tiny place north of Killaloe near Golden Lake. I arrived looking for somewhere to pitch my tent but Andrew, the Polish owner, suggested that I save myself the bother and sleep in the Yurt instead for the same price. It's so early in the season here that most of the campsites are just opening and apart from a few people arriving to clean up their RVs and trailers after the winter, I'm his first visitor this year. Unfortunately I don't have any fermented Yak's milk to complete the Mongolian theme, so a glass of red wine will have to suffice. I've discovered that a wine bottle fits exactly in the bottle cages on the bike. Most convenient.

Today the longest so far, and undulating: which means, as those who have cycled with me before will know, decidedly lumpy. Much shorter ride tomorrow to Pembroke.