A Night At Bug Hotel

We left the west side of Winnipeg at 8am and headed through the city centre towards Kenora.  Locals warned us that Winnipeg was not cycle friendly and our progress was slow and difficult through the traffic. It was not until late morning that we reached the city limits and here the main highway 44 became a narrow single carriageway with no hard shoulder.  It's hard to believe that this was a main route heading east. 

Huge trucks and cars gave us cause for concern but thankfully most of the drivers were very considerate. I do, however, find myself cycling at least 30% of the time looking in the rear view mirror.  It's only when you are in such a vulnerable position that you realise that so many drivers are in such a hurry, driving too fast and much too close together.  Yes I know that's what a cyclist would say but what's the rush?

Anyway, we eventually reached a better road but struggled with a very strong northerly crosswind all day. As it was getting late and after 120km we decided to rough camp just outside Elma.

Picking a suitable spot we moved back off the main highway to discover the 'old highway'. This road is now categorised in Manitoba as 'historic highway 1'.  I was actually thinking of writing to the local government to suggest they re-open this road as it's of better quality than some of the roads we have been cycling along :)

So we unpacked and began pitching the tent only to be plagued by every kind of flying bug you could imagine. There are tiny black flies that swarm, huge 'bulldog' flies that attack and, of course, the ever present mosquito.  And don't forget, this is Manitoba and the mosquitos are the size of small birds. Dragonflies are everywhere but they don't bother us apart from a loud buzz.  That's just some of the flying stuff - then there are all sorts of things crawling on the ground.  Honestly it was like camping in an Insectarium. 

We covered up and, thankfully, we had mosquito nets with us.  If it wasn't for the nets over our head we would have 'bugged' out :) So looking like a pair of bee keepers we kind of got the tent up.  You can see from the picture that it's all a bit loose because the pegs are not properly fixed to the tarmac.

It was only in the morning after we were back on the road did we see the following sign 1/2 mile down the road.

Bears!! Bl**dy bears!! Nobody said there were bears in Manitoba!!

We were so concerned about the bugs and we didn't realise that they were the least of our problems. We even slept with all our food in the tent and that's absolutely something you just don't do in bear country. 

After a 26km hill we reached Rennie where there was a garage, a shop and a hotel.  Time for breakfast  and bacon and eggs.  We got talking to the old locals and told them of our night of camping.  They were a friendly bunch but they wanted to pass on their experience to us 'Europeans' 'Ohhhh be careful with the bears. Ohhhh never sleep with food in the tent. Ohhhh be careful of this bug and that bug.  Ohh the bulldog flies will take a chunk out of you.  Ohh and the ticks and lymes disease'.  

Then a lady came over to me with a picture of an arm with two red circles. 'If you get the red bullseye go straight to the doctor,  if it's a black circle it's okay'.  What are the symptoms of lymes disease I enquired?  Susan quickly changed the subject knowing fine well that if I knew the symptoms then it's pretty likely I would have developed them before the end of the day. The locals then told us about the road ahead. 'Up and down all the way, like being back in the mountains' they said.  They were laughing! 

We finished our breakfast and said goodbye to the Rennie Motivational Breakfast Club. The sun shone but we were filled with trepidation for the road ahead.  As we sat on the bike, one lady leaned out the door and smiled. 'We just heard that a huge wolf has been seen just up the road'. 

I'm quite sure as we cycled away they all laughed and laughed at the fun they had with the 'Europeans'.