Tuesday 9 July 2013

Donkeys and Ottawa

On 7 July we departed Dolbeau and continued our merry way north and soon found some technical stuff.  Remembering that technical stuff for me involves anything that requires me to ride on anything more slippery than dry tarmac then rickety bridges, washed out roads and fires were a little challenging.  The rickety bridges and washed out roads are self explanatory from the pictures but the fire is not.  The first I knew about this was when Alex raced past me sounding his horn and wildly gesturing for me to stop.  What? as he threw a gallon of water over my rear wheel.  It turns out that I had unknowingly been riding the rear brake for a 100 metres or so and this had made the disc blow red hot which set alight the plastic stone guard that surrounds it.  Fortunately the flames did not set my luggage alight.  Thank goodness for small miracles.  That night we camped at Chibougamau besides the lake an idyllic spot which the worlds supply of mosquitoes and sand flies also decided to make their overnight camp.











The next day was basic gravel roads and we made good progress throughout the day and the anything of note was the forest damaged area which looked like it had been water bombed and the campsite at the end of the day.



Today Alex tried poutine for breakfast.  Blurrgh and we found some more interesting trails to ride and explore and we eventually arrived at the Susan and Degsy pad in Ottawa.  Susan was not in initially so we accepted the offer of beers and pizza from their neighbours Jean and Maria.  True Canadian hospitality!!!!
The donkeys reference comes from the game that we played with the 3 Dobson boys.








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