The bay named Thunder! Part 1.

Platypus disenchantment part 7.

This has nothing to do with unhappy platypii.

Earlier this summer my missus, Buffy, went away, alone, with another bloke, Joel, to Banff. For his after-wedding bachelor party. Now if you don’t know Joel, I must tell you that he is a great bloke and one of Buffys best mates. So, there were really no worries on my part about Buffy going away for the weekend with anothet man. But it gave me and Buffter Mcwalkalot an idea…. Why don’t we take a long weekend every now and then and do the same ourselves? Go away somewhere and have some fun doing some different stuff to what we normally do?

Seems like a good idea yeah? So here we are a few months later in Thunder Bay, Ontario. After an hour-long flight and a wait for a hire car where we waited for the rednecks to pick up their ‘off road’ wagon and spoke at length with a 70-year-old lady going to see her 91-year-old mum for ‘probably the last time’, just to tidy her gardens and say hello for the 2^nd time this year, we find ourselves in a big black dodge charger with 8 gears and an engine the size of Elon Musk’s bank account (Does he have a bank account? Or does he just own the bank?).

We booked a Kia Rio or ‘something similar’. We didn’t need anything too big. So, when we ventured out of the airport and clicked the push button on the car remote, we were a little surprised to see a car the size or Gibraltar flash it’s huge, over the top sidelights at us. It’s a nice car, but it’s like asking for a salad in a restaurant and being given one of those steaks that if you eat the whole thing you get it for free! With 4 sides of fries.

 

Not a Kia Rio.

Onto our accommodation and we have a lovely little Airbnb house in a nice suburb of Thunder Bay. It is supposed to be just us -But the owner lives upstairs and it’s a bit frustrating as if we were on our own, we could walk around naked and sleep in the fridge, but as he is upstairs, it might be frowned upon. But nevertheless, it’s still a lovely little place to stay.

After a poor night’s sleep (I aren’t used to different sleeping arrangements) We were up at 8am and on our way to the big adventure we had planned – a wander of about 23kilometers to climb the sleeping giant – One of the most popular day hikes in this part of Ontario. You start at the side of Lake Superior on the Ontario/USA border and climb about 250metres in height to reach the top of the Giant, where the views are wonderful over the water to Thunder Bay and Lake Superior itself out to the USA. The trail takes between 5 and 8 hours and we completed it in 6, with a good stop at the peak to take some photos and enjoy the view as well as a couple of other stops to take in the southerly views too and a short time spent skimming rocks into the chilly, calm waters of Tee Harbour – a lovely little picnic spot with no-one else near to spoil our enjoyment of the wonderful scenic beauty. It was a tiring hike, but well worth the effort to spend some well-earned down time in such a beautiful place.

Hello

Posing!

 

Lake Superior behind us.

Viewpoint

She is there!

Like Ant and Dec - Buff is always on the left as you look at us... always!

After the hike, we headed back to town in the black beast and stopped at the Terry Fox monument. Terry Fox is a true Canadian hero for his Marathon of Hope in 1980 which came to such a tragic end just about here in Thunder Bay. I ran a few Terry Fox memorial runs in the army when I worked alongside the Canadian military, so it was wonderful to see the amazing memorial built to honour him alongside the road that now bears his name. If you don’t know who Terry Fox is you should take a few minutes to google him as it’s such a great uplifting story with a tragic ending.

 

Paddling

My log

Terry Fox monument

Wilderpoop supply Thunder Bay

We went out for dinner after getting changed and wandered into central Thunder Bay, stopping at Wilderness Supply’s 2^nd store which is here in the town centre. Mila, an old friend of ours welcomed us into the store during a quiet few minutes and after a good chat we continued into town for some well-earned food. We ended up in The Foundry where we enjoyed a huge burger and some locally caught fish and chips washed down with a few pints of Mr Canoehead, a beer brewed in the city at the Sleeping Giant brewery. It was lovely and alongside the Juniper and lemon cider we also shared it made a great end to a long, tiring but satisfying day. It’s now time to take another wander up another hill, something we don’t do much in flat as a pancake Winnipeg, and head off to our bed for the night.   

I will warn you, there may also have been a few minutes when i did an impression of a beheaded child in a local store but you will never know if you dont watch the following poorly video'd link.....

and there you go.......