So today Friday 11^th July, Day 44 of our adventure we have headed out of Thunder Bay back on the Trans-Canada Highway headed towards Winnipeg and a new province!!

We stopped at the Terry Fox Memorial. This is a tribute to the man who in 1980 ran from New Found Land on one leg (the other lost to the cancer that when it returned halted his epic run at this spot near Thunder Bay). He raised millions of dollars for Cancer research and whose legacy is obviously still a source of great pride and inspiration for the Canadian’s.

The scenery is changing now and we feel like we are getting a taste of the prairies that are to come. We drove through a stretch of the highway without seeing a town or any real civilization for over 200 kms. Had lunch in a restaurant attached to the first petrol station we came to and found ourselves surrounded by some interesting characters!

Feels like we are getting some miles under our belt and tomorrow we will be on Lake Winnipeg where we are booked to spend a few nights enjoying what we’ve heard described as North America’s finest ‘Tropical Beach’ – we will see!!

Most excitingly of all we bumped into our friends from Ottawa, Trudi and Uwe.  I can’t believe how excited we were when we pulled into Walmart carpark and spotted their van.  It was wonderful to see them and being Friday night we took a few beers over to their van and had a catch up on where they have been and tell them our news and route since we saw them last.  The children impressed them with all their new found knowledge and statistics about the size of each Canadian province and compared that to every European country.  Uwe stood up well to their questioning and shared some great stories about his extensive travels!!  They have another 2 months to go before they have to ship their van back to Germany and appear to be loving Canada as much as we are.  Anyway, a lovely surprise to see them at the end of a hard days driving and we wish them well on the rest of their trip.