On Saturday morning (12th July) we visited the 3rd Kal Tire in a week and I think finally got our tyres sorted. We’d had a leaky valve in one tyre and we’d picked up a nail in the other one. Oh the joys of being in a house on wheels!
We headed out of the town of Kenora (childishly giggling at how it sort of sounded rude) after stopping at a fishing tackle shop where the boys were very excited about the size of fish one might catch on a lure like this… Possibly not within our fishing capabilities so far!!
So we finally got out of Ontario and into Manitoba. We’d been told to expect a very different type of landscape and we very quickly realised this was right.
The whole landscape flattened and fields of crops appeared. Long flat straight roads where cars in the distance appeared like dots and took minutes to finally pass us.
With the open prairies came winds and as we headed up to Lake Winnipeg the skies turned black and the heavens opened. So it was we arrived at the ‘tropical beach’ in the middle of a storm, battling to keep the van on the road.
The Grand Beach Provincial Park is on the east coast of Lake Winnipeg which is Canada’s 6th and the world’s 12th largest freshwater lake; another ocean like lake complete with waves. This stretch of it’s ‘beach’ has 12’ high white sand dunes which house a huge variety of wildlife.
We loved it here and even though we had booked for 3 nights ended up staying 6 – never quite bringing ourselves to leave.
The park has a campsite with huge private pitches all connected to the beach and the nearby ‘town’ of Grand Marais by cycle paths.
Our first evening we went along to one of their educational programs on Survival Skills. So sat around a campfire with hot chocolate and marshmallows we were told what to do if we found ourselves lost in the wilderness. Immediately set the boys off putting together their own survival kits, tarpaulins, fire starting kits, penknives etc. now accompanying us anywhere we go!
We walked from there down onto the beach in time to see the sun set – wow, what a place!!
Sunday brought more rain so while John and Will braved the elements to go for a bike ride Charlie and I had a whole day inside the van and watched a DVD. (Despite having brought 200 DVD’s with us we have only watched 4 in 6 weeks – incredible how much of our time we spend with the box on at home but haven’t missed at all since we’ve been here).
When John and Will retuned several hours later, soaked from head to foot we all sat down to our first roast dinner in 6 weeks.
This pretty much pushed my culinary and organisational skills to the max as it is a very very small space to prepare and cook in! Even managed Yorkshire puddings (ok so they were a bit flat but they tasted the same!).
Monday to Thursday were then glorious sunshine. We spent 3 days on the beach. The boys exploring the sand dunes and swimming in the lake.
We cycled a lot through the trails and into the now rather sad and mainly deserted ‘town’, where we found a great diner and an ice cream store selling the largest ‘single scoop’s we’ve ever seen!!
It still amazes us the diverse nature of this incredible country and we’re almost becoming blasé about our wildlife encounters. Lost track of the number of deers who’ve wandered past our van while we’ve been sat outside round the campfire. Cheeky ground squirrels we’ve had to chase off. Pelicans swooping over the beach and bobbing around in the water just off the shore. Frogs hopping over the sand dunes and a killdeer plover nesting which the boys almost fell into! On our many bike rides we watched an osprey nest complete with 2 chicks, up on a telegraph pole.
We had a really sociable time too at Grand Beach. At our recommendation Trudi and Uwe camped up opposite us for a couple of nights, which was lovely. We think we have now said our final goodbye to them as they are now heading East again back towards Halifax and we are continuing West. I feel sure we will keep in touch in the future as we seem to have shared a lot of our journey thus far with them.
We also met a lovely family, the Ventrudo’s, from Thunder Bay. The boys had great fun playing with their son Anderson and we spent a great evening sat around their campfire sharing stories until we realised it was past midnight and we were all due to be on the road early the next day.
Think we finally managed to leave the site by 3pm on Friday and we all felt we could have stayed longer.
However, we are now back on the road and heading across Manitoba into Saskatechewan then onto Alberta.
Wickenswanderings 