Passed through
Matawa about noon and got this shot of Samuel
de Champlain. He penciled the
Matawa region on to the map in 1615 and described it as a barren and desolate land. Not much has changed in the intervening 400 years. It is hard shield country with rugged topography and lots of bugs. The steep hills make it
tortuous going. The horse flies, deer flies, black flies mosquitoes and no see
ums swarm you when you are slowed down pushing up the hills. You loose the gang of them for a few minutes when you swoop down the other side but another lot magically appear as soon as you are slowed down for the next hill. I covered myself and my bike with
DEET.
This is the Ottawa River where the highway drops down to it for a short spell near
Deux Riviers. Here it is the border between Quebec and Ontario. Quebec is in the left and Ontario on the right. After a couple of kilometers it was back up on to the shield again and climbing hills. My GPS told me that I had done the equivalent of climbing over the Blueberry
Paulson Summit in B.C. which is one of the hardest climbs there.
The plan for today was to hold up at the small place of
Bisset Creek but it turned out to be nothing there . Just a couple of dark mobile homes. I though I might be able to get to the next place on the map which was
Stonecliff but the going was too brutal. I was lucky to find a small flat spot beside the old highway down a short side road. The land was composed of rock cliffs, thick bush and insect infested bog. Just before turning in for the night I took one last look around and felt a bit nervous about the position of the tent. It had good drainage away from it but was in the path of any water running off the old highway. Just to be safe I got busy and erected a small dyke of dirt and cut a drainage ditch around the end of it with a stick. At 1:00 in the morning I was awakened to the thunderous roar of heavy rain on the tent. I looked out the flap with my flash light to see that my dyke was working quite nicely and deflecting a flow of water around the tent but it was about to give way! I scrambled out dressed in not much and quickly got to work reinforcing my earthworks. By morning the rain had quit but gave me one parting splash just as I was taking the tent down. I rolled it up as a soggy mess to be dealt with later.
Passed through Matawa about noon and got this shot of Samuel de Champlain. He penciled the Matawa region on to the map in 1615 and described it as a barren and desolate land. Not much has changed in the intervening 400 years. It is hard shield country with rugged topography and lots of bugs. The steep hills make it tortuous going. The horse flies, deer flies, black flies mosquitoes and no see ums swarm you when you are slowed down pushing up the hills. You loose the gang of them for a few minutes when you swoop down the other side but another lot magically appear as soon as you are slowed down for the next hill. I covered myself and my bike with DEET. 
This is the Ottawa River where the highway drops down to it for a short spell near Deux Riviers. Here it is the border between Quebec and Ontario. Quebec is in the left and Ontario on the right. After a couple of kilometers it was back up on to the shield again and climbing hills. My GPS told me that I had done the equivalent of climbing over the Blueberry Paulson Summit in B.C. which is one of the hardest climbs there. 
The plan for today was to hold up at the small place of Bisset Creek but it turned out to be nothing there . Just a couple of dark mobile homes. I though I might be able to get to the next place on the map which was Stonecliff but the going was too brutal. I was lucky to find a small flat spot beside the old highway down a short side road. The land was composed of rock cliffs, thick bush and insect infested bog. Just before turning in for the night I took one last look around and felt a bit nervous about the position of the tent. It had good drainage away from it but was in the path of any water running off the old highway. Just to be safe I got busy and erected a small dyke of dirt and cut a drainage ditch around the end of it with a stick. At 1:00 in the morning I was awakened to the thunderous roar of heavy rain on the tent. I looked out the flap with my flash light to see that my dyke was working quite nicely and deflecting a flow of water around the tent but it was about to give way! I scrambled out dressed in not much and quickly got to work reinforcing my earthworks. By morning the rain had quit but gave me one parting splash just as I was taking the tent down. I rolled it up as a soggy mess to be dealt with later. 
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