Monday 21 June 2010

Nice ride, then mosquitoes at campsite!

19th June: Lac le Hache to McLeese Lake

Odometer: 100 km, Start: 8.45am, Finish: 4.30pm, Avg: 20.7 km/h,
Weather: Sunny and quite hot, Temp: 14-26°C
Bear count: 3, Mosquito Bites: 15 (funny how that happens when you camp by a lake), Hills walked: 0
Road Conditions: #97, mostly good surface and 2m shoulder. Some perpendicular expansion joints. Traffic light. OK for services today. Ascent: 650m up/800m down.

I had nice cycling conditions today: sunny and warm, light tail-wind, more down than up and pretty smooth roads! I reached my campsite at 100km and stopped because the next town was 70km further on. If you continue reading, you’ll see that I wished I’d carried on…

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Today's scenery

I met 2 more cycling globe-trotters early this morning. Julie and Jason are from Whitehorse and they’re travelling to South America! They expect to be on the road for up to 2 years! They were a very cheerful couple and we chatted for quite a while before continuing in our opposite directions.

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Julie and Jason. Cycling to South America.

I continued to 150 Mile House for my first lunch. (These 70, 83, 100, 108, 150 Mile Houses are the current day sites of old road-houses and inns setup during the 1860 gold rush era).

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Tourist sign

WIlliams Lake was my second lunch stop, only a short while later, so I got some carry out food and climbed out of town. It was getting pretty warm by now.

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Williams Lake

During the afternoon, I had an easy run through very nice pine forests and lakes, stopping a couple of times for liquids. I made McLeese Lake by 4pm and checked into the campsite. It was Saturday, so the place was quite full with a wedding (!) and 2 separate fishing derby’s.

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It's hot this afternoon...
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Mosquitoes. Definitely.

My tent pitch had a lot of mosquitoes. I got attacked and took a fair few blows to the body. I countered with some DEET and full length clothes including a (supposedly) mosquito resistant shirt, but got bitten some more! All I could do was cook and eat quickly, taking a few more hits and then retreat to the tent. It’s quite localised though, as some areas of the site aren’t troubled at all!

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McLeese Lake

Camping and I aren’t bosom buddies (again) at the moment…

1 comment:

Jason Dalton said...

Shaun, How funny… Julie and Jason could be my sister and I - but wasn't, as you will have realised!! Sorry to hear the mosquito bites are hitting you hard - they obviously like you. Let's hope you've seen the last of 'mosquito infested camp sites'!! Keep going - your blogs are very interesting to follow. Jase