August 3rd – 6th.Wasagaming, Riding Mountain National Park.

The roads in Manitoba… Oh boy…

As soon as you cross on the trans Canada… The grades are gone… But the road surfaces… tho relatively straight… are far from even… Cat started complaining straight away… Bumpy…. Head wobblingly bumpy. With frequent dips that make the whole truck and trailer porpoise… Scarily…!!

No pictures, part cos it was looong straight roads….prairie flat…..and partly cos the vibration was so bad I’m not convinced there would be anything in focus..!!!

Heading slightly north from the trans Canada to Wasagaming, and Riding Mountain national park… GPS turned us left off Manitoba highway 6…onto the MB 227..(a main trunk road on the map…) gravel… Thick loose washboard gravel… 55 km of gravel… Not wide enough to turn around… We managed to find an alternate that GPS told us was 24 minutes slower… Google was not looking at the road we were looking at…. Manitoba ministry of transport sense of humor speed limit 100kmph…we reached a top speed of about 39kmph on it… Mostly at about 25..we still had to do 19 km of shaking, rattling, sliding and slithering… To the 430 south…. A road that was likely paved in 1930 something… And had not been touched since……but at least it was not gravel…..

Even back onto trans Canada… No big sighs of relief… Very scared that 10 north to Wasagaming might be gravel… Fortunately not… But rough, rough roads.

Riding Mountain National Park. Our first National Park….waiting in line to register………Urgh…bear trap….do they bait them with little pots of honey ?!!!!!

The site we booked online….which was the only open spot in the park for the dates we wanted……was daunting…..Had to be the narrowest spot in the park….but we got Xolo backed in…..go team Harvey/Macfarlane….Always use walkie talkies, bellowing at each other is never going to end well!!!

The people in the other sites came over to congratulate us on getting in…they were not sure we would make it (can’t say I was convinced either…!!)

Editors Aside. For our UK readers to give you an idea of the size of the park, it’s 3000sq/km. All of Fife and Lothian together would be the same area. Hence you can imagine traveling to other areas of the park can be a time consuming endeavour.

First order of business…Scott had spotted information for the Bison enclosure…… ( https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/mb/riding/nature/animals/mammals/bison) and the best times to actually see the bison are either early morning or evening before the light goes…..no time like the present…we hopped back in to the truck for the 45 minute drive over to the enclosure…….anywhere else in the world it would have been a 20 minute drive I’m sure…..but they do like these gravel roads in Manitoba…!!!

Manitoba is a dust bowl….not because its dry…or because of the smoke……but because all the roads are gravel and the speed limit on them is 100 clicks……we made it to about 60….its like driving in thick fresh snow….!!!!

Anyway…the Buffalo enclosure…..is at Lake Audy……..man oh man it is beautiful…..

We stopped in a spot that was signposted as …the dam……and spotted a beaver…second picture almost……almost caught him doing a flip and dive….it is imprinted on my memory but unfortunately not on camera…I still like the image…!!!

We drove around the park first…hoping for a glimpse of this herd of 50 beasts…..Nothing out in the open, nothing on the road. SOooooo we stopped by the observation platform and walked from the truck was parked to where the steel gated raised observation platform is……..halfway there…we hear some branches snapping and rustling in the undergrowth………which spurred a hastier walk to the platform…….

We got there and closed the gate just in time to see these ginormous beasts trundling across the path we had just walked down…..

So….now we are trapped at the observation platform…as we are now surrounded by huuuge bison grazing.

we got the whole show…it was amazing….bonus was the barn swallow nests full of babies in the roof of the observation platform…

Awesome side trip…….and on the way back to the park we spotted a big multi point buck in the field…..and a bald eagle soaring across the road….I’m not quick enough on the camera …sorry…!!!

Bald Hill trail.

This Bald Hill trail looked like the most interesting one in the park……and it started out looking pretty good…nicely carved out trail……(we even spotted another black bear on the road on the drive over to the East gate of the park to start the hike….not quick enough on the camera again….)

The East gate, it turns out, is the original gate to the park…….

For a National Park which was fully booked……we spent a lot of the time feeling like there was nobody else in the world…..even travelling the roads….very little other traffic….actually ..in Manitoba generally…the roads were very quiet….(other than the bone rattling vibration of actually driving on the roads of this province…!!!)

It was humid in the forest……and very smokey…….

We decided to do the loop clockwise…..which turned out to be a veeery good decision….it was quite the climb…and along the edge of the ravine…..there was lots of evidence on the trail of mountain bikes…which just stops my heart thinking about it….!!!

About the mid point is the Bald Hill loop…

Its a nice little loop…the Bald Hill loop……but the observation deck was not a place I found particularly comfortable…..its called Bald Hill….because…well its bald….cos its all loose scree…

Admittedly…the view was fantastic…..360 degrees of breathtaking spectacular beauty…even with the smoke haze…….but I was still pretty glad to get back down……

From there….back down the other side of the trail was pretty tame….but as all trails do…a bit of down…then back up again…then a bit of down….and so it goes…….it was a long way….our longest hike so far….but so worth it……..

What a great day……..and the result of that hike was a realisation that we need to pull the trigger on the Alltrails app…….first order of business when I get back to a solid internet connection…..

Next day was a bit of recovery…so time to take the bikes out around Clear Lake from Wasagaming….and try out the newly purchased Alltrails app…!!!

Glad we came…….dreading what the other side of Manitoba looks like re pavement…!!!

Everything in the bed of the truck was coated in a thick layer of dust even with the bed cover tightly in place…..from the gravel roads…..the truck and trailer…..absolutely caked in mud……problem is…none of the parks will let you wash the truck or the trailer….poor Xolo…!!!

Well…next stop is Sasketchewan….so we will see what that brings…..