Glorious trail for the first 60km made for a fun, relaxed ride that was even improved by the find of the Iris Cafe in Erickson.
We spent the whole day on the Rossburn Trail – an old railway line that is still peppered with pins and hooks and other bits of railway ironworks. Given the price of iron ore these days we could have picked some up and sold them for a night in the Sandy Lake Hotel beverage room …
The quiche and coffee at the Iris Cafe would have been wonderful even if we had not just had four plastic-wrapped meals in a row.
Can’t say the same for the whole afternoon which had much of the same grassy, tussocky rutted rubbish surface as yesterday. And as soon as the sun came out so, too, did the grasshoppers in the long grass next to the unmaintained trail.
The ride was accompanied by the pings of them hitting the spokes and the smack of small bodies on our legs (Gill was wise to keep her leggings on even after it warmed up). Some of them hooked in to shorts and came along for the ride.
We have left the flats of Saskatchewan far behind now and are on the southern reaches of the boreal forest, as well as the Canadian shield, so the landscape is full of small rolling hills and oh so many lakes.
Once in Neepawa we followed the trail on to a single track along the river until it came to an end at 75 wooden steps to climb – interesting for a bike trail!
Home for tonight is the Neepawa Motel next to Highway 16 which we will follow tomorrow. Dinner was Just wonderful at the family owned Brews Brothers, recommended by a couple we met on the trail near town.
Many of the areas we have passed through in the past few days have been First Nations reserves and all of it has been on Treaty 2 or Treaty 4 land. Neepawa is home to the Anishinaabe, Dakota Oyate and Ininiwak. The Anishinaabe signed Treaty Number 2 in 1871.
Today’s distance: 86km on Treaty 2 land
Today’s climb: 180m (and 380m of descent!)
Total distance: 3,804km
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Trans Canada Epic 