Flinton ON – Arnprior ON
Sat Aug 27, 2022
(~405 miles)

We were all up around 06:00 and enjoyed a continental breakfast together of fruit, yogurt, biscuit and coffee. The plan was to stop at a little general store about an hour into our route, that was well-known locally for their homemade donuts. We got a good look at our hosts’ house and yard in the clear morning’s light. A very enviable piece of property, surrounded by woods!

I’d mapped out a long loop for the day based on some of Wolfe’s recommendations, as well as roads listed on the New England Riders website. Wolfe and Karine would be letting us set the pace most of the day, following two-up on their chosen steed for the day, a well-used Triumph Sprint ST.

It wasn’t a bike I was familiar with and Wolfe mentioned he’d had issues with the bike not always reliably starting after the engine got hot. He was fairly confident he’d gotten that sorted or that he could bump-start the bike if needed. Erummm….OK, sounds like a typical Wolfe tale. 😅 Char did not envy Karine’s lack of backrest support on the small sport-tourer, but apparently she is used to it.

We headed out at 07:00, and it was a bit chilly this early with the wind factor, so we were layered up. Within minutes we were already through the tiny village of Flinton without even realizing it and heading north on Highway 41. One tidbit we learned through our friends is that most Canadian towns don’t have an official post office location. Unlike in the US, where we are used to every town and village of any size having at least a small government-subsidized building serving as the community’s hub for mail delivery and other services, Canada Post outsources a most of its customer-facing services, which are readily available in drugstores and other retail outlets for the most part. More interesting Canadian trivia!

After topping off the tanks in Northbrook, we continued on under clear skies, waiting for that sun to rise past the trees to warm things up a bit. The scenery was woods, interrupted by the occasional lake view – pretty descriptive of most of our tour of this province! Just under an hour later, we were pulling into the gravel lot at Rosie’s Cafe & General Store in the village of Denbigh.

Rosie’s seems like your typical backwoods we-sell-anything-you-need type of place. Alas, they weren’t making donuts at this time due to cutbacks from the pandemic, but they did have a variety of pastries, including….butter tarts! I sprung for tarts and coffee all around, which we enjoyed standing out front of the store, since some locals were holding court at the few outdoor porch tables off one side of the establishment.

45 minutes after stopping, we mounted up and continued on our routes, taking a small shortcut road next to Denbigh Lake to cut up to Highway 28. We followed this well-traveled route for several miles to McArthurs Mills, where we banged a right onto a local lane called Boulter Road. That was a nice 20 miles of quiet road, with some curves thrown in here and there. I’d picked it off the map just to connect the dots.

We emerged on Highway 62 and moved west through Maynooth to Peterson Road, part of an NER BONE route. It’s a well paved two-laner that seemed in as good condition as any of the main highways we’d been on, and changed into Elephant Lake Road as we neared a southern corner of the Algonquin Provincial Park’s property. This is a pretty remote section, with not many commercial properties to speak of, besides the odd food truck (poutine!), some campgrounds, and the ever-present golf course or two. It was nice riding and when we came down a steep hill with a view of Elephant Lake, we veered off to a pullout to get a couple photos.

Little did we realize that we’d be here for the better part of the next hour. Wolfe switched off his bike while we stretched our legs, and the Sprint’s engine failed to turn over…oh no! 😬  So the first thing we tried was just giving it a bit of time to cool down and took a few more photos. What a spectacular spot to break down at least!

However, the bike still wouldn’t start after 10 minutes or so. So began a frustrating and (now) comedic series of attempts to start it. Wolfe and I would push that damn bike a up the steep hill we’d just descended so he could attempt to bump-start it. Each time, we’d take it higher and higher on the hill, to give him as much runout room as possible.

There were no real shoulders on the road here and oncoming traffic was blind from both directions, so we had to trust the occasional vehicles coming by to just swerve around us. It was quite an effort getting that bike swung around on the slope after pushing it up each time, while also looking out to not get run over!

This little stretch road happens to be right in front of Silver Springs Cottage Resort, a little family motel overlooking the lake. The owner was out doing yardwork and watching us struggle with the bike multiple times. With a heavy French accent, he called down to ask if we needed help, which we declined the first couple times. He offered again, and after perhaps the fifth or sixth attempt, we were both getting pretty sweaty and exhausted, so Wolfe took the gentleman up on his offer to try putting a battery charger on it.

Our new hero came down the steep stone stairs from his home above the roadway and led us down to his boat shack by the lake shore to find the charger. Wolfe and I got the bike pushed over there and within a minute or two of getting the cables attached, the bike finally turned over. Success!

We told our companions we’d understand if they wanted to bail on the ride at this point, in case it happened again, but Wolfe just said that he’d just leave the bike running the rest of the day if need be. I suggested we try to source a portable jump-starter battery brick along the route, and he said he’d start calling around while we rode. Crazy Canadians.

Still sweating quite a bit, I pulled my jacket and helmet back on and we got underway, skimming on past the rest of Elephant Lake and then down through the hamlets of Harcourt and Wilberforce, taking CR-4 out to Highway 118, another NER BONE road. It was a nice enough ride, more good pavement with wide cutbacks from the ever-present forestlands, nothing too curvy or spicy and what had become the typical rural scenery. We followed 118 on through Haliburton and West Guilford, then turned left on Highway 35 in Carnavon, a busier road which we  took all the way down into Minden, one of the larger towns in this region.

Wolfe had sourced a battery jump pack at a store in Minden called Canadian Tire. I hadn’t heard of this place before, but it seemed too busy to be just a local mom n pop. Here was my next lesson in the lifestyle of our northern neighbors – Canadian Tire is apparently a nationwide institution – a ubiquitous mass merchandise chain, similar to the older more rural Sears & Roebuck stores from the states, from what I can tell. We’re just positively SOAKING up Canadian culture now, eh! 😏

With a spanky new jump pack on board, I think we all breathed a bit easier at then prospects of getting stuck again during the rest of the ride through the wilderness! We left Canadian Tire behind and wound our way out of town next to the Gull River, right past an inviting ice cream stand shaped like a sundae. I’ve seen similar structures before in my travels, I think maybe in Pennsylvania and Illinois.

We continued north out of town on Bobcaygeon Road, expecting some nice curves or scenery since this one is also on the NER site. Well, this one may have been listed in error, because it’s really just a fairly straight gravel road. While it was well graded and pretty riding, just nothing out of the ordinary. As there were really no other choices except the busy road we come down on, we pressed on carefully, waiting to see if something spectacular was about to reveal itself (it wasn’t). 😉

We reached an intersection and stopped to get our bearings. Thinking maybe my GPS had recalculated without me realizing it, we took a right to jog over to the next parallel road (Queens Line), but that was just a gravel straight as well. We followed that for another three miles before it finally dumped us out on Highway 118 again.

Hoping the next part of this BONE route was going to be better, we jogged east for a mile, then turned north onto CR-11 (Kushog Lake Rd). Now THIS road has the makings of a great ride, or was one at one point. It is super twisty and hilly as it parallels the shores of Kushog Lake, which is just hidden by the woods to our east.

However, recent chip-sealing had been done and the road was positively treacherous to ride on two wheels. The chips were piled up all over the road, on top of the harder surface, making things super slippery. It was really too bad as the road looks fun to ride with a good surface. Hopefully, they will clean up all the excess at some point but even then, chip-sealed roads are never quite as confidence-inspiring as proper asphalt.

After taking about 15 minutes to complete that 5 mile section, we hit Highway 35 again and picked up the pace heading north. Our next planned stop was to see a fire tower in Dorset, but upon reaching that town needed to find fuel first. We peeled off the highway onto Main Street, idling through a peaceful little village that straddles a natural canal between portions of Lake of Bays. There were lots of people patronizing the few businesses including a café or two and strolling the public docks down by the canal. Dorset seems to be a local hub of commerce and community for the cottagers and locals around the lake.

We located the small gas station and filled up, scoffing down a quick Clif Bar to get us through until our planned late lunch stop. We headed back through the village, over the humped one-lane bridge and back to the highway. A couple miles later, we turned off to reach the fire tower, ascending a steep gravel driveway. Due to time constraints, we weren’t planning on climbing the tower, just a quick look around. Alas, as for so many little roadside nature parks up here, there was a fee just to enter the lot. The woods were blocking the view of the tower itself, so we just wheeled around back to the road and continued on our way. Maybe next time.

Highway 35 led us northwest for several more miles to the town Lake of Bays, where we spun east on Highway 60 for the next 80 miles or so, including the 40 miles stretch or so through Algonquin Provincial Park. There are park fees to pay if you are planning to stop within the park’s borders to recreate, but route 60 is a public throughway and we were pretty much just passing through, so we didn’t need to stop at the gatehouse.

The ride through Algonquin was very nice and you could even call it scenic in the understated Ontario way that we were coming to get used to. We rode through more forestlands and by several beautiful lakes, all pretty similar to what we’d been seeing most of the day, just a bit wilder. It sort of reminds me of riding through parts of the Adirondacks in northern New York, only much flatter, and with an almost constant corridor of trees on both sides, unless passing a lake.

There don’t appear to be any “must see” landmarks, rock formations, waterfalls, or anything dramatic like that in the park, at least along the main road. Highway 60 is wide, well-paved, and fairly straight, so there’s not even much leaning to do, just smooth quick riding as the miles ticked by. I’m betting this park is probably better explored on foot through the woods, or by boat on one of the many lakes. I’m sure the autumn foliage is stunning as well. All that said, it was a stunning weather day for riding.

Once out of the park, the nice riding on Highway 60 continued for another 30 miles or so eastbound to the small hamlet of Wilno. I’d come across the recommendation for the Wilno Tavern, on the Motorcycle Tourers Forum trip website and confirmed that it was a legit stop from other online sources. It’s a historic pub and former hotel that serves up authentic Polish cuisine. By now, we were all pretty famished and ready to be off the bikes for a bit.

We pulled into the lot around 15:00 and it was pretty full for a mid-afternoon. There was a large (and loud) family gathering being catered in the central dining room. Luckily there was room for a few ragged and starving motorcyclists, despite the tongue-in-cheek anti-hippie slogans on the wall!

Oh my, what a marvelous meal we enjoyed in that comfortable old wayside inn, with sunlight pouring through the windows! We started out with some large warm pretzels, then ordered a Polish combo special that included sausage served on red cabbage with two pierogi, sauerkraut, rye bread, and sour cream. That comfort food really hit the spot and all that was missing was a nice cold brew to go down with it.

By the time we’d eaten our meal, and enjoyed a bit of sobre-mesa while waiting for the check, the Triumph had cooled off sufficiently to be able to start right up without the need for the jump brick. We were going to be parting ways on the road soon after leaving the restaurant, so we said our goodbyes now. We’d had a great time getting to know Wolfe & Karine a bit better on their own turf – simply lovely people. We thanked them for opening their brand new home to us, and for their companionship on today’s ride. If we felt a bit like awkward intrusive strangers at the beginning, we left feeling like we now have some good friends up in Ontario. Thank you guys so much!

Just past the restaurant, we turned on CR-66 to start zig-zagging our way south. I believe our companions split off from us at CR-68 to head for home, while we extended our little loop out near Foymount. Wolfe had mentioned it being of note as one of the highest elevation populated towns in the province. We certainly did climb up a bit and the scenery grew more interesting with some hills and open areas as we turned south onto CR-515. I’d read that most of the 500 series roads in Ontario are better for motorcycling, which seemed to prove true for the most part, although the road surfaces on these smaller byways were a bit of a crapshoot.

Circling back down to the southwest, we picked up another nice road, CR-514, in the law-firmish-sounding township of Brudenell, Lyndoch and Raglan. That dumped us back out on Highway 28, on which we reversed our morning’s track for 15 miles or so back through Denbigh. From there we zagged back to the north on Highway 41, nearing Griffith before veering off onto a series of scenic county roads following the great Madawaska River and it’s chain of lakes through eastern Ontario.

The riding along CR’s 71, 65, and 508 was remote and beautiful as the shadows grew long in front of us. There are no real towns for many miles along this stretch, just campgrounds, cottages, lakes and woods until you reach the small resort town of Calabogie, where there’s a nice lake and some actual small hills framing it to provide some elevation relief. There’s a ski area there and it’s is also a big ATV and offroad destination – we passed a caravan of quads zooming up the breakdown lane through the middle of town.

I’d considered booking a room at the one hotel in town, but had eventually routed us a bit further east where there would be more options for dinner. The hotel seemed packed with the ATV crowd, looking ready to party, so it may have been tough to get to sleep that night.

Speaking of which, we were feeling pretty beat by now and even the next several miles of pretty river views could only do so much to perk us up. We considered stopping for ice cream in the crossroads village of Burnside, but elected to continue on with the hope of finding a good piece of pie near our hotel.

We finally emerged from the wilderness at Highway 17, running south a couple miles into the town of Arnprior. I’d reserved a room at a mom ‘n pop motel close to the highway called the Country Squire Motel. It wasn’t much to look at, but had decent reviews, and fit our price range. There was a family out front having a cookout at one of the available stoves, and the room was clean, modern, and comfortable, if a bit compact.

In searching for a restaurant close by, I was surprised to find the Antrim Truck Stop coming up as one of the better options on our side of town. They had great online reviews especially for their baked goods made in-house, and we were really just thinking about getting dessert at this hour. After we showered and dressed in our civvies, we walked out to the main road and crossed the highway  overpass in the fading twilight. It felt good to take a stroll after the day of riding.

The truck stop looked like part convenience store and part airplane hangar, kind of quirky and interesting, with a big semi rig serving as the primary decor inside the bakery/restaurant half of the place.

There were plenty of seats and our waitress was friendly and interested in chatting a bit about our journey. We were still feeling pretty full from that wonderful meal in Wilno, and it was already 21:00, so we just ordered some decaf coffee/tea and dessert. Char treated herself to a piece of carrot cake, while I opted for old reliable – apple pie a la mode. It was pretty OK and certainly hit the spot after a day in the saddle.

Our sweet tooths (teeth?) satisfied, we walked back over the bridge to our hotel, dodging traffic through the busy parking lot for the Tim Hortons/Wendy’s combination restaurant. We were back at the hotel in no time and in bed soon after that, dreaming away the memories of a great day exploring new places on two wheels with good friends.