Continuing along the great lakes and going down to the southernmost corner of Canada: Pointe Pelee. The weather’s definitely gotten warm and extremely humid. This large peninsula has a mix of everything: Lakefront cottages, farmlands, tourist destinations and bustling cities and the screaming hobos that inhabit them.

I stayed the day in Sault-Ste-Marie. Didn’t even drive since I knew the Wal-Mart there was a good place to stay. Just did planning/blogging/facebook marketplace type things for a solid 10 hours.

Manitoulin Island is the largest freshwater island in the world and also the home of Treasure Island, the world's largest natural island in a lake on an island in a lake. I emailed them to have it be renamed “Inception Island” but they didn’t get back to me. Probably will steal my idea and not give me credit. Yep.

Right outside Sault Ste-Marie you will pass by the small town of Echo Bay, home to the World's Biggest Loonie

It was a somewhat menacing day but I didn't get rained on, so that's a win. Not a whole lot on this island to be honest.

Treasure Island. The real treasure is the friendships you made along the way.

Very Ontario scene of empty chairs in front of a lake. The people liked the IDEA of doing this but they're inside watching Netflix.

One of the nicer little towns on there. Don't remember where.

I see a ton of street art all over the place on this trip.

Moo

A cool rusty deer sculpture.

There's a little tourist shop near Assiginack.

This has a Nickelodeon vibe to it.

Inside you will find all manner of artisanal products to bring back as souvenirs...

Including these intricate little boxes made out of porcupine quills.

Yes they are expensive, but all unique and hand-made. Look if you're rich, this isn't the least cool thing to gift people, just saying.

Close to the shop there's a little lookout. You honestly don't know what lake you look at, ever in Ontario. Everything is a lake.

The island has a lot of native towns/reserves and that means lots of weed shops in trailer homes. Weed, gas and gambling is what the great Bear and Eagle spirit endorse.

Slowly making my way south I did a loop around the ( relatively ) small Lake Joseph and Lake Rosseau. That’s how you plan rides: Find a thing then ride around that thing. This is one of those quiet string of small cottage communities where rich boomers own lake houses to go torture fish on summer weekends.

Had to do healthcare stuff that morning. If you install yourself as a monopoly, you don't get to refuse service, sorry. Too bad.

When the weather is nice like this you understand the Lake Life appeal. Calm water, cool air, birds screeching. Very nice.

Testing my camera's macro setting. This is great, expect more.

Looks epic but it's a very quiet rural area.

#lakelife

That's the second one of these I'd seen in Ontario. I regret not trying it now. On the way back maybe.

More lake life.

Seriously look at how much lakelife there is here.

#Creeklife

Stumbled upon THE PLEASURE BARN a little bit out of the way. Faint children screams were coming from inside.

I had a few days to spare at this point before making it to Ottawa/Montreal and meeting up with people so this is one of the rides I added. Had no idea what was there but sometimes you just get pleasantly surprised by an area. You can’t tell from GoogleMaps what a place really will be like. Usually as long as you go near water you’re good though.

As I began, in the town of Midlands, I came across this seemingly closed ... theme park?

What is this?

If you guys are done using it, can I live here?

The route starts with a little loop in Awanda park. It's nice but you're in the forest the entire time.

However if you take some of the private roads you'll stumble upon these big houses with lake access and their own god damned boat ramps.

The best thing to see here is the town of Penetanguishene. It has a huge cathedral.

The town has one central touristy street that leads to the harbor. The street has this sweet ball.

The town has a touristy harbor and boardwalk area with the typical fare.

They offer cruises out on the Georgian Bay.

I don't know why I had to show you the two boats. You get the idea. Now I wrote this for nothing. And now this. Oh no...

Quite a view from the harbor.

How much does this cost anyway? Can I get one of these made? What if I just tax you?

Caught this gull sleeping on the pier. People must feed them a lot because they really didn't care about my being here.

Can't argue with that.

More ponds, lakes and marshes.

I saw this Mink running around the rocks on the lakeshore. I SEE YOU.

Another late minute addition ride. Don’t know what’s wrong with my brain that I’m adding 200km rides as an afterthought but I just blasted through this one at 34kph average. Stuffed my face with crap the entire time so I was full of energy and didn’t stop as much as usual to take pictures as there wasn’t that much to see. The road doesn’t go along the lake all that much. Still after hour 5, I was pretty sick of this one, with wind blasting into my face on the last 20km.

I need to take more pictures of these things.

Cool Gyarados statue they have at the Barrie harbor.

Another view from Barrie. It's the only "real" town/stop on this route with touristy things.

Most of this loop is farmlands flanked by woods. Lake views all hogged by private properties.

Along the way you'll see several of these platforms that hope Osprey nests. The birds dive for fish in the lake.

You'll never seen them from closer than this and it's right on the road. Never seen that before!

This is the quintessential non-lake Ontario sight. Endless green farms.

Really has its own kind of charm even if it's not as epic as the Rockies.

Saw this sign near a convenience store. Advertising successful, sir.

Apparently butter tarts are a Canadian thing. They are just mini pecan pies, usually without the pecans.

One of the few views of Lake Simcoe. It's damn big.

Maybe I'm stopping for pictures, maybe I'm just damn tired...

80% tropical

More Osprey nests.

Decided to add a little recovery ride to visit the Badlands by bike instead of by car. Kind of the point of this trip: Stop at some Tim Hortons then bike out to points of interest so you don’t have to deal with BS parking, traffic, park entry fees. Do the driving on the highway and do the riding in the nice places!

Oh boy, I'm allowed to take pictures? How generous of you.

Look I don't have many pictures of this so you take what you get.

Didn't do the entire walkway on my bike but you can see the badlands from the road / entrance anyway.

Pretty unique I suppose?

On the way I spotted a Brewery and decided to stop. Chatted with three Ontario locals for a while. If you're reading this, drop me a line! poxpower@gmail.com

Almost the entire point of being in the region is to do this ride that goes to Canada’s southernmost point. It was quite a pleasant surprise to discover that Pointe Pelee is actually a fairly large regional park with quite a lot of things to see! Well worth the detour in my opinion, think this will be a top 10 destination on this trip.

The Niagara region has many areas where wind farmers harvest wind to package and sell at the farmer's markets.

Using the macro on a wild flower

One of the best things about biking is you can ignore construction that you can't when you're driving. Driving in big cities is infuriating.

Just gotta hop over a creek and that saves me a 10km random dirt detour.

Was about to miss a turn on my Garmin's map and I made a quick turn right as a painting truck made the yellow line. What the hell are the odds? Paint went away after 2-3 days.

There's a nice harbor in the little town of Wheatley. Lot of boats being repaired there too. Not pictured: Boats being repaired : (

I swear I saw that guy throw back a boot he'd just caught.

Little further south is the Hillman Marsh Area. Large lakes are usually flanked by large amounts of wetlands and ponds.

Sometimes I think the wind just blows trash around but come on, that's half a TV some asshat chucked there.

Little bit of farmland before you get to the Pointe Pelee area.

Park entrance.

Okay what's this one going to be. What did "we" do now?

Oh boy, so wise. Why live anywhere but in a cave eating mushrooms and sucking moisture out of lichen?

This is a statue of the park's president, Chip Beaverton the 3rd.

The park is just one road out and back to the tip, but it has several little trails and stops along the way, such as this awesome beach.

This is the Marsh Board Walk. You can rent canoes and paddle around or just walk along a boardwalk loop on the marsh.

The observation tower ( and every structure really ) is covered with nests.

FYI

Some little babies peeking over the edge of their nest.

The zoom function on this cam isn't great. This is like 4 feet away.

They kind of just chill around there and chirp at tourists. What a life, just being startled all day long by something you see day-in, day-out lol.

View from the top of the tower.

What makes you a pond is that you're covered in Water Lillies

If you're lucky you can see some turtles taking a sun bath.

You'll also see many Black Terns flying around and diving for fish.

An actual good picture of that bird. My camera can't do this : (

Keep going and you reach rocky beaches with warning signs telling you of your impending doom.

The geography creates weird currents that suck you away to the middle of the lake apparently.

This thing was closed sadly.

That's it, the actual southernmost tip of Canada!

Literally just a little point.

Seagulls hogging the spot, as usual. Just no shame.

Proof I went there.

View as you look back from the tip.

Really has an odd tropical feel to it.

Good luck going to all 4 of these, holy crap.

The visitor center has a little pond with this lonely fish in it. I have to believe animals eat their fish constantly and they replace him.

Ok you don't need to go to this one, it's some kind of barn.

I thought I deserved some fancy food at this point. There's a restaurant on the waterfront right where the road to the tip begins.

They have a pirate with strict personal boundaries.

Little birds next to me while I was eating.

Nothing much to see on the way all the way back north to Lighthouse Cove, on Lake Saint Clair.

That's the lighthouse. When you're out so long you get damn tired even if the ride/pace isn't that hard...

All-in-all a pretty good week. Just one day cancelled because of rain and lots of nice new areas discovered. As long as you steer clear of the large cities ( dumpsters ) then Ontario really doesn’t seem like such a bad place to be. Easy to say when it’s not winter of course.

If you made it this far, feel free to join my Instagram and/or Strava!

Touring Canada Week 4 - So Many Lakes