Down Time

It was still dark when the rain came. There was a pitter-patter on the small tarp that we had stretched over our tent: it wasn't big enough to cover the entire tent but provided some protection. The walls of our fly would still get wet.

I like falling to sleep to the sound of a light rain, almost as much as I am soothed into a slumber by the sound of waves against a shore. But to be awakened by rain is another issue, where my brain starts thinking: will the rain get in? Is anything in the tent pressing up against the outer walls?

When the rain intensified, I wondered what we'd be facing when we got up in earnest. We had a large kitchen tent that enclosed the picnic table, so we'd be able to prepare breakfast and eat in shelter. But moving from tent to car, to picnic table would see that we got wet, anyway.

Too tired to do anything about it, and now that my ears had become accustomed to the sound of the rain, I let it carry me back to a dream state. I didn't awake again until my body naturally got me up, just before 7, and by then, the rain had stopped.

Only the drip from trees made us think it was still raining.

It was our eighth day of our vacation and our Paddlefolk friend had decided that she would start her trek back home. Before retiring for the night, we had helped her secure her kayak to the roof of her car, so all she had to do in the morning was tear down her tent.

We decided that instead of making breakfast at our campsite, we would go to a café in Pancake Bay, about a 40-minute drive south, toward Sault Ste. Marie. The Agawa Crafts Centre is a complex of stores, including an ice-cream stand, grocery store, LCBO, café, craft and souvenir shops, and gas station—the last station, as you head north, until you reach Wawa, 150 kms away.

The café is located inside one of the craft shops, and on our arrival we were greeted by the nicest, most welcoming person behind the counter. The café offers hot breakfast sandwiches, pastries, and really good coffee.

As soon as we placed our orders, our server asked us to take a seat and she'd bring our sandwiches to our table. But as soon as we took our seats, a large crowd of people formed a line at the order counter, almost as though a tour bus had just arrived.

The server took it all in stride. She was working on her own but remained friendly and cheerful. She apologized for taking a bit longer to bring us our food but in reality, it was no longer than it would have taken at a restaurant, and we assured her that the wait wasn't long, and that she was doing a great job.

Our friend, who had gone to university in Thunder Bay and worked for a time in the area, said that she thought this café served apple fritters that were quite famous, but our server told her that place was in Batchawana Bay, at Voyageur's Lodge and Cookhouse, another 7.5 kms further south. So after we finished our breakfast, we continued further south.

There's another gas station in Batchawana Bay and I noticed that the price for fuel was almost 10 cents cheaper. I guess that because Pancake Bay is the last stop for gas before Wawa, they feel they can charge a little more.

I filled our tank in Batchawana Bay.

DW and our friend purchased warm apple fritters but I held off. I have a weird allergic reaction to apples: the smell of a fresh-cut apple will cause the roof of my mouth to blister and my throat to grow sore; eating apples is a big no-no.

But if an apple is well-baked, such that it's almost mushy, I can eat it. I can also eat apple sauce.

Drinking apple juice does something altogether different: it turns my stomach into painful knots, so I have to be careful with what fruit juices I drink.

I waited for DW to do a taste test of her fritter before deeming the apple was thoroughly cooked. She gave me a bite, and when I verified I could eat it, I ordered my own.

The Voyageur also has an LCBO and Beer Store outlet, and craft stores, so it is easy to confuse it with the centre in Pancake Bay. But the souvenir shop offers something that DW and I had been on the lookout for.

When we were researching our trip, we watched several YouTube videos for Lake Superior. One of those videos was by a couple, whose videos we've watched before: Camping with the Coles.

In their video of Lake Superior Provincial Park, Cheryl Coles wore a shirt that had a print of the Highway 17 road sign. It was done in a rough fashion, and both DW and I commented on how it looked cool. If we saw the shirt along the way, we'd pick one up.

The Voyageur souvenir shop has shelves packed with them in all sorts of colours and styles. DW picked up a red t-shirt and I got a maroon long-sleeved shirt.

We bid goodbye to our Paddlefolk friend and made our way back toward our campsite, but stopped in Alona Bay to check it out. When we had passed through Sault Ste. Marie on our way to Lake Superior, we stopped at an outfitter shop where the owner recommended a lot of places to paddle, including Alona Bay.

On this overcast day, a fog had rolled in on the bay and it looked beautiful. We scoped out a place where we could put our kayaks in, and made a note of it.

We weren't going to be doing any paddling today, as we had already said it was going to be our day for down-time, and the fog was too thick to be out on Lake Superior, anyway.

When we returned to camp, we realized that we had a lot of devices that needed to be charged. We had depleted our power banks and a couple of my cameras' batteries were dead. We decided to hang out at the visitor centre and take advantage of their power outlets.

In the afternoon, the fog had lifted but the wind picked up. Agawa Bay was the fiercest we had seen the whole week, and we were glad to not be paddling out in it. But DW and I did wander the beach, taking lots of photographs.

We wandered to the southernmost part of the beach, where huge, smooth rocks took you to a lookout point, high above where waves were smashing spectacularly against them. We took more photos before deciding to head back to camp.

Photo of me by DW.

We finished dinner and realized that we were running low of food, and would probably have to stop in the Soo as we passed through. We would be leaving this campsite the next morning but our vacation was far from over. The blocks of ice that were available from the visitor centre had kept our cooler nice and cold, and we had no fears that what food we had left would spoil.

That evening, the visitor centre was holding an open-mic night, and we listened to other campers and park staff sing, watched some dance, and we participated in a couple of sing-alongs. When I saw that they also had the capability of doing karaoke, I sang a song.

We ducked out early, though, as we needed to perform our ritual of watching the sunset. We didn't know if there'd be one because it had been overcast all day, but the sun did not disappoint, showing us the best sunset of the week.

The waves were crashing furiously, too, so I got low to take some of them with the sun.

It was a great final full day at Agawa Bay. The next day, we'd have to break camp and move on, but this park had made me fall in love with camping again.

The adventure continues, tomorrow.