Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Day 7: Thunder Bay and Kakabeka Falls, July 7

We started the day with a trip to Old Fort William, which seems to have rebranded itself as "Fort William Historical Park". I used to work there, I think in the summer of 1983; I worked in the kitchen and bakery as a historical interpreter.

The Fort was as good as I remembered, with none of that alarming tendency of fondly-recalled places to be shabbier and cheesier than they used to be. Will liked the apothecary and the armoury, and tried his hand at axe-throwing with the cooper in the Tradesmen's Square. The cantine has been closed for a few years due to flooding, which is a shame, but we got our fix of stew and bread in the visitor's centre at the end of our visit.

We dropped Mom off in town and traded our "town car" (Jon's BMW) back for our bus, and headed west along highway 17. We stopped at Kakabeka Falls, the waterfall that spoiled Niagara Falls for me when I was a kid. It's also as spectacular as I remember, with water roiling and roaring over rocks on the way down.

We continued on as far as Dryden and stopped for the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot, which turned out to be a comfortable night's stay. Although they're not open 24 hours, the Tim Horton's was, so it was our "Comfort Station"!

Total so far: 2265 km.

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