Distance: 124km
Elevation: 326m
I slept longer than usual and had hardly anything for breakfast because I was not hungry. That normally never happens. My stomach was still not ok. But there was no pharmacy or anything nearby and it was a public holiday anyways.
By 10am I was in the saddle and cycled the first 60km to Shoal Lake almost in one go. A gentle rain had started but was over after an hour. The 500km mark was crossed.
At one point the paved shoulder of the road disappeared and I had only gravel to cycle on. Luckily that stretch only lasted for 6km or so.
At Shoal Lake, I looked for a restaurant but everything was closed. So, the local gas station had to be once more my go-to-place. I forced myself to eat and drink some sweet and sugary stuff to get enough energy inside me.
A woman from Montreal who was traveling through with her family came over and started chatting. She wanted to know details about my tour and complimented me “You are so brave!” I did not know what so say. I certainly did not feel that way.
She told me that she was moving with her family to Calgary and I replied “Now, this is really brave!”.
A little later, I was able to have a FaceTime with Carolin. She had brought Tabea to the airport meanwhile and the farewell had been calm and joyful. She had been to Australia before for some time and so it was not the first international experience of this kind for her. We were both sure that she and Gianni, her new boyfriend, had a fighting chance of making it through the year together that she would spend as an Au Pair in New Zealand.
The call was lighter than the days before and we would also laugh together a little bit. After it, I felt energized and tackled the remaining 60 km to Minnedosa. The sun had come out and it became quite hot quickly.
I got “in the zone” and got a lot of ground covered. After 110km I noticed that I had overpaced and needed to slow down.
I arrived at the campground by a beautiful lake after office hours. It was relatively straightforward to self check-in and I found myself a nice spot with a private access to the beach.
I had a swim which was very refreshing. When I was setting up my tent my neighbor came over to say “hi”. It turned out that Cindy had spend her youth near Stuttgart and spoke fluent German. What a small world.!
An upcoming thunderstorm prevented a longer chat. I tried to quickly make everything waterproof and got into my tent (which is great by the way).
I was cold and shivering a little bit. Not sure if that was because of too much sun or my stomach or both. Quit frankly, I am surprised that I had the energy so far to cycle the first 500km. On the plus side, I was loosing weight quickly.
Tomorrow I would go to a local pharmacy.
It rained throughout the entire night until morning.
Puuuhhh, that doesn’t sound easy this year! I hope you can use every bit and piece of resilience, positive energy and anti-crisis strategies which you have learned in the past and will be able to turn it into zis-Glück at one turning point. (which is hopefully not too far in the future).
I am sure, you will make it. But if – at one point – you might take the decision that not finishing it is the better option, this will also not be the end of the world. You are the one to decide what’s best for you. Not anybody else or any potential commitment of whatever kind.
But as we all learned on our zis-journey: the sun keeps shining. You only need to give the clouds the opportunity to disappear.
Take care and try to appreciate the moments.
Sorry, the comment wasn’t meant to be anonymous… I just hit the ENTER button too fast.