Cold Lakes

Day 7: Tyhee Lake - Burns Lake 150km
The rain didn't disappoint; it poured all night and still rained steadily in the morning. I had already informed Max, the tour leader, yesterday that I wanted a spot in the van to drive to lunch. At that time, the reason was mainly to give my back some rest because two days of biking over 140k each, and two nights in the tent, didn't really help for my back pain. In the morning four others thought it was challenging (read: insane) to bike. After all, I'm on vacation, and biking 150km in the rain with 4 degrees isn't exactly my idea of vacationing. So two of us got in the truck that would drive directly to camp, and myself and two others got in the lunch truck, looking with a mixture of admiration, amazement, and concern to those who decided to bike.

I asked the staff if there were any cabins at the campsite in Burns Lake and they confirmed that. Because I had plenty of time now, I made myself useful and called the campsite in the car to reserve all cabins. My tent had proven to be waterproof, but there were several others who got soaked and had barely any dry clothes left.

Plenty of time to make some other calls and to send some text in the van. After catching up with mom and Kai, I consulted my big wise sister Maaike, who I embarrassingly more often seem to call for a medical consult than to catch up (I'm going to make an effort to be better!). After having seen the picture of my leg, Maaike confirmed my suspicion that I had a tick bite (in NL: tekenbeet) and advised me to get antibiotics as soon as possible. Instead of biking after lunch, I therefore asked Max to drop me off at a healthcare clinic. Or, the hospital in this case because there was basically not much else in Burns Lake. The doctor on call also thought that it was a tick bite, drew some blood and gave me a prescription for antibiotics. Meanwhile, the rain had never stopped and on the road the temperature varied between 2 and 6 degrees. Max was therefore driving back with the van to pick up some stubborn people who had thought it to be a good idea to leave the campsite by bike (dad?). Since it could take more than 3 hours before he would return and bring me to the campsite, I decided to bike the last 15 or 18 km. Easy, because I hadn't biked yet, and I was fully dressed for the rain.
I arrived at 2pm, and joined the others in the warm cabin to reorganize my bag, do some laundry, and dry my tent. We are staying at a beautiful lake, that would have been a perfect swimming spot had it been over 15 degrees. Unfortunately, it might actually snow tonight. I'll start biking tomorrow in my cross country ski outfit...