Day 63

We weren't able to upload the pics Harry took, so we'll edit this later and add those in.

We left Calgary having changed our chains for the second time. After a few of the kinks were worked out (by 1:00 pm) we were finally biking on the plains of Alberta, heading towards Saskatchewan. It was still raining very hard, but we had a tail wind so we were happy. By the end of the day we managed to bike 105km in only 5 hours on the road, finishing in Bassano behind a shed. We were already starting to notice how few trees and fences there were to camp behind and knew that we would have to kick our stealth camping up a notch in the prairies.

Once we left Bassano the rain had finally stopped and the wind was still at our backs. It was a really good feeling to have flat roads, sunshine, and a tailwind. We took advantage of the amazing conditions and managed to bike 155 km to Medicine Hat. Along the way Harry lost another wager and had to ride the rest of the way into Medicine Hat, and order dinner, with a straw cowboy hat on with a long piece of grass in his mouth. For dinner we decided to hit a local steakhouse for some premium AAA Alberta beef. Medicine Hat is one of the largest cities we had stopped in, so it was quite difficult to find a camping spot. Here is a video of where we finally set up the tent  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98C-hpJHoGY&feature=youtu.be.

Fitting in with the crowd

After leaving the Hat we were only about 50km from the Saskatchewan border. We were biking just north of the Cypress Hills Inter provincial Park, so we actually had to bike through some of the foothills of Saskatchewan. Contrary to popular belief, Sask is not entirely flat. It is also not as barren (in terms of gas stations, restaurants, and small towns) as Newfoundland was. We saw a group of three girls biking across Canada, but they were cheating because they had an RV carrying their bags. The riding was still easy-going and we managed to pedal about 100 km past the border, finishing at a camp site in Tompkins. It was day 59 and for the first time we were camping in a legitimate camp-ground. We met a married couple biking East across Canada as well, so we exchanged tips and tricks and now were best friends forever.

We left our camp bright and early for another day on the prairies. We stopped in Swift Current for lunch, the office (Tim Hortons), and a bike shop. We finished at another camp site in Herbert where we ran into some furry friends  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRO54hJW7Qc&feature=youtu.be. We had actually had our camp set up next to these guys for over three hours before we realised they were there. They are extremely quiet animals. Too quiet. We slept with one eye open that night because we were certain they were plotting something. Sure enough, when packing our tent up two mornings later one of the rods kind of broke a bit. We don't know how they did it, but we know for sure it was them.

Who else could it have been?

When we woke up we wanted to grab some breakfast at the local family restaurant, or the cafe, in Herbert. Both were out of business, so we went 13 km down the road to the next town, Morse. When we arrived the gas station and grocery store were opening at 8:30, but it was 9:00 and they still weren't open. After coming to the conclusion that Saskatchewan as a whole is lazy, we realised that the problem was that we mistakenly set our clocks forward an hour when we crossed the Saskatchewan border. Apparently Saskatchewan doesn't believe in Daylight Savings Time, so half the year its clocks are in-synch with Manitoba, the other half they're in-synch with Alberta. Our suspicion was confirmed, Saskatchewan really is lazy. So after unsuccessfully trying for a bit to convince all of the Saskatchewinians to just not be that way, we decided to just let it go and move on. Later, Will successfully ran over a large staple with unbelievable precision so he popped another inner tube, however, as we are now professionals at changing them it was not an issue, and some experts are saying he may have even set a new world record for fastest inner-tube replacement ever. We set up our tent at another camp site in Moose Jaw.

Picture of a four letter word starting with "s"

From Bassano to Regina we needed to bike 610km and we had 5 days to do it to arrive on Canada Day. When Canada day came we had biked 540 of those kilometres, so we expected the 70 that remained to be a breeze. Unfortunately, the tailwind which we had been riding for most of the week turned against us. The wind in the prairies is devastating if you have to bike into it. With the tailwind we were averaging 25 km/h, with the headwind we averaged 15 km/h. We managed to arrive in Regina by 4:00 where we had made reservations for a room at a hostel. We proceeded to celebrate the birth of Canada.