Thursday, 27 July – Maumee Bay SP, Oregon, OH

This is one of the nicest state parks we have stayed in, the bike tracks are all wide and paved and they thread between trees, green belts and the beach. We have probably biked miles and miles, but the tracks are all flat and smooth so no problem for those who may be not so fit as they should be.   There is even a nice laundry here.

We bike down to the beach, there are not many around, but we notice a few people who are not exactly dressed for the beach, ie clothed from top to toe.  We stop and chat to a lady.  She has been to Oz and knows about NZ, asks about our Haka and knows how the All Black strike fear into the opposition with it.  She is here as part of a group helping recent Syrian refugees acclimatise to living in the USA living so have brought them to the beach.  There were about 20 refugees, only a couple of men and three or four kids in the group. Did they look happy?  They didn’t look overwhelmed!  We have no idea what sort of horrific experiences they may have endured!  Good luck to them in their new land.

We don’t stay at the beach for long, there was a layer of high cloud and a nice breeze so it wasn’t over the top hot or humid.  Regardless, we did try for a swim in famous Lake Erie, but it was a lot colder than we have become used to, so can’t confess to getting totally immersed.  Have been in it though!

Picnic Shelter looking over inland lake beach
Everywhere we bike we see deer, now so commonplace have given up taking photos.  However, as we are riding along the paved bike trail on the way back from the beach, we see a ‘small’ black and copper snake slithering away into the grass, it had been sunning itself on the path until we disturbed it!  Of course I happen to know it is a non-venomous Eastern Fox Snake (black with copper highlights), because I read about it on the info board by the bathrooms, even took a photo as a reference, so you can see what the snake looks like:

Pays to read the guff on what to watch our for!
We also see a tiny yellow bird flitting amongst the bushes, but it is quick so didn’t get any great photos.  The red Cardinal is still hovering around our campsite, no doubt looking for his mate, or maybe his enemy!


Today, being Thursday, our quiet private camp is becoming inundated with campers, the usual deal getting close to the weekend.

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