edwards block

Millgrove to Toronto. DAY: 99.79km. ODO: 3,993km. AVS: 23.7km/h. MXS: 57.0km/h. ATM: 4:12:21.

As it is only about 75km to Toronto, I had a leisurely morning, and then departed at about 11am. What was I thinking? Thirty degrees and 1264% humidity, and I start cycling at midday. Naturally, rather than ride slowly and take regular shade and water rests, I rode at my normal rate, which is pretty much non-stop. I’m just not good at goofing off.

I took mostly rural roads all the way to Port Credit, but I was relying on my new, $17, small scale map book of Ontario, which as it turns out is less accurate (and much heavier) than the free large scale folding map that I got from the tourism office, and ended up taking a longer (though very scenic) route around Mount Nemo. Once in Port Credit, I found a “Waterfront Trail”, which is a mostly paved route along the waterfront, all the way to (and beyond) Toronto. Parts of it are very badly signed, so it wasn’t a speedy route, but it wasn’t in the traffic of Highway 5 / Dundas street, so I didn’t mind.

Ah… The clean, crisp air of the Lake Ontario!

I arrived at the hostel downtown at Church and King at 4:30 with a headache, probably from the heat, and maybe a bit from hunger.

I’d forgotten how big, hot and noisy Toronto is. You have to pay for cultural opportunity, and I guess that’s how.

I decided to forgo non-stop partying in “The Big Ugly” in favour of a shower, dinner, and good nights sleep.

Millgrove (Sightseeing). DAY: 35.06km. ODO: 3,894km. AVS: 24.4km/h. MXS: 57.5km/h. ATM: 1:26:02.

The good thing about the Floridian in that he stays up late at night, and sleeps late in the morning, so I can generally count on some peace. I ate a leisurely breakfast of granola with fresh Ontario strawberries out in the sun, now that it’s finally warm enough in the morning to be enjoyable.

After that, I went and sat in the sun by the pool, reading the book section from last Saturday’s Globe, trying to even out my tan a bit. My forearms, the lower part of my thighs, and my nose are all dark brown, and the rest is pale white.

After that, I rode into town again, this time to the Medical Services Centre at MacMaster to meet Michelle’s mother, Heather, for lunch. She took me on a great tour of Hamilton and a good chunk of the Niagara region, in hr air-conditioned car (a nice break from the humidity) through the wine country almost as far as St. Catherines. We had a fabulous lunch at a place on the shore of Lake Ontario, where I could see the spires of Toronto on the opposite side of the lake. It looks very small from that far away.

Millgrove (Sightseeing). DAY: 36.94km. ODO: 3,859km. AVS: 21.2km/h. MXS: 51.5km/h. ATM: 1:44:49.

I decided to ride into Hamilton, as it is less than 20km away, and take a look around, see if Shelia Copps is screaming at anyone. What I didn’t know is that I am camping not very far from the edge of the Niagara Escarpment, and Hamilton is at the bottom. But first, I passed through Dundas, where I looked for an internet place so that I could get my mail and update this log. As I could not see any, I stopped at a small computer store to ask if they knew of any. The owner said he didn’t know of any such places, but offered to let me connect to his, at $10 for 30 minutes. We settled on $5 for 45 minutes, and I sat as the reception desk at the front of the store. I was able to retrieve my 400 e-mails (nine of which were not spam) and update these pages, but for some reason my outgoing mailserver wasn’t working, so I could not send any e-mail. Therefore, if you are waiting for a message from me, you’ll be waiting until I get to Toronto, probably.

I had a small, over-priced and horribly over-packaged lunch at the Student Services building at the campus of MacMaster University, and then cycled back to the campground. The Floridian dropped by to say that he was having trouble with the modem in his computer (camping isn’t all canvas and bug spray anymore), and invited me for dinner, asking me to take a look at it. After dinner, he took me to the computer, which was in his bedroom. Though I had seen them in television sit-coms in the 70’s, I had never seen an actual circular bed before – especially not one that was surrounded on three sides by smoked glass mirrors, another of which was mounted on the ceiling above.

I ignored this without comment and sat down at the computer to try to fix the modem and get the hell out. As I tinkered with that, he removed his shoes and sprayed them with some sort of air-freshener. The modem worked fine when I tested it from Windows, but I was unable to get his AOL software to use it, though I did get it to recognise it. I suggested that he call AOL, which is always the culprit in any problem, including plugged toilets and the heartbreak of psoriasis. Why anyone uses it I don’t know.

Then he asked me if I wanted to have a Jacuzzi. He pointed to a tub in the corner of the room that I had not previously noticed. It was actually heart-shaped! I declined and returned to the outdoor patio. Soon after, I managed to make a polite escape, but not before I was welcomed to drop by later to “heat one up and have a soak, dude”, which I took to mean smoke a joint and share a “heart” of hot water.

The good thing about the cabin is the door that locks. I returned to it and did so.

Walkerton to Millgrove. DAY: 173.55km. ODO: 3,822km. AVS: 23.5km/h. MXS: 60.0km/h. ATM: 7:22:28.

Well, as it turns out, this was actually quite a nice night. As it was warm with no sign of rain, I left the fly off the tent so that I could drift off to sleep with full view of the moon, stars and pre-pubescent serial killers.

The Saugeen River, beside which I am camped, is one of those meandering watercourses that moves along swiftly but soundlessly. Just downstream from me, however, there is a narrowing of the river and a small rapid. As a result, the water slows beside my site and pools, causing it to swirl into itself, creating a gentle gurgling. There was a light mist hovering over the river, and I was awake to see the sunrise filtering through the trees.

As I was still not inclined to drink the local tapwater, I skipped breakfast and decided to grab tea and a snack in Hanover, just up the road, in one of those quaint, small-town family run diners. However, upon arrival in town, I found that I had a choice of three “sports bars”, or Tim Horton’s. While I try to avoid Tim’s, it usually has the least offensive form of fast food, so I went there. Amazingly, there were more insects (houseflies) flying around the restaurant than there had been in my campsite, including a number using the doughnuts as rest stops. Apparently there isn’t a large pool of available labour in Hanover, as none of the employees appeared to be under the age of 90. I practically had to shout my order to the nearly deaf woman behind the counter (tea and a bagel with herb and garlic cream cheese), but ended up with hot chocolate and plain cheese.

Then I started riding. Since leaving Winnipeg, I have not been feeling strong, and have been tiring after about 75km, but today I felt that my energy had returned. I took almost all secondary highways, through towns that were often nothing more than a couple of farmhouses and an old church. After 173+km (my longest day yet), I decided that I should not push on to Hamilton, as I was already feeling like I’d exceeded my blood sugar limit, so I stopped at a campground slightly north of the city.

It is one of those “alternative lifestyle” campgrounds, which (besides being cheaper) I thought might have a lower incidence of noise. They seem to have three kinds of clientele: the weekenders, the seasonals, and the just plain bonkers. This being midweek, everyone else there was seasonal, meaning that for $2100 a year, they get unlimited access, including water and hydro.

The people who run the place were very friendly and kind, and charged me for a tent site but gave me a small rustic cabin at no extra charge, claiming that anyone that cycled that far deserved it. How could I argue? The only drawback is that the cabin is quite close to one of the aforementioned bonkers types. He is a guy from Florida, probably a little older than I, who owns a trailer that he is sharing with his Aunt Mildred (and that’s not the name of his persian cat). He’s a bit of a walking stereotype (or amalgamation of stereotypes), none of which are relevant to the 21st century.

As soon as I arrived, he was over to talk. Like many of his socio-economic position (who all too often turn out to be Americans, I regret to say), he has too much money, too few brains, and an overabundance of socially-aggressive arrogance (not that I’ve formulated an opinion or anything). In the first 24 hours that I was there, I think he called me “dude” at least 100 times.

I was pretty tired, so I had a shower, consumed a large quantity of pasta and went to bed.