Er, bust, actually. But I did spend 24 hours straight on the trail. Enough to get the flavour. If you've seen one rail trail, you've seen them all. Mostly scrub trees, some nice tree tunnels,
occasional bucolic fields of industrial agriculture (acres of robot controlled cabbage, soya, wheat), and in the Guelph-Goderich trail, too often the clammy, nauseating stink of manure.
The huge plus is no car/truck terrorism.
Real magic
The real magic is dusk and night, when 99% of trail users are safely home, or in a b&b, making chit-chat with the owner, staring at flowered wallpaper, luxuriating in starched sheets (for one night!), and TV, drinking celebratory booze.
Zero magic. Choosing your domicile – where best to watch the sky – requires freedom. Mind you, you can make mistakes. This time, it was hard to get away from manure, stubble fields (ouch!), the machine world. I finally settled on a hay field, but I was visible to bikers (no one complained), and it was only at nightfall that I realized the distant machine world would be illuminated all night by prison yard spotlights, lighting up my bivouac (useful for finding insect repellent).
I finally turned my sleeping bag around to face the cedar grove, leaving me a quarter-sky with Big Dipper. I hadn't seen stars in two years., since my last real bike adventure. Watching them in silence, a dazzling display starring fireflies streaking past with long shiny tails, like a comet shower up-close, and satellites marching relentlessly. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Getting there is half the battle
The headaches, misadventures of getting to and from are half the fun, both reading and writing travel pieces. For the reader, potentially useful information, for the writer, therapeutic. I was taking the GO to Guelph from Toronto. Rule #1: know thy coach number. The conductor rattled off fiver 3 or 4-digit random coach numbers and said you better not be in one or your goose is cooked. ARGH. The number is posted differently in each coach, so you should find it and know it by heart. I ended up walking the entire length of 8 coaches and back, finally finding the conductor lounging and found out my goose was indeed cooked. No getting off in Guelph, so we agreed I'd get off at the next stop and make a mad dash five coaches back. I had to ride my bike on the platform (a huge no-no) to get there.
In the process, I met another cyclist, Andrew, going to Guelph fot a nice day trip, returning to Toronto from Oakville, i.e., let GO do all the drudge work between scenic trips. I will try his Guelph-Campbellville route. It's not a bike trail, but I know the road and it's scenic and not too crowded with trucks (at least 50 years ago it wasn't). His logic re coaches was: get on the one nearest the engine (here, in the back). The added coaches are apparently disposable.
Low tech, detours
About Goderich, a beach town on Lake Huron but a backwater, a throwback to when the railway took Guelphites to frolic in the early 1900s, and served Mennonite farmers before the age of petro-guzzling. I saw lots of horse & buggies, puffy bonnets and uncomfortable looking dresses. The Amish and Mennonites rejected mod-cons literally ages ago (trains are okay as collective, earthy transport), and are doing just fine.
Google maps was useless for the detours, the first of which was the Kissing Bridge. Mmm. There were lots of signs, this first leg even called the Kissing Bridge trail, so I was delighted to cross the highway and see the sign and follow it to ... dead end and an ugly, old closed-for-repair covered bridge. Was this it? A prudish Mennonite joke (presumably you could sneek a kiss in the dark)? Fortunately, two couples in spiffy cycle gear, led by Al, were trying to solve the problem with GPS. We decided to take the killer highway to approximately where the trail should continue.
Like a cold shower, getting in the flow of screaming massive trucks rushing six inches to your left, down a long terrifying hill and back up. Guide Al was a trail volunteer from Goderich who got a friend to bring them and their bikes to Guelph to then take the trail back home. So they are used to no-signposts (maybe it's a prudish biker joke to push us to maximum alertness).
I forged on ahead, not wanting to crowd in on their personal space. We kept passing through the day and when I confessed the trip was too ambitious for me, that I would just turn around and go back the next day, they gave me succour: 'The detour near the end is a killer. They blew all the bridge money on fixing up the stupid Kissing Bridge, ignoring the collapsed bridge over the Maitland River nearer to Goderich, rather than just building two serviceable bridges to complete the trail. Now they've run out of cash and we have nothing but detours.' I suggested the views were better at the poor, hilly end. 'Yes, but the detour is long and the hills steep and all gravel.' I had visions of me exhausted and totally sick of the masochism of long-distance biking. Good to know when to cash in your chips.
The next gap in the trail (unmarked) was at a highway. I tentatively went down the long hill in what should be the right direction, reached the bottom. There was a side road with a steep hill. No hint of the trail. So I biked back up the hill to a corner store. It felt like a different era. The cashier in her long, heavy dress, bonnet, shy, pleasant. I asked for a refill of my bottle but she claimed the tap water was undrinkable. Hmm. Rule #2, always have two extra bottles full at all times. I refuse to buy bottled water on principle. If I'm going to pay for a drink, let it be a pretend human improvement. So I bought 'red bull', which promised energy. She did know about the trail and my surmise had been correct, so back down the hill and up the steep hill.
These detours are stressful and physically taxing, and not accounted for in your calculations. My Goderich friends claimed these two detours were the last but I'm suspicious. Now that the trail is 'famous' I'm sure there will be meddling. Kissing bridge was fine for cyclists till car-drivers got involved. Al and company were staying at a b&b and then hopeful to finish the trail, already acquainted with it, on day two.
Whimsical commerce
Can big-city you imagine a cardboard scrawled sign, some chips in front of a little hut, an untended cash box? I desperately need water and some bread (bad planning). I had used up my fiver on 'red bull'. Drat. I finally decided the jug of water was free game, so I filled up my bottle I took one small bag of chips. Tsk tsk. Yet another sign with edibles said 'pay what you like.' I finally noticed there were barrels of water along the route, so my #2 was not necessary if I was on the look-out.
Evening entertainment
There were two evening concerts. Birds the stars, the haranguing and tuneful red-wing blackbirds, many, many robins, cat birds, king birds. But it was a weird cascade of beeps, burps, glissandos, squawks, then a tranquil, soulful melody, ending in a riotous, sarcastic put down. Like a musical commentary for some 1930s radio play. A mocking bird! It occurred to me that he (most probably) was much like a mime telling his story with gestures.
It would stop after a minute of hilarity and I would focus on the other concert. Tiny, tiny insects bobbing like angels around me singing with their wings, sometimes a monster moth rushing in to steal a kiss and liven up the heavenly hosts. Then Mr Mockgbird would start his second set, later third, fourth. I recognized a theme from a Tchaikovsky symphony, and Beethoven's Fifth. I'm not kidding. They both used bird songs, as do many composers.
I'm so glad I didn't bring a book to while away the time. Nature is all you need. And yourself. Boredom when alone is you finding yourself boring. Deal with it. I ruminated over life and my screw-ups and how to obviate more useless detours.
What was that pitter-patter? A cloudless night. I could feel how wet I was becoming sitting at dusk and now drops of ... dew?! I opened up the tarp and covered myself. It was humid and the water was condensing rapidly. The tarp also added some much needed insulation in the night.
Did I sleep? I found myself drifting off once the concerts were finished, but then suddenly the night lights came on, the chief attraction, the real stars, ignoring the prison lights' attempt to extinguish them. Hypnotic. I remember waking a lot, constantly shifting position, so by logic, I must have been sleeping. I awoke at 3am to a bright light and looked up. The waning crescent moon. It was still shining vigorously as I biked through the morning haze,
till I focused on more immediate concerns like slogging through the last 30 kms. I was ravenous and ate a whole beet, some cabbage leaves, cheese snack, and the tomato-flavoured chips I stole. Thank you, kind soul!
My last detour was yet again at the gol-darn Kissing Bridge. I realized the trail would end and I would have to retrace my detour steps, carefully remembered. So I came to the end, but instead of a road, it was a gully which the said bridge was to cross. Drat, drat! Back UPHILL a few kms. Retrace my retrace. Suddenly a goldfinch landed in front of me, a small sign of grace, a morsel of cheer. And now that I think of it, the actually bit of road to the Kissing Bridge was beautiful, along the river, with attractive homes, people boating. There is always a silver lining if you are alert.
Aborted but uncowed
Back in Guelph, I used the rest of day two to visit my sister and our parents' grave in Woodlawn 'Memorial Park', where Anne pointed out the peace obelisk in Japanese, Spanish, French, Dutch and Ukrainian,
and old high school friend, like me a zealous lover of wild flowers.
Note the Fleabane and Agave growing out of the asphalt at the garage door
And a quick survey of modern Guelph, where much of my heart still lies. My 24 hours started on the actual trail at 10am and finished the next morning at 10am. Future trips will duplicate that without the need to abort grand plans. Just go somewhere in the country and sleep out to experience that awe, a modern version of the native Native Quest.
Getting home the other half-battle
Travel-home logistics. I left Liz at 3.15 but the trail downtown was not short, I was tired, and when I to where I thought the station was, the entire downtown was in shut-down, repairs, and it was boiling. No one knew how to get through. I had THE mother of detours still ahead! I circled father and father away and finally an Indian immigrant kindly gave me precise instruction. Whew! But how to get to the platform? Detour! And theni asked a hapless know-nothing who said 'other platform' I'm going to Kitchener. Thank god an elevator but how to open the door? No instruction, I figured closed, but young know-something girl took pity on me and showed me the hidden knob far from the door. We laughed and I said, 'the kindness of strangers.'
But on the other side, all the entrances closed. Drat, drat, drat! Remember it feels like 40 degrees. I trudged back, found some shade, eventually got on and up, and away. Nope. 'How did you get the bike in this car? Forbidden.' Another negotiated 'next stop and hurry!' Finally. Nope. I had forgotten to tap my Presto card. He was nice as said, just explain if there's a spot check.
Sure enough, next stop a hefty, glaring black inspectoress with her minion entered and demanded our Prestos in a commanding voice. 'She's not going to let me off,' I knew, dreading the hefty fine ($35--$200). But before she asked to see my card, she sharply rebuked me: the bike should be at the other end. Hmm. I obediently squeezed it down the aisle and wedged it in the end beside the can, makeshift, as there's no proper bike spot and I was overloaded. Then entered the can, the old trick to evade inspectors. I waited and waited till we neared the next stop and came out. She was still there but had clearly forgotten about me, once her authority had been acknowledged. Victory from the jaws of defeat.
Heppi end? NOPE. Later on, the train jerked and my bike careened and everything scattered, food, sleeping bad, tarp, hoodie, jacket. So I awkwardly reassemled things, but the bungie chords are tricky to get just right at the best of times. Ms Authority's assistant came and offered to help. How sweet.
Read No-carbon footprint travels to Toronto's outer spaces for Eric's other cycling adventures in and around Toronto.
