Month: October 2024

The night passed uneventfully and there was no rain in the morning so the day has already started on the right note. I use the facilities, quickly pack up and then start on my way. The first little bit of the route is on a regular road but soon I make a turn and am on a much quieter one that hugs the shore around Lake Huron. There are lots of nice views of the lake and islands that I never even knew existed. Pretty early on the road comes to a grassy, marshy area and I can see some neat looking birds in the grass. I don’t know much about birds so it’s more surprising when I can identify one. Luckily there’s someone walking their dog nearby so as I ride on my way I ask them what kind of bird it was and they tell me they’re sandhill cranes. It’s the first I’ve seen of them but won’t be the last.

The conditions are really good for riding, the roads aren’t too rough, it’s warm but not too hot, no hills, and there isn’t a headwind. I make better time than expected and hit my lunch spot early, just a bit after 10am, but I’m still able to order a sandwich. The kid working the cash register is wearing a volleyball shirt and part of me wants to say that my daughter plays volleyball too but I know my kids don’t really like talking to adults they don’t know so figure I should just keep my mouth shut. As I’m eating my lunch I can’t help but pick up on this conversation happening at the table next to me.

There are people at other tables working on laptops, presumably using wifi, so I’m not sure what they’re thinking but I had to take myself outside before I said something. I almost lose it when she tried to make an etymology of “prescription” as “before word shun” with the “shun” meaning it was something to be avoided. Nutters aside it was a lot more pleasant inside the cafe than out so I end up taking a bit of a shorter break than planned and continue on my ride.

The ride is small side roads for a bit longer but then I’m on Hwy 6. It’s unavoidable at some point unfortunately. It isn’t terrible to ride on because it has a wide, clean shoulder, and it is really smooth so I can make good time on it as well. I take my first break after lunch at a little rest area and decide to check the ferry schedule again because I’ll probably get to Tobermory well before 3. That’s when I see that I misread the schedule and the only ferry before 5pm is at 1pm. Taking the 5pm ferry wouldn’t be a big deal but it would mean I’d get to the campground just before it got dark so taking an earlier ferry would mean I could be a bit more relaxed about things but I’m not sure that I can make it to Tobermory by 1pm. Only one way to find out! I push myself and make it into town, but now I need to get to the ferry terminal. I’ve taken a boat tour before so I go there but that’s not the ferry. I ask one of the employees and they point me in the right direction. Thankfully there still in the process of loading the cars so I’m able to buy a ticket and get on as pretty much the last person, they end up turning some cars away that come after me.

The ferry itself is pretty neat. At the bottom is the hold where all the cars are. There are even ramps for some cars to be up on a second level. As far as I can tell the cars are just left in park and are good. For my bike they had me tie it to a wall using some rope. It’s the proper kind of thick rope that you’d expect on a ship and it’s fun to practice knots tying it up. Then I go to the very top of the boat so I can get a nice view from the deck. We pull out of Tobermory fairly quickly and then make our way across the lake. It gets real windy real fast but there’s a lower deck which is also outside but protected from the wind. Without the wind and in the sun, there isn’t a cloud in the sky, it’s quite hot and I decide I’ll see if I can get some food.

 

There’s a proper cafeteria on the ferry and the prices are decent. I think about fish and chips again but end up getting a veggie burger, fries, and cookies. There’s pie but I’m not sure about the crust so cookies seem to be the safer option. Sitting by the window eating my second lunch it dawns on me just how big the Great Lakes are. I’m on a pretty large boat and there’s only water as far as I can see. And not only is it water but it’s fresh water. I’ve been to Lake Biwa, Japan’s biggest lake, many times and you can see from one side to the other as long as it isn’t too foggy. No chance of that happening here or on any of the other Great Lakes. Because of all this water I’d be surprised if the area doesn’t become significantly more populated over the next couple of hundred years – assuming we survive that long.

After a couple of hours the ferry arrives in South Baymouth and we disembark. It’s pretty early in the day and I need to figure out what to get for supper. I was initially thinking of getting fish and chips, which made sense when I was arriving at 7pm because they’d be reasonably warm by the time I got to eat them, but I’d need something that would be decent to eat cold. I end up making a slight detour to stop off at a market and get a veggie quesadilla.

The campgrounds I’m staying at is an “eco park”. The main attraction is that it has a dark sky preserve so hopefully I can see the Perseid meteor shower. After setting up my tent I go to the main area where the washrooms and kitchen facilities are and it turns out they have special guided events which you can participate in for an extra fee. I debate going but then decide that as I’m here I may as well go for it instead of just looking out all by myself.

The event starts a bit before sunset with the participants all gathering. There are some introductions and people talking about the eco park and meteor shower and after the sun sets they direct us to the dark sky preserve which we have to drive (or bike!) to. It’s much quicker for me to hop on my bike and go than people to walk over to their cars and get out of the parking lot so I’m one of the first people there, which isn’t great when it’s dark and the driveway to the place is windy and has branches. There are a couple of times where I end up waiting at a branch to see what the cars do but eventually I make it to the proper parking lot and lock up my bike off to the side. There’s another gathering just inside the parking lot where they mention that there generally are bears in the area but nothing around tonight, which is nice to know! Then we take a short walk to the actual viewing area. It’s a wide open field with small cabins and tents around the perimeter. You can camp here as well but you’d have to go back to the main campground for a shower or proper toilets instead of outhouses. If I had the choice I probably would have booked here but by the time I made my reservation only large sites were available and they cost a lot more. They tell some indigenous stories about various constellations which are interesting to listen to at the time but I remember nothing about them afterwards. As they’re talking we see a couple of meteors cross the sky, and whenever one is seen you’ll hear people’s exclamations. Of course by the time you hear it it’s already too late so you just have to keep your eyes peeled for the next one. They bring out a telescope and show some planets which is neat. They also mention that last night people were able to see the Northern Lights, which got everyone excited, after all who doesn’t want to see them?

Surprisingly, even though we are at pretty much the peak for the Perseids there weren’t all that many meteors going by. I guess that’s a thing with any natural phenomena, you can prepare as much as you want but at the end of the day random variables mean that it might all be for nothing. I stay until a bit after midnight hoping to see the Northern Lights but it’s getting cold and I’m pretty tired so I call it a night and ride back to my tent. Thankfully navigating the driveway on the way back isn’t a problem. I find out the next day that no one ended up being able to see the Northern Lights, so at least I didn’t miss that.

So how was my first night sleeping alone in a tent? About normal. No animals came after me, no park rangers or police woke me up and told me to move along. But also no uninterrupted 8+ hours of rest either.

A little bit of a confession here but I’ve never had a good night’s sleep while camping. Sleeping on a thin pad or air mattress isn’t as comfortable as a bed, there isn’t enough space to move around, there are noises I’m not used to, and I’ll wake up around midnight needing to go to the washroom and then spend too long trying to avoid going out of the tent. Then in the morning I’ll try to stay in my sleeping bag just a little bit longer because even though I wasn’t sleeping all night I don’t want to get out of it and into the cold. Even though I try to be lazy I still end up getting out of the tent pretty early. When you’re camping that’s a good thing because there’s always stuff to do in the morning, packing, making a fire, boiling water, etc. All my camping trips are just for 2-3 days so some sleep deprivation isn’t a big deal because it isn’t accumulating to the point where I become a zombie, and it isn’t as if I’m getting an uninterrupted 8+ hours at home either. I feel like my big issue is that I’m a side sleeper and that I usually switch sides over the course of the night. Maybe if I can train myself to sleep on my back then it’ll pay off for camping.

One hope for this trip was that by the end of the day I’d be so tired that sleep would come quickly and be deep. It didn’t happen on night 1 but there were 5 more to go!

So my alarm goes off at 6 and I check the forecast. It’s raining and it doesn’t look like the rain will go away for a couple of hours so there’s no point in trying to wait it out. Thankfully I’m protected by all the tree cover but once I’m on the road I’m not going to have that so I’m going to get wet, but that’s OK because it’s warm and once the rain stops I’ll dry out fairly quickly. I hear the sound of someone approaching and open the door to my tent, I can see a horse wagon going up the road. I’d seen some Mennonite looking farmers yesterday so the wagon wasn’t too surprising to me. I start to pack my stuff so I can head out, breakfast will be at a Tim Hortons in Markdale an hour or so away. The road itself is pretty loose gravel and I’m still going downhill so I’m checking my speed as I go because I really don’t want to wipe out. After about half an hour of riding and getting soaked the rain stops and I end up near some electrical station by a river and see some signs for the race that Jason did yesterday. A bit more riding and I make my turn-off and now I’ve got to climb roughly 120 metres over a 1.2km span. Not a fun hill at any time but particularly when you’re wet and loaded with gear. But at least the climb will warm me up. On the climb I see a couple of more signs for the race so I guess they had to do some climbing as well.

I don’t love hill climbing but I don’t hate it either, I just end up in my lowest gear fairly quickly and spin my way up. I find this a better strategy than trying to power my way up and then dying half-way, or even making it up but being too drained by the effort. When my bike got rebuilt in April I had them change my rear cassette to give me a bit lower gearing overall because the only time I’d use my highest gear was pedalling down hills at 50+km/h and I’m more than happy with just gliding down them at those speeds, but this way I’d have a lower gear to help me with the hills. It definitely came in handy with this hill! After making it to the top of the hill it is just normal country roads until Markdale. As I get close to the Tim Hortons I see that Markdale has a hospital. I wonder what it must be like for the doctors and their families to live out here. The two nice things about the Tim Hortons is that the washroom is nice and clean and they have Chocolate Eclairs! I’m not sure how the donut distribution works for Tim Hortons, most stores don’t carry the eclairs but you’ll see them at random ones in the middle of nowhere. They may not be the “best” donut they have but let’s be real none of their donuts are particularly good so you may as well get a mouth full of whip cream. So after freshening up a bit and refueling I’m back on the road heading towards the rail trail. Markdale has a Chapman’s Ice Cream factory that’s right beside it. If it were a bit later in the day an ice cream would be pretty nice, but I did just have the Chocolate Eclair.

The rail trail is in pretty good condition so it’s an easy ride. There are the usual farms on the side but there are also some nice rivers and ponds as well. If Isaac were with me then we’d probably stop at them to try to catch a fish or frog, but it’s just me so I’ll take a break near one and then continue on my way.

I come up to an area where the trail goes through a marsh and there’s a swan crossing sign and as luck would have it there were swans on a platform nearby. They weren’t crossing the trail but it was still neat to see that the sign was accurate. I don’t think I’d want to deal with swans actually blocking my way if I was only on my bike, I’m not sure if they’d back down!

The trail takes me all the way to the edge of Owen Sound and I make my way into the city. On a Sunday morning the place looks pretty sketchy for the most part although there are a couple of streets where it looks like they’re trying to make it look nicer. As I’m riding a building looks familiar but I’m not sure why, and then I remember that some clients purchased a property here. I take a couple of selfies with it in the background to send to them later on.

Originally my plan was to stop for lunch in Owen Sound but as I still have my pizza I’ll just eat that instead. There’s a harbour area with some benches so I take one over and enjoy my lunch. I take my shoes off to help dry them and my socks out a bit more. As I’m eating and resting I see another bikepacker come by. It’s a woman by herself so I don’t say anything even though I’m dying to ask questions about her trip. She ends up riding by and sitting down for a break on the other side of the harbour. Guess we’re not comparing notes then. Right near by there’s a tiny railway museum with a car you might be able to go inside, and towards the end of the harbour there’s a large grain elevator that looks pretty neat so I decide to give it a closer look as I kill time during my “rest” period. The grain elevator is pretty big, and I watch a racoon climb some steps and then disappear into it, I guess it makes a good home if nothing else.

All of a sudden it starts raining even though the forecast is supposed to be clear for the rest of the day. I first quickly go to a supermarket so I can buy some sports drink to fill my bottles with and then wait under the covered part of a plaza for a while. The rain isn’t going anywhere so I figure it’s time to get wet again. After not even 5 minutes the rain gets really hard again and I take shelter in another plaza. As I’m waiting for the rain to die down another biker comes by, he had gotten some food from a nearby food truck and needed a dry place to eat. Once the rain finally did die down we both left and it ended up that we were going in the same direction, the Georgian Bluffs Rail Trail, so we started to chat. Mark lives in Sauble Beach and had rode down to Owen Sound for lunch as an excuse to go for a bike ride on a Sunday. He also works at nuclear power plants but he’s full time at Bruce. Kind of a weird coincidence that the only two people I’ve had lengthy conversations with are both involved in nuclear power. We’ll see if this keeps up. We end up riding together the whole way and talking the whole time. He’s riding at a faster pace then I’d do if I was by myself but it wasn’t too fast and as we both had the same final destination it isn’t as if I had to save my legs to travel any farther today. The trail doesn’t go the whole way to Sauble Beach so the last bit is fairly quiet paved roads. On the roads I end up riding beside him instead of ahead or behind him because I don’t like hugging the right line so that cars can drive by at speed way too close. It’s an empty road and if they need to pass they can change lanes and do so. I’ve got a mirror so if there’s oncoming traffic at the same time I’ll move out of the way but otherwise how hard is it for them to change lanes and safely pass. Mark doesn’t look particularly comfortable with me sticking myself into the road but he doesn’t say anything either.
We make it to Sauble Beach and Mark invites me over to his place to wash my bike – rain plus muddy trails makes for a dirty bike and more importantly a dirty drivetrain. He offers me a post-ride beer and I tell him that I don’t drink and am good with my sports drink. I probably could hang out at his place for the rest of the day but I’m a bit anxious to set up camp and maybe take a swim while it’s still hot.
Sauble Falls Provincial Park is just outside of town so it doesn’t take too long to get there. I check in and make my way to my campsite. It’s a pretty standard car camping park which isn’t great for quiet or privacy but means there are proper washrooms and showers which are amazing after a day on the bike. I set up my tent and sleeping stuff, put on my bright yellow swimming shorts, and then make my way back into town. On the way in I stop off at a grocery store and pick up some handmade cookies. They had butter tarts as well but those had lard in them. The actual beach at Sauble Beach is really long. I don’t particularly want to be around a lot of people so I stop off pretty early so that I’m still at the far end of the beach. The water is cold but it’s hot and sunny so it feels nice. A more pleasant version of the ice baths that athletes will do after intense activity. It’s also really windy so after I’m done swimming I tie my wet towel and clothes to some swings so that they can dry up quickly. Eventually people come and use the other swings so I take my stuff down and just put them on the sand.

Once things are dry enough it’s time for supper. Mark had recommended the taco truck and a restaurant that had been on a reality show but all I really wanted were some fish and chips. Google sends me to a strip mall just outside of the main drag and it looks pretty divey which is a good sign – they focus on the food not the decor. When the food comes the portions are pretty large but the quality is nothing special. The place is kind of weird because people keep coming in, talking to the elderly woman running the place, and then going into the back/kitchen. Feels like a front for something that I’ll never find out. Stomach full I head back to camp.
One plan I had was to do some laundry, I even got change at the grocery store, but when I go to the laundry area I see that there’s no detergent for sale so there’s no real point. It’s still a bit too early for me to sleep so I walk down to see the actual waterfall. There’s a small path in the woods that leads down some wooden steps that brings you close to the river. I don’t know if you can actually go in the river here because it’s pretty dark. From what I can see the waterfall is pretty nice, although not particularly big, this isn’t Niagara Falls by any stretch. There’s only so much time to be killed looking at an unlit waterfall at night so I make my way back to my camp site so I can sleep. One nice thing about sleeping in the forest last night was that I was all alone. Here I’m by myself but I’m surrounded by people in groups having their dinner, sitting by camp fires, and otherwise being social with each other. It would be nice to sit by the fire with someone and go over the day and plans for tomorrow. Maybe next trip.