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September 12 Monday Bicycle touring from Whitley Ontario to Rondeau Provincial Park Ontario I woke in the middle of the night. The cacophony of incessant insect humming and droning that I had earlier nodded off to was now eerily silent. I guess they go to sleep to? Or maybe they heard something that shushed them in silence? They will be making their chirping noises until we ride by on our bikes and then they quickly stop. After listening to the silence for a while I decided all was peaceful enough. Even the road traffic had died away. Around 6:30 AM, the hum of traffic going off to work began. I stayed tucked in my bike and hike sleeping bag until 8 AM, when I figured most of them would be off the road and at work. No use getting out there on the road with our little touring bikes and battling with all the commuters if we can avoid it. Sharon wondered if we should be worried about early morning dog walkers finding us in our wild camping spot, but I reminded her that the most they could do was tell us to leave ... and we were leaving anyway. We pedalled down the road to buy Muslix cereal for breakfast and a box of powdered cinnamon doughnuts. That's what I call fuel for touring cyclists. One wouldn't want to eat too healthy. Milk seems expensive; it costs twice as much as pop. We cycled along Hwy 3, the Talbot Route, which roughly follows the Lake Erie shoreline. There is a noticeable absence of cottages along the waterfront. We decided this was the case because it is farmland. When we stopped for breakfast, following tire tracks through a farmer's field lined with oak, weeping willow and tulip trees, we came to the edge of Lake Erie and realized why there are no cottages. It is a drop of fifty to seventy-five feet to the water's surface. It would be kind of difficult to get to the boat. When we were riding our bikes along, looking out at the lake, we couldn't see the cliff. The road parallels the shore and the water looks so close. Spread out a plastic sheet, we had a stunning view. The sun is hot. Pedalling along, in the middle of nowhere, I have to go to the washroom. As we cycle along, I am wishing for anything to turn up where I can relieve my bowels. I start to pray. I spot an outhouse behind an old brick church. I pull in and lean my bike against an ancient oak tree, then scurry to the outhouse building which is nestled between pine trees that I have to squeeze around. The door faces weathered planks of rough hewn wood; I consider leaving the door open for an airy experience. The outhouse is a two-holer. One for you and one for a very close friend? It turns out that it is a combination men and women's outhouse. The hole on the left is obviously the men's -- a bare board. It is covered with a round cut wooden lid that secures the hole from offensive odors re-entering the outhouse. The right side hole has a plush cushy pink padded seat. After weighing my options, I decide that I am androgynous enough to use the pink padded seat and plop myself down on the comfy commode. Spider webs cover a good portion of the interior. They even cover the roll of toilet paper. I tear off some paper to wipe the cobwebs from around the seat and also check under the seat. No sense in letting a spider bite my unmentionables as they swing freely over the abyss. As I sit there I have a mixture of emotions ranging from relief in finding this spot to tranquility of sitting in the solitude with the door swung open to reveal a clear blue sky. I watch traffic zoom past through the cracks in the boards. Suddenly, apprehension cuts my solitude short. Spiders, both large and small, appear from cracks and crevices. As I abruptly stand, my shorts fall around my ankles and onto a large black ant scurrying across the planked floor. I pick up my shorts and give them a vigorous shake. The large black ant is nowhere to be found. Great. I hope it isn't looking for a new crack to call home. I scuttle out the door. Sharon asks how the facilities are. Posh, I say. She happily trundles off to check out the outhouse. There hasn't been fresh produce in the stores we've encountered lately. There is lots of pop though. As we cycle past a roadside fruit stand, Sharon gives the unanimous signal to stop. We swing our loaded touring bikes off the road to see if we can load them up any heavier than they already are. We succeed when we buy a ripe melon. The woman working at the fruit stand chose it for us, after asking us if we wanted to it eat right away. She picked up melons and smelled the end of the melon where it was attached to the vine, its bellybutton, or navel, I suppose it may be termed. Then, declaring the one we bought as being the best ripe one of the lot, she held it triumphantly aloft. We also bought a basket of this season's apples and plums. Oh yeah, and a cucumber, some tomatoes, and a big block of cheese. If that doesn't make one wobble on their bicycle, nothing will. Happy with our purchases, we jump back on our more heavily loaded touring bicycles and head for Rondeau Provincial Park. The park officer's name is Todd. He is interested in our bike journey. We pedalled into the campground and found where Todd had said to help ourselves to showers. After we were squeaky clean -- I even washed my clothes and then put them back on -- we cycled down an extra-smooth maximum 40 kph road to find the best picnic site in the area. After cycling about three kilometres to a beach along Lake Erie we found a table out on the beach. There are not many people around, even though this park has an accumulation of summer cottages -- most people must be at work during the day. Even the campground was deserted. As we pull our touring bicycles to a stop, the sun and wind feel good. The tiny biting flies do not. We try to eat, but the biting flies are driving these cycle tourists to distraction. As we are ready to abandon our picnic, Todd drives up. He says he has everyone in the park on alert for us. He has been looking for us since we left the office. He brought out pins and patches for us, commemorating the Park's 100th anniversary. He said he asked his boss if we could stay for free in the campground and his boss said sure anywhere we want. We decided to take Todd up on his offer and chose a site a few down from the showers. After setting up our bicycle touring tent, we took a walk on the Tulip Tree Trail. I finally figured out where they get the tulip name. It is not the shape of the tree as I had first thought, but rather it is the shape of each leaf. The leaves are in the shape of a tulip head. It kind of resembles a rounded off maple leaf. The mosquitoes on the trail were horrendous; we ran the last part of the one and a half kilometre trail. Sharon rode her bike, with empty panniers, to a store. She returned with two litres of chocopolitan ice cream. That turned out to be our supper. Even though we had cycled all day, we were too full to eat anything else after that. Sharon started to clean her bike. I oiled my chain. That's about the extent of my bike maintenance. Before we could finish, the mosquito brigade came out in full force. I dove into the tent. Sharon continued long into the night, becoming a virtual mosquito feast, before finally going mad and heading off for another shower. I think she has some perverse idea that she can save the showers up. The squirrels are jet black with long bushy tails. A couple of them were chasing each other around and around a tree trunk, just like a pair of cartoon characters. The weather forecast is for 17º C overnight and a high tomorrow of 24º C, clear and sunny for the next two days. Sounds good to me. After that we should be in Toronto at Michelle's. A breeze is rustling through the treetops. No leaves have turned here yet, except for one branch along the shoreline today that I had noticed as I cycled along, had turned golden yellow. Sharon calls the towns around here "paper-thin." The towns consist of houses on one or two sides of the street. The towns are long and skinny with no depth to them. They all like to see the water, but even away from the water all the houses have farms in their backyard. The land here is pancake flat. Flatter than the prairies. Riding from Edmonton to Calgary would be hilly compared to here. We do our daily cycling mileage and are not the least bit tired compared to cycle touring in the mountains with shorter distances. Today we did 90 kilometres and it felt like a ride in the park. No wonder they can do humongous bicycle touring distances here. As I look up at our tent walls glowing in the candle light, I feel secure. The tent represents security to me -- even though I know who of those frisky squirrels could tear it apart. It does give us shelter from the elements though: wind, rain, cold. It is amazing how warm it is inside the tent compared to just outside that thin fabric. Our candle lantern warms it up even more. It is comforting and comfortable. I love bicycle touring. The moon is almost half-full tonight. We should be able to see lots of stars since there aren't any major light sources around. That's another great thing about bicycle touring -- it doesn't take long to leave civilization behind and get back to nature. |
