Lake Erie

It was a sort of a spur of the moment decision, though admittedly I had been toying with the notion of riding around another of the great lakes. For the benefit of readers that haven’t been with me from the first post on this blog, I started this blog off with a ride around Lake Huron. It’s the Victoria Day long weekend, also known as the May long weekend for those of us of a more republican disposition. It’s Saturday evening and I have spent the day doing the frivolous things that a home owner does, sorting out blocked eaves troughs, planting herbs, buying groceries and getting the irrigation system working after the winter. My mind has however turned to the more serious matters of motorcycle riding, “what to do, where to go?” Google Maps indicates that I could do a round trip of Lake Erie in two days. Hard riding to be sure, but I decide to give it a go. I will leave on Sunday morning early and aim to get back Monday night, in time for the annoying fireworks that get fired off to celebrate the birthday of a constitutional monarch that died more than a hundred years ago and who never bothered, not once, to visit her faithful subjects in Canada. That all said, a statutory holiday in spring and the Boulevard all serviced and with new spark plugs, I couldn’t care if it was called Genghis Khan Day!

On Sunday morning the fart of sparrow comes and goes and I fritter away the time with packing lunch, packing clothes, polishing boots, shaving, showering and making breakfast (not to mention hitting the snooze button three times), eventually it’s 9 a.m. and I hit the road. I am  little disgusted with myself, really there is no reason why I didn’t get going two hours earlier, but as a wise boss I once worked for used to say, “we are where we are”. I take the 404 south to the 401 westbound, my goodness does the 401 ever sleep? It’s 9.30 on a Sunday morning and already it is damn nearly bumper to bumper, can this be church traffic? I somehow doubt it…no hats. I take the QEW, named for another constitutional monarch, but who has at least actually visited a few times. Now the trouble really starts, not only is it bumper to bumper, but grinds to a halt on a regular basis, and seems not to be able to get above 40 km/h. Then one of those information signs indicates that the road becomes very slow after Burlington road, they mean worse that the stop start hell I am in now, so I escape the motorway just after the Burlington sky bridge onto the regional road 20.

Lake Erie - from Ridgeway

Not a bad choice as things turn out, it’s a pleasant ride, much nicer than the sterile and now clogged QEW, not quite as picturesque as the roads I ride to the north of Newmarket, and straight as a die, mostly farm lands with very little forest. This is prime farming land, the more interesting rides tend to be in areas that are too rocky for farming, still it’s nice and the occasional vineyard and orchard reminds me of the valleys in the Stellenbosch area in the Cape of Good Hope. I remember being somewhat surprised when I first arrived in this part of the world to discover that Ontario has a vigorous wine industry, and indeed makes some pretty decent wines. The Trius brand do a fabulous oak matured chardonnay, really good, crisp yet buttery. They also market a wine called Truis Red, it is a superb ‘drinking’ wine at a mere $22 a bottle, it’s a Merlot /Cab Franc/Cab Sav blend aged in oak. There are a few other pretty good brands and then there is the ice wine which is a desert wine, similar in taste to the noble rot wines of the Cape. It is produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. The sugars and other dissolved solids do not freeze, but the water does, resulting in a smaller amount of more concentrated, very sweet wine, it’s not bad at all. Of course they make some pretty horrid plonk, the French Cross brand comes to mind.

The 20 takes me right into the City of Niagara, from the least salubrious side of town, and this is a somewhat seedy place to start with. A few rub and tug joints advertise their services with almost no pretense at being anything else. I am no prude and make no judgements, but I haven’t seen anything quite so blatant in Canada so far. Niagara is a place devoted to the less cerebral side of life anyway. I have a bit of an odd relationship with the town, I think it is a truly ugly place that ruins the sense of awe one has at seeing the falls, which are utterly spectacular. Ugly and nasty though the garish attractions, shops and casinos are, the place has some great memories for me. I brought my daughter here for a weekend to celebrate her 21^st birthday, we had a lot of fun together. It is also the place where as a family we walked across the Rainbow Bridge to the USA, in order to ‘leave ‘ Canada so that we could return to do our first landing as immigrants rather than temporary workers and students. An odd ritual, but it was fun and significant in its own way, especially as it was February, about 25 degrees below, snowing and blowing a gale.

 I thought that Niagara would be a good place to start the Lake Erie trip. Stop for a few pictures of the falls then ride onto the shores of the lake, perhaps at the Peace Bridge. Scratch that idea, Niagara is heaving, wall to wall people and almost grid locked roads. It takes me an age to get through the town and past the falls. I only manage to get a glimpse of the falls from the corner of my eye, there is no way I’m going to stop, find parking and walk with the throng. It was clearly a silly idea and I could have saved myself a good deal of time and frustration by taking the 406 and meeting up with Lake Erie at Port Colborne.  Eventually I get through and ride along the Niagara River on Niagara Parkway and end up in Fort Erie. I have visited the fort before, it’s interesting and worth a visit. For most of the war of 1812 it was held by the Americans, under siege by the Canadians, perhaps more accurately the British. I just ride past today and look over a narrow stretch of lake to the city of Buffalo, then find Highway 3 and travel west.

With all the slow traffic and getting away later than planned I am several hours behind schedule. It is already almost 1 o’clock, I am hungry and have progressed almost no distance along the lake. The chance of making it to Toledo (about half way around) by this evening is zero unless I abandon the scenic routes entirely and take the motorway… hardly a lake ride, so I make peace with a reduced ambition and stop for lunch at a public park in Ridgeway. The park is on the lake shore, but not really a beach. I take my packed lunch of chicken and steamed vegetable and a tin of diet ginger ale - I’m trying the Paleolithic eating plan, high fat and protein almost zero carbs – find a spot on some rocks under a tree with a good view of the lake. There are several large family groups of Indians, not the First Nation kind, but folks that originate from the Indian sub-continent. I have noticed this about Indians, they love to picnic and they do it so well, they cook full on meals that fill the air with mouthwatering aromas. I love good Indian food, my lunch, whilst satisfying is not lamb curry with fresh steaming roti… oh well I’ve got to get rid of some of the ballast around my waist. It’s interesting to observe these family groups, mostly there are at least three generations. The grandmothers all wear sarees, and the grandfathers wear trousers with a sort of safari jacket, the parents are a mix of that and standard western casuals wear, some of the younger women are wearing very colourful stylish sarees, clearly a fashion statement and the younger set wear exactly what all the other Canadian kids wear. I even see one teenage boy sporting a pair of jeans in that ghastly fashion, hanging off his ass, underpants showing.  What is odd is that the teens and younger children all speak English to each other and to their parents, whilst the older generations converse in some or other Indian language. 

Lunch done I ride north to get back to highway 3, next stop is Dunnville on the Grand River. Another interesting piece of history. After serving the British during the American Revolution (or War of Independence) Joseph Brant, a Mohawk chief despite the English name, led his band of Mohawks and other Six Nation’s people from New York State where they faced persecution for fighting for the British, to this part of Southern Ontario. The Haldimand Proclamation granted them land on the left and right banks of the Grand River from the shores of Erie, north to the source of the river.  A total of 3,800 square kilometers. Today there remains an area of only 190 square kilometers near to the town of Brantford (named after Joseph Brant) under First Nation control. As good a tale of treachery, corruption, fraud and broken promises as you are every likely to read.

The Haldimand Proclamation as surveyed in 1821 

At Dunnville I part company with highway 3, and take regional road 3 instead, hoping to see a bit more variety, be closer to the lake and maybe encounter a twisty or two. So far since leaving the QEW it has been mostly farm lands with very limited patches of forest. Nice enough, but it gets a bit monotonous… that ambition of riding across Canada to Vancouver through the Prairies, several thousand kilometers of same, same, grass and more grass, maybe a rethink on that one’s due. Regional road 3 keeps pretty much to the pattern, straight, farmlands and parallel to the lake, but not close enough to see it. There is actually a road that hugs the shore, but poor planning and not looking properly at the map on my part, I missed it, damn. I’ll put that info away for another ride. Highway 3 takes me through a lot of little hamlets like Sweets’s Corner and Selkirk, little too many for my liking, barely get up some speed and have to slow down to 50 km/h.

By mid-afternoon I reach Port Dover. This is a bit of a motorcyclists’ destination. On any warm enough Friday 13^th all and sundry that own a motorcycle head to Port Dover, probably something invented by the Port Dover chamber of commerce. Personally I am adverse to crowds so it doesn’t tickle my fancy. Port Dover turns out to be a typical seaside town, albeit actually just lakeside. It reminds me of Sauble Beach (http://not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2014/09/closing-loop.html) crowded beach, lots of scantily clad people, some beautiful and others not so much, shops selling completely useless junk, pubs and restaurants...and no shortage of motorcycles. It’s nice, but not really my sort of place anymore, I’m too old and too grumpy. I had a notion of staying over, but decide that it’s not where I want to spend the night, besides I have not actually traveled far enough along the lake. Port Dover is not even a third of the length of the north shore of Lake Erie. My ambition to circumnavigate the whole lake in a mere two days seems a little ridiculous now, but Port Stanley, about a hundred km away seems to me to be a destination that at least would be a little bit honorable.   

Port Dover

By now I have realized that I have ridden the less scenic route so far, but I am tired, hungry and my ass is sore so I decide to take the most direct route to St.Thomas, then to head south to the lake shore and overnight at Port Stanley. I’m back on Highway 3 and travelling at a pretty good speed. It’s straight and relatively un-interesting. My mind wanders a bit to the name of the town ahead, St. Thomas. I’m not sure, but it is probably named after St. Thomas Aquinas. He of the five proofs of the existence of God, the arguments from bullshit baffles brains, very tiresome tortuous reasoning. I wouldn’t have too much of an issue with this particular saint if all he was guilty of was woolly thinking, and who wasn’t back in the 13^th century, but his stance on heretics reveals his true colors. ‘With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death.’ I am guessing the man was a humorless, mass murderer in the name of god, devoid of a single drop of the milk of human kindness, of course being a decent human being is not a prerequisite for sainthood.

St. Thomas, Ontario, on the other hand, seems to be a nice enough town, though I don’t really get to see a whole lot of it. I had wanted to see the life sized statue of the world’s most famous elephant, but tired and sore of ass as explained I give it a miss. St. Thomas is where poor Jumbo met his end, at the relatively young age for a pachyderm of 24 years. He was killed by a freight train whilst crossing the tracks on his way to his own boxcar after a circus act, as the guys at GO Transit say, “Crossing the tracks at platform level is both dangerous and illegal.”

The short distance from St. Thomas to Port Stanley is quite a scenic little route with the encouraging name of Sunset Drive. It traverses some expensive looking areas residential areas, golf courses, bits of forest and so on, a peasant ride and hopefully the end of my day’s ride, I have not booked ahead so who knows. The town is at the bottom of a gentle incline which makes for a nice feeling of arriving from the hills. As I enter the town the air becomes cooler as expected, freshened by the lake. A thin mist has rolled in making it even cooler and lending it an aura of a seaside fishing village. Well that’s not actually inaccurate, it is engaged in fishing and Lake Erie (like all the great lakes) is more like a freshwater inland sea that a mere lake. Despite the mist it is evident that Port Stanley is a much more genteel place than Port Dover. I pass a theatre, a few art galleries and some expensive boutiques, clearly the arts take precedence over beach gear, tattoos and T-shirts. Now I would hardly classify myself as a particularly upmarket person, but I do prefer this sort of place to the Port Dovers and Sauble Beaches of the world.

Port Stanley - an artier place

A short ride around town yields up only a few places to stay, no doubt there are more than I can see, but between the mist and my tiredness I don’t try too hard.  The Kettle Creek Inn looks like a good option and they have one room left. A little expensive, but they do discount it for me as I am alone and the rate is generally for two, bed and continental breakfast. It is a lovely little place, fresh and clean, beautifully decorated, quaint, but modern in the things that need to be modern. There are no room numbers, rather the rooms are named after local artists, I get the Dobson room, and indeed there are several watercolors by Diana Dobson in the room. I am not sure if they are originals or very good quality prints, not entirely my taste, but very good nonetheless. I Google the artist and find some more of her stuff, http://www.portstanleyartguild.com/artist/diane-dobson. It’s an interesting idea to promote local artists… as I said this is an artsy town.

Port Stanley in the mist

The mist lifts and the sun is still up when I take a walk around, it’s a very pretty little village, but not a great deal to see and not much is open, it is after all a Sunday evening and it is still out of season. There is a guy singing and playing guitar in the courtyard of a restaurant, Stanley Tapas and Grill. I decide to have some supper there as the music is the type of thing I like, sort of Jack Johnson sound. The musician is also a talented performer that knows how to interact with his audience. It’s great, but by now I am really hungry, and now find myself studiously ignored by all six waiters (five young ladies and a middle aged man). They seem to be rushing around in a bit of a frenzy as if there is a huge rush on the go, but the place is not in the least bit full, I count 23 patrons in all, that’s less than four per waiter and all patrons are laid back listening to the music. I wonder what sort of froth they get their pee in when things really get busy. After about 25 minutes I get noticed, the last 10 of which I have been waving at the waiters as they bustled past me. I ask if they have Scotch, the young lady does not know, so calls over the middle aged man, I ask if they have Johnny Walker perhaps, “Yes,” he says, “but that’s not Scotch, it’s more like Irish whiskey.” Really, I’m sure that he has just offended two nations in one sentence, but I don’t argue, and order a double with ice and club soda on the side. I order chicken wings, it seems to be a good option that doesn’t have carbs. It takes another 15 minutes for the drink to arrive, now anyone that serves club soda on the side accompanying whisky should know that a limp slice of lime hanging over the rim of the glass of club soda is not required or even wanted. I don’t want a hint of lime with my Scotch, if indeed what I have is Scotch. I am not an expert whisky taster, but this tastes rather like bourbon to me. Still it’s cold and alcoholic so I deal. Another 20 minutes pass and finally I see the waitress with my wings emerge from the kitchen, only to be called back in. Five minutes goes by and she comes out again, this time with my supper as well as someone else’s… a time and motion specialist would certainly approve. The wings were not grilled as I had expected, but deep fried in batter, cold and totally drowned in gooey sauce that is not spicy in the slightest as I thought I had ordered. Perhaps my fault for not establishing how they are prepared, still, not a good way to make wings.  I ask for the bill as by now the singer has taken a break and I have eaten three wings and the celery, enough to take the edge off my hunger and the paltry two paper napkins provided are saturated with goo… a further 25 minutes wait ensues, but by now it is in line with expectations. The bill charges me for Jim Beam Kentucky bourbon… Jim/Johnny, Beam/Walker WTF am I so picky about?

I return to the Inn and after ablutions climb into bed and enjoy a deep sleep only periodically disturbed by a hen party going on in one of the rooms down the hall. Vaguely I note the point that things go from happy squeals of laughter to tears of drunken regrets. In the morning an abandoned handbag, shoes and wallet litter the hallway, no doubt heads will be hurt when it’s time for rise and shine. I’m not keen on the baked goods breakfast I could help myself to, but I’m able to get a cheese omelet and an excellent Americano at the coffee shop across the road.   

Interesting house  in Port Stanley

I have mapped out a route home, straight north until I reach the 401 motorway, east until Guelph, north to Orangeville via Fergus, then home through Hockley Valley. It’s a pleasant three and a half hour ride and I’m home for lunch. Altogether the trip has been just over 700 km, not anywhere close to the ideal of riding around the lake, but it’s been fun and I’ve learned a few things.

One Week in May

By the time I’m able to slide backwards down the drive on the Boulevard its noon and the Sunday action has got going in earnest around here. The good folks of Newmarket are walking dogs, cycling, driving and the occasional dulcet tones of Vans & Hines pipes on V-twins rents the air…lovely. The gardeners are also out, that season has started albeit with caution, mid-May frost is not unheard of.  A smell of cow shit pervades the area, someone has ordered a load of manure.  Indeed it is that time of year when this part of the world goes BOING, it will happen this week, all the signs are there. I too have been busy gardening in my own way, background stuff, like emptying and sieving the composters, a big job by any standard, and yesterday I laid a 170 square foot concrete slab (with assistance from the eldest of the offspring). As the cliché goes, I ache in places I didn’t know I have. Still, sprits are high, the weather is great and the road calls me by name.

I’m still just revisiting the good rides of the area, easing into the season. It’s all a little familiar, except that in so many ways it isn’t. The scenery changes all the time here and some of the spots I’m visiting I last saw in the dying days of last fall, it’s like different places all together. I realize that I can’t always ride new routes every time I get on the motorcycle, there are just not that many different routes to follow for a ride after work or even for a Sunday outing. That’s ok, it’s not necessarily about the destinations. So bear with me if I write about places I’ve taken you before – there will be plenty of rides to the as yet unvisited before the season is through. Today I’m heading to The Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park area, I want to ride the Kawartha regional roads 503 and 507, two really fabulous roads for motorcycling. Gorgeous scenery, decent pavement and lots of curves, some of them heart-stoppingly tight.

                                           Still grey, but promise of spring

Getting to the 503 is a couple of hours ride. I’m in the mood to take it relatively easy, so I take the country roads through farmlands punctuated by forests. It’s still mostly grey and brown, but there is a sheen of light green on the trees in the forests. It’s the buds, everything is in bud, the darling buds of May, darling because I have had about enough of grey and brown, spring has been too long in coming, and it is all scheduled to burst forth this week. The ride though the farmlands is also great, all the spring activities are on the go, animals in the fields instead of in barns, tractors plowing and fields with rows and rows of green dots as crops start to push through the soil. I know that what I am looking at is not nature at her best, but something of an industrial process, mainly to produce inputs to other industrial processes that produce the semi-poisons (like high fructose corn syrup) that here in North America we call food. Still there is a nice rural feel to it, that re-assuring cycle of seasons is… well re-assuring.   

From the road to Kawartha Highlands

I’ve been looking forward to this ride as the Boulevard was serviced this past week and it’s always nice to ride just after a service to feel the added smoothness and how everything jells just a little better. But it isn’t working out that way, the bike feels ‘out of tune’, and performance is not there, it has been declining over the last few hundred kilometres and the service hasn’t improved matters. I know why and I am annoyed and to some extent it is spoiling the ride. I am annoyed with the dealer and annoyed with myself, perhaps more with myself. I have so far treated the maintenance and service of the Boulevard much as I have treated that of my car…more or less when a service is due I take it to the dealer and I assume that the mechanics do their bit and let me know when the next service is due. When I booked this service the person taking the booking asked me what service I wanted, I gave them the mileage and asked what service was required. This seemed to throw him a bit, but after consulting something on his side, he advised that the ‘spring special’ will be fine. When I took the motorcycle in for the service I was told that actually the ‘spring special’ does not quite cover what I need, the spark plugs need changing. So I accepted the additional quote of about $200, but when I came to collect the motorcycle I was advised that they don’t have the spark plugs in stock and would need to order in. So now I’m riding and the engine is as ropey as all hell and I’m annoyed.

Lake Simcoe, Ice has melted

It’s been awhile since I wrote a Chautauqua, a la Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance and actually what I have to say is very much what Persig wrote about, until now I have just never thought  quite how much it applied to me. Persig weaves a theme of quality throughout the book, and what it means to different people. There are the ‘romantics’ that view quality from the perspective of the exterior, whereas Persig views quality from the ‘classical’ perspective, he needs to how the parts fit together and work in order to assess quality. I have been adopting the romantic approach, having a wonderful time riding the Boulevard, but expecting that others will take care of maintenance. Now in the complex technological world we live in there are definitely many areas that even the most devoted classical thinker has no choice, but to revert to the romantic approach. I believe that on the whole I am more classical then romantic, but I have been wrong with the motorcycle, mechanical failure can have dangerous results, much worse that a ropey engine on a Sunday ride. I decide that this is about to change.

The quality experience I have had with the dealer, and this isn’t the first hiccup, makes me concerned about the quality of the work that is going down on my motorcycle when services are done. Do the mechanics have the same sloppy attitude to my machine as the person that looks after inventory? After all the showroom has several brand new motorcycles just like mine, so the call for this specific part must be a regular occurrence. I wonder if the mechanics attitude to short-cuts is like the guy that took the booking and didn’t actually bother to look up the service record, and if their dedication to quality is like the service manager that promised me the spark plugs are on order and I’ll be contacted before the end of the week… that didn’t happen. In my day job I implement ERP/financial systems, over the years I have been doing this I have been exposed at very close quarters to many organizations. I’ve found that if careless attitudes are tolerated in one part of the organization, you will find it all over, and where a culture of pride in the job exists, it generally will be pervasive.

Quality is not an easy concept to define and Persig spends many pages exploring the concept in Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance, so for this short blog, I’m going to go with, “you know quality when you see or feel it”. It’s the difference between a factory made chest of drawers and a hand crafted one from the Mennonite furniture store. I know the quality of care the Boulevard and I are getting, and it is not anywhere close to Mennonite furniture quality, not even IKEA, it is Walmart pressed wood chips and it’s not good enough. I resolve to take the maintenance manual and work my way through it and see what I can do, and what I can at least check on if I have to pass it over to the tender mercies of the ‘professional’ mechanics. Starting with spark plugs.

                                                  Burnt River near Kinmount 

I have brought a tin of sugar free ginger ale and a snack of cheese and walnuts with me, I’m stopped at Kinmount, the starting point of the 503, to eat and drink and enjoy the warm weather. There is no shortage of motorcycles out and about, as well as hobby cars (I think I am coining a phrase here, cars that people own for weekend drives, like restored Mustangs, 1950’s pick-up trucks and so on). Kinmount is a nice little village, quite picturesque, but to my dismay I discover that it does not have a gas station. I am running rather low so I hope I’ll make to the next hamlet, Irondale, which apparently

has one. The ride up to Irondale on the 503 is as good as I imagined it would be. Well into the Canadian Shield, I have left farming land behind, hill and forests, lakes and ponds, thankfully none still ice bound, line the route. Eeverywhere the deciduous trees are in bud and that lovely light green sheen promises good things are coming.

There is indeed a gas station at Irondale, but they have run out of premium grade, so I am forced to put in regular as there is just no way I’ll make it to the next gas station, damn. I put in just enough to
get me half way home. Now the motor really feels rough, but perhaps it’s just my imagination. A little way further on the 503 and I take the 507 south. This is the real McCoy, it’s a great experience to weave through the hills. I have one bad moment, one of the curves has another road joining it in a T-junction and there is a nasty patch of gravel just where I should be leaning my way through the corner. Happily I spot the gravel and turn tight to miss it. From then on I keep an extra beady eye out for gravel. The regional road 507 ends, far too soon, at a junction with regional road 36, which I follow west to Bobcaygeon, then to Fenlon Falls where I stop for gas. Fill up with premium grade so hopefully the octane in the tank is acceptable. I’m home before dinner. The ride was good, but I decide not to ride again until the spark plus have been changed.

It’s Saturday and a week has flown past, busy as all hell at work, hardly had the time for a ride, but I have acquired the requisite spark plugs and an appropriate socket to do the job, total outlay including socket $45. A two minuet call to the local NAPA outlet and they ordered the plugs and got them in within four hours of my call. I’m still waiting for the Suzuki dealer to contract me. I’ve read the manual, at least on the section on how to change the plugs and feel ready to go. I’m not entirely sure if I needed to remove the seat and gas tank, but with that out the way I have a bit more room to work. The part that stumps me for a bit is removing the cover on top of the cylinders, they are chromed pieces of plastic and the manual says “unhook the clips and remove the cover”.  Clips? Unhook? For the life of me I see and feel no clips to unhook. But I am a resourceful fellow and figure out that what they should have written in the manual is “grasp the cover, wiggle and pull a little more than gently”. It’s an easy job and I have it all wrapped up in less than an hour. Flipping the ignition switch I’m rewarded by an engine that sounds the way it should, appreciate the advice Mr. Persig.

Blossoms - crab apple in our front yard 

It’s a warm afternoon, little windy and maybe a few rain drops in the offing, but otherwise a perfect day to ride. I head up to Barrie, to meet Helena at the Harley dealership to get her 883 Sportster out from winter storage. What a nice ride, as predicted spring has sprung. It is hard to describe quite what happens in just one week here every year in the early part of May. The light green sheen on the trees I spoke about is now full blown leaves, the grass in the meadows seems to have turned from brown to green and there are blossoms everywhere. In our own garden ferns have erupted like fountains, and the hostas are coming out all over. The gardeners’ curse, dandelions are in yellow bloom, lovely to behold, but nasty to control. I once heard someone say that this makes up for the winter, it doesn’t, but it is a wonderful thing to experience every year, and perhaps the true start to the riding season.  

Grey no more - in just one week in May

   

17°C feels like 17°C.

Today is the best weather I have experienced since September last year, or so it feels (holiday in Namibia excluded of course!) The weather report has been promising this for several days and so far there has been no significant amendment. This is a day to ride no mistake, though it starts off cold. I’m awake at 7a.m. and there is frost on the ground, but no wind and it's sunny. I settle in front of my computer and do a few hours of work while the world warms up. The others in this family are late risers, even the wiener dogs (actually they are the least keen to rise and shine), so the house is quiet. I open the door to the back yard and enjoy the moment alone with my thoughts, my demons are silent and I can just listen to the birds and watch a squirrel in the tree thrash his tail from side to side. Ah yes, it feels like spring may actually be here.

                               Spring in Muskoka, maybe not quite there 

I don the special Kevlar jeans, despite the poor cut, these will keep me warm enough without having to wear tights or rain gear and I think I can do with some extra protection, roads being as they are this time of year. T-shirt and a sweater for under the mesh jacket, double socks and I am ready. 11.45 a.m. I take off down the road sweating somewhat under the layers, but cool down by the time I reach my first stop… about 800 meters, to fill up gas and buy a couple of Red Bulls. I have decided on a turn through Muskoka, quite doable in an afternoon. I take an old favorite route and follow highway 27 to Barrie. Hunger gets to be by the time I pass through Thornton, there is a café in Thornton that has always looked interesting, so I stop there for lunch. The service is good, food is tasty even though the menu is not very original, I wish that this sort of establishment would discover that there is more that could be offered than burgers, wraps and various variations of Caesar salad. The waitress advises that the chicken Caesar will take in excess of twenty minutes, whilst the standard burger will be quicker. I go for faster… burger and ordinary Caesars salad, washed down with diet Pepsi. While I eat I can see out the window that I am not the only motorcycle rider taking advantage of the good weather, the old fart brigade is out in force… few younger farts as well.

The O.F. Brigade is out in force in Thornton

Tummy full, I head on north to join up with Highway 400 in the city of Barrie. The traffic is moving fast, but is relatively light and once the road splits from Highway 11 the condition of the pavement improves substantially. I noted last year that Highway 400 is in excellent condition from this point onwards, pity about the rotten piece south of Barrie, more or less to Toronto, the really busy section. The traffic is so light that here and there I can’t see any cars ahead, nor any behind, it’s weird, like a Steven King sort of weird. I half expect the Langoliers to start chomping up the highway behind me.

As I get further north and enter the Muskoka region, the reason for the dearth of traffic becomes clear. This is cottage country, but whereas we are at least starting to have spring, it is still winter here and what cottager wants to spend the weekend in winter when they are just starting to enjoy spring back home in Toronto. I’m fine with this, the Muskoka is really lovely even at this time of year when everything is grey… there is an eerie beauty and empty roads make up for lack of greenery. If you have been following these chronicles you’ll know that I have a high regard for the natural beauty of the region, however I have one big complaint, half of Toronto decamps here every weekend for as long as summer lasts and every little piece of water is almost entirely ringed by private property… and the traffic, goodness me, just bloody awful. The Friday afternoon traffic from Toronto is bumper to bumper and crawls at times, the Sunday afternoon traffic southbound is the same. So if you do ride this way in the summer do choose your ride times carefully.  

Lovely, but still winter 

Eerie Beauty

I’ve written before about the cottage culture, and at the risk of offending the affluent I will write some more. This desire we humans have to own land is funny when viewed from a certain perspective. Land ownership I think is our attempt to control our destiny and maybe achieve some sort of immortality, we call it real estate. I suspect in the end it’s a bit like fleas declaring ownership of the dog they live on. The older I get the more I realize the transitory nature of our stay on the planet, as individuals and as a species, all the title deeds in the world don’t amount to a mouse dropping in the face of our demise, personal and collective. I believe that in a world where everyone is striving to own more land and houses than they can live in at one time, is a world that is not sustainable. Demanding to own a piece of the natural beauty and fencing it off and building second homes is defacing the beauty you wanted to own in the first place. I guess I would like to be more free of the rat race, mortgage and the consumption society than I am (I’m not in the least bit free), a bit more easy-rider and less weekend wild hog character. Still all this ownership of the natural beauty offends the socialist in my soul….and clogs up the roads in summer in the loveliest places for motorcycle riding.    

I decide not to go as far as Parry Sound, but take Lake Joseph Road east towards Port Carling, picking up regional road 169.  I get the twists and turns I came this way for, but caution is the better part of valor, way more gravel than any self-respecting motorcycle rider likes to encounter, and even once a patch of ice. For the benefit of those that don’t ride, the tyres of a motor cycle have a half round profile, all the better for leaning as you zip around corners at reckless speeds. Unlike a car you only have a teensy bit of rubber in contact with the road, especially when cornering, as the center of gravity is not vertically over the tyres, so any loss of purchase means the bacon will meet the blacktop (hence the Kevlar jeans). To date I have been lucky and learned this lesson early in my riding career doing less than 20 km/h, on my first motorcycle, a 900 Kawasaki Vulcan… still no guarantees. All the same it is a great to ride and the little adrenaline rush on each decent corner is what it’s all about.   

Nice corner coming up

Lake Joseph is one of three largish lakes around here, Lake Muskoka and Lake Rousseau are the other two, but there are no shortages of smaller lakes, not that you can get anywhere close to a piece of water for private property signs. (Actually more like a piece of ice as it is all frozen still.) Though I seldom get to glimpse Lake Joseph, I know that I am following its shore south east to Port Carling, which is a pretty little village, if somewhat spread out along the highway. This is a bustling little touristy place in summer, a good place to sit on a verandah of a pub, have a good meal and a class of wine (or Pepsi if riding a motorcycle).

                                             Cottages surrounding iced lakes 

From Port Carling I head towards Bracebridge on the Frank Miller Memorial Route without a good idea who Frank Miller was, Google does not help with way too many Frank Millers and none with any real connection to Muskoka that I can see. There was a Frank Miller musician that made music with a group called The Easy Riders sometime back in the 1950’s, I kinda hope it is named for him, but somehow doubt it.  Bracebridge is a more substantial town, with a population of about 16,000, it is the ‘main’ town of the Muskoka district. It’s a nice enough place with an attractive old town centre, I believe several historical sites, a few waterfalls that are worth seeing and home to the Muskoka Cottage Brewery, brewers of some pretty fine beer. http://www.muskokabrewery.com/brewery.php. Unhappily the town has not escaped the unattractive developments that blight every town in Canada and make every town look like every other town, I refer to the strip malls that house Walmart, Home Depot, Wendy’s, Shoppers Drugmart and so on. Oh well I guess the good folks of Bracebridge have as much right to shop for cheap imports in garish, ugly, cheaply built shops surrounded by acres of parking as anyone else. It does, however, break the spell a little.

 The Bridge at Bracebridge 

Muskoka River

From Bracebridge I pick up Highway 11 and the 144 km dash home. There is a strong gusting wind, the variability of which makes for a few heart stopping moments as I suddenly discover I am over or under correcting. On the whole the Boulevard holds the road pretty well, assisted I suppose by a bit more ballast than is ideal from the not-so-easy rider. It’s a long more or less straight road, only moderately busy and with the need to go from 100 km/h to 140 in a heartbeat, arising at satisfactory intervals. As I cruise past Lake Simcoe I can see a little bit of water around the edge, but it is still mostly frozen and when the wind blows across from the lake I can feel the drop in temperature. I once had a romantic thought of moving to a place on the shores of Simcoe so that I could spend my days looking over the water while I worked. I’m not entirely sure about that anymore.      

Yippee, Yippee, Yip.

It is April 1, April Fool’s Day and I guess I could be labeled accordingly. I am standing in the foyer of Barrie Harley Davidson at 5.30 in the afternoon taking delivery of my motorcycle from winter storage, it is 5 degrees or thereabouts. Still the weather forecast looks like after a cool Thursday, Friday, Good Friday no less, may deliver up a few hours of decent motorcycling weather. It would appear that I am not the only fool in these parts, as fetching motorcycles from winter storage is a popular activity today.  I have heard the lovely, dulcet tones of v-twins around the neighborhood over the past few days, and caught the odd glimpse of an intrepid biker. The reason why I suggest we are fools is because spring may be sprung in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, it has not yet done so here. No sir, no sprung spring to be found in Canada, (except maybe for the coastal region of British Columbia, where it is warm but wet). Still I am dressed in layers and wearing the raingear green regalia, the sun is shining a sort of, watery cheer through some wispy cloud and the Boulevard is shiny and clean, tyres pumped, battery charged and waiting for me to climb on. What more could a chap ask for?

Black is black, I got my baby back... Oh yeah. 

I am clearly out of practice, and put my helmet down on the concrete paving upside down, scratching the visor with a long vertical line down the middle. Man I am so annoyed with myself. That scratch is going to irritate me every time a wear the thing until I buy a new one, I cannot fathom why I did that. I’m also not used to all the layers and feel like the Michelin Man, but once I am on the bike everything just falls into place. Yippee, Yippee, Yip! I have heard it said that there is nothing as good for the inside of a person as the outside of a good horse, which may be so, but as my ass makes contact with that motorcycle saddle the world suddenly seems to be a better place.

I take it easy as I ride out into the road, letting things warm up and getting the lubricants to all the places they are supposed to be, motorcycle wise, of course. Ok, I’m just spit-balling here, I’m an accountant and not a mechanic and really have no clue what I am talking about, but somehow running her gently seems like a good idea. Actually the motor seems to be running a little ropey, not quite misfiring, but everything is not jelling as it should. There is a service in the very near future and I guess the fuel stabilizer and 5 months without the motor running would have some effect. Anyway as I progress down the road I imagine that things get better, the gunk gets shot out the exhaust. I head down Highway 27, for now avoiding the motorway, neither of us is ready for that balls-to-the wall experience.  It is fairly busy, commuter traffic, mostly heading north in the opposite direction to where I am going. Now and then I open the throttle a bit and the Boulevard responds like a race horse, I like it, oh yes I do. When I reach the turn-off to go home I find that I am quite unable to make the turn, it is as if the Boulevard decides things for itself, we ride a detour down to King City following Weston Road, then head back north on Jane street. I’m home by 6.45… supper then do some work until 10 p.m. – I need to pay the piper.

Good Friday arrives, I wake up to the sound of birdsong and open the blinds to a sunny morning. The mercury registers not very far above zero. The weather report has downgraded the outlook for the weekend considerably, but today is going to be ok, at least until this evening, it is expecting to hit 10 Celsius by midday, then steadily drop. Precipitation tonight, rain, maybe snow or ice pellets, this time of year one just does not know, management is quite fucked up, frozen yogurt falling from the skies would not surprise me. I plan to head out at midday so spend the morning doing a run-walk-run for a few kilometers along the Holland River trail, then walk the Dachshunds around Fairy Lake with my prettier half. The birds are on the wing, there is pairing off and nest building, avian sex is going on and the folks of Newmarket are walking/running/pushing strollers/dog walking/roller-skating/cycling/etc. on the trail, spring is promised, but just a promise so far.

I swear if you look closely there are buds!

I leave the house at about 12.30, I have some layers on, but it is warm enough to leave the raingear in the side boxes. The idea is to follow an old familiar route, around Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching, a round trip of about 230 km. Nice little warm up for the season. The first stretch is a dash up Highway 404 to where it ends just before Ravenshoe Rd, nice chance to shake off the cobwebs. I take Ravenshoe travelling east towards the hamlet of Udora. There is still plenty of snow on the ground and ice on top of pools that have formed, the land is waterlogged and frozen only a few inches down. Predominate colors are still dirty olive green, brown and grey. Nonetheless there is a sense that at the very least spring is coiled to be sprung, I can see that buds are forming and here and there a green shoot peaks out from under the gloom.  The roads are lousy with loose gravel and winter damage, cornering is a careful undertaking, but I manage to take a few nice twisties at a reasonable speed, the not-so-easy rider is back and loving it!

Waterlogged and icy

From Udora I head north to Beaverton, then follow the shore of Lake Simcoe, cottage country, however Simcoe is still frozen solid. I guess not solid enough for ice fishing (weird pastime), but the breeze that blows off the lake is really, really cold. Here on the lake shore it is still mid-winter. Lake Simcoe is an interesting piece of water very close to where I live, actually the Holland River that I ran next to this morning is one of the rivers that feeds it. It is quite large, not great lake scale of course, but there are points that you can stand on the edge and not see the other side, altogether it is about 722 square km, a fair sized slab of ice! There is one city and several towns on its shores and riding around it is a pretty decent ride. I stop for gas, get a cup of tea, take a pee and decide that it might now be cold enough to don the raingear. Lake Simcoe was originally known as Lake Toronto (well by us whities of course, the Indians called it something else, but we pronounced it “Toronto” which referred to the weirs made by the Indians in the narrows between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching to catch fish). This name was transferred to the city that grew up on the shores of Lake Ontario, so Sir John Graves Simcoe named the lake, “Simcoe", in 1793, ostensibly after his father… a likely tale if you ask me.

Spring on the shores of Lake Simcoe

Anyone for Hockey?

Just before Orillia I take Rama Road north to follow the shore of Lake Couchiching to Washago, though I only get to glimpse this lake, also frozen, a few times. Rama Road takes me through the Indian reservation of Rama. The smoke shops are closed, I am not sure if this is seasonal or Good Friday, but the casino seems to be open. Mmmm, I would venture a guess that a certain Nazarene, who didn’t have quite such a great Friday some time ago, would not be amused. Be that as it may, no bolts of lightning come down and I leave the gamblers to their business. At Washago I take highway 11 south towards Barrie and ultimately home.  By now the clouds have gathered and it looks like rain (or worse) is on the cards sooner than expected. I am very glad of the raingear, it keeps me warm even though I am travelling at 120-150 km/h and if the rain comes down at least I will be protected.

Highway 11 gives way to Highway 400, the traffic is moving at 130 km/h but the pavement is in terrible condition, cracks and potholes. This stretch of road was under construction last year and I haven’t been on it since then. Honestly, I can see no progress whatsoever, it is no longer under construction, but just as broken and crappy as before. WTF! Have the guys with the hard hats and orange vests merely been drinking tea? Really. Time for a short rant. I have never seen such a useless, wasteful industry as the construction industry in Canada, at least when it comes to government (federal, provincial or local) contracts. There needs to be a few public hangings. Here in the City of Newmarket, one of the major arterial roads has been under massive re-construction to add bus lanes and bus shelters for four years (yes that reads four years) and it is still nowhere near completion. My heart goes out to the many small businesses situated on Davis Drive that have gone bust or are hanging on by their fingernails. Another example is Toronto Union Station construction, still going strong and no sign of ending, four years on the go at least. I tell you public hangings are needed. We long suffering taxpayers and members of the public can sit around in the middle of the construction site fiascos, drink beer and knit sweaters while the useless and/or corrupt sods responsible for the mess are brought out and hanged from a gibbet, then we’ll see how fast the new appointees get the job done. Lickety-bloody-split, guaranteed.

The reality:

http://barrie.ctvnews.ca/businesses-closing-up-moving-on-because-of-construction-in-newmarket-1.1908677

The fantasy:

 

Just love these artists impressions

Rant for the day over…I make it home before the rain starts. And it does so start, ‘tis the season to get wet. 

Sad goodbyes

It is our last full day in Namibia and indeed being with my daughter, it will soon be back to Skype and WhatsApp… as they say, ‘every silver lining has a cloud’. I have tried with some success to keep the cloud out of mind, but it is getting more and more difficult. Still there is some lining left and the nine km hike through Khomas Hochland Hills remains un-hiked, by us at least.

Francolin, nicely camouflaged - Khomas Hochland Hills

We manage to rise and shine a little later than intended, eat a hurried breakfast, grab whatever bottles of water we can find, about 2 liters, and head out. Though it is still early in the morning it is already ominously warm, not the slightest of breezes troubles the air and not a single cloud drifts across the sky. The thought crosses my mind that this is the sort of day better suited to lazing next to swimming pools under canopies, sipping sweet cocktails with silly names like ‘Pink Nipples’, but we are here at the start of the trail and I am strictly a beer, wine and whisky guy anyway. It is a little over an hour later than I had wanted to start, but what the hell, nine km is not really a long distance, it is trivial. I have walked further than that in a shopping mall with my daughter, seeking the illusive perfect pair of jeans.

For some distance the trail is quite easy, it follows a dry river bed (it seems that dry river beds are the only type of river beds in this part of the world). We see lots of small bird life, it is still early enough for the birds to be out and about, as well as ostrich and a few warthogs before we stop for our first rest. I am hoping to see giraffe, oryx, red hartebeest, zebra, impala and kudu as well. I am hoping not to encounter hyena, buffalo, rhino, elephant, lions, leopards or any of the poisonous snake species that inhabit these parts. I have been led to believe that we are unlikely to encounter any really dangerous creatures here, except possibly snakes. This is black mamba country which is a pretty venomous creature and the fastest snake in Africa. I remember one Sunday morning, while serving in the South African Field Artillery in 1978 not all that far from here. Irrespective of religious affiliations, we conscripts had been gathered under a tree to listen to the Padre preach his stuff, when a black mamba slithered through the congregation. Well, a hand grenade could not have broken up the proceedings as effectively. I recall feeling a certain satisfaction at the serpent getting a tiny bit of his own back for all the centuries of slander at the hands of preachers like this one. Anyway, today I keep my eyes peeled for this sucker.

Follow the arrow... trees grow where ever they can

Delightful spider web

After a short rest we follow the trail upwards and the going gets a bit tougher as we get into the hills. It’s steep enough and challenging enough for your regular city slicker to feel a little like a Camel man, without having to actually suck on a cancer stick, but not tough enough to make the slicker regret doing the hike – ‘nice balance’, I think. The scenery is nothing short of magnificent once we reach a high enough point and get to look down on the valleys and sides of other hills. We even get a view of the city nestling in a valley far below. There are small groups of nervous zebra that run away when they notice us. These are not the usual plains zebra one finds in most game reserves in Southern Africa, I believe these are Hartmann’s Zebra, a vulnerable or possibly endangered species. It is fabulous to watch how they manage to pick their way, at a considerable speed, over rocky and steep terrain. We have a particular thrilling moment when we flush a baby (kid?) kudu resting in the shade of a stunted bush.

Baby Kudu flushed from the shade 

Mamma Kudu 

I realize that the kudu is doing the sensible thing and we are not. It is not midday yet, but the ditty ‘only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun’, comes to mind.  We have been walking now for two hours, we are about half way, it is getting seriously hot and our inadequate water supply is nearly done. I should have known better, one litre of water each in this temperature is just not enough. The nine km is measured on a map from point A to point B and ignores the effect of elevation, if you flattened out the route it may be closer to 11 km and going up and down the hills is quite tiring. But we have passed the point that returning is further than pressing forward. The nice feeling of satisfaction, of intrepid Camel person has evaporated somewhat and a small sense of suffering is creeping into the picture. Still, the scenery makes up for the pain, that is, until the trail takes us down to (another) dry river bed and we have to do rock hopping. Now rock hopping wearing proper hiking boots is miserable, doing it with trainers is really nasty, but we persist, there is no other option. Our water is done and we still have about one third of the distance to do, and that includes another steep climb, it must now be very close to a murderous 40 degrees Celsius. I will spare you the full saga of the final climb, it is not pretty. After what seems like an age of short hops between shaded bits on the route we finally make it back to the lodge. Hallel-fucking-ujah. 

As I said, follow the arrows - the last climb is hell on earth 

 We had thought of doing lunch here, but neither of us have any appetite, just a raging thirst. There is a kiosk where we have parked the car that sell tins of fruit juice (Liquifruit), refrigerated to bitterly cold temperatures, at extortionist prices. I empty the wallet and buy... polishing off two cans right there and then.

On reflection the hike is one of the high points of the trip, and I can recommend it to anyone that is fit enough to walk twenty km on a city sidewalk. We saw plenty of wild life, albeit no giraffe which I particularly wanted to see. The best part of the game viewing experience was to feel like part of their world and not see them from the bubble of a vehicle. A little better planning on my part would have improved the experience, like taking enough water and starting off early enough so that we could cover more distance before it becomes too hot, and wearing decent hiking boots.

By the time we get back to Arebbusch we just want to sleep for a few hours, but I have another errand to run. The rented VW Polo is in dire need of a clean, it is encased in several layers of salt and sand and the interior has starting to look (and smell) a little like a cesspit. I have been warned of extra charges that will be levied against my Visa account in the event that I return her in this state. I am not a person that is in favour of extra charges on my Visa account, I am cheap in that regard. So I leave my daughter to sleep and drive towards the city centre, certain that I will find a car wash, which indeed I do. I’d thought that I would push the thing through one of those places with revolving brushes that squirt soap and water and then blow it all dry, perhaps spend another five minutes with a vacuum cleaner and be done. This, however, is not the way things work here. For the princely sum of fifty Nam Dollars (five US dollars) I leave the car in the care of a team of about five people that spend the better part of an hour hand washing and polishing the thing to within an inch of its life, inside and out. While I wait my appetite returns and I spot a Nando’s Portuguese Chicken franchise. I have a (hot) peri peri chicken quarter with chips and coleslaw and wash it down with a couple of bottles cold Tafel Lager, not the worst way to spend an hour.

When the cleaners are done, the car is indeed spotless, unbelievably so. I feel as guilty as sin and give the crew a tip of fifty Nam $. They seem to be ecstatic, which make me feel even worse. There is something to be said for cheap abundant labour, unless of course you are one of the cheap abundant labourers. We passed a settlement on the way to the Daan Viljoen Game Reserve where these cheap and abundant labourers live with their children in makeshift homes of corrugated sheet metal, cardboard and any other scrap materials they can find. Can you imagine how hot these houses must get when the mercury registers 38 degrees Celsius?  This is not news to me, I am familiar with these settlements and the poverty this is indicative of, it is the ugly side of Africa, probably the underlying reason why I left. It is here that life becomes cheap and violence can so easily become a way of life. I do not know the answer, I do not think there even is an answer. I do know that where some people own several luxury homes, drive several cars, have several servants and take several trips overseas every year and others eke out a living as cheap abundant labourers then the system stinks. The existence of billionaires and people dying for want of a meal on the same planet just does not seem right to me. The fact that George Clooney’s wedding cost several million dollars (to a human rights lawyer for Christ’s sake) while people live in shitholes like this bothers me... am I alone in this wilderness? Communism has demonstrated that it fails to produce a just and fair society, but has capitalism? Oh well, let’s move on, I can’t change the way of the world, merely comment on it, and in my own way I am as guilty as Clooney.

 Where the cheap, abundant laborers live 

The rest of the day we do the relaxing thing and just enjoy each other’s company, swimming pool (sans Pink Nipples cocktails)… salad and BBQ for dinner. Then getting everything packed up so that we can slip away early to get to the airport, my daughter’s flight is at the crack of dawn and mine is a little later. Goodbyes are never easy, and this one is tougher than most. I wish I had another few weeks to explore more of this incredible country with her, we have covered such a tiny piece of it, and she has grown to become such good company, but at the end of that there would still be a tough goodbye. It is the way of the world we have made.

Postscript:

As I write this I am sitting at my desk in Southern Ontario, looking out at the garden still covered in a few inches of slushy snow and ice, the aftermath of the coldest February on record in these parts. Spring is actually in the air, although the weather is still fairly miserable. Early spring is the ugliest time of year, mounds of dirty snow melting into muddy pools, leaving rubbish and petrified dog turds to litter the sidewalks, like some ghastly moraine.  Brown and grey are the dominant colours. The transformation that happens from this nastiness to the glorious summer never cease to amaze me, despite the 0 degrees Celsius (feels like -7), and some icy rain, I feel the process starting and my spirits lifting. In the mornings just before sunrise you can hear the first tentative strains of bird song, and the squawk of Canada geese returning home is unmistakable. The dachshunds, roly-poly from the winter, have already embraced the walkies season.  

Early spring in Southern Ontario, just beautiful , fucking beautiful. 

I know that I must not wish the days of my life away, but I can’t help longing for the moment that the weather is good enough to fetch the Boulevard from storage, and finally for when it’s hot and the forests turn to green and I can ride from sunrise to way after sunset.