A Walk, a Cross, and a Friend

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A Walk, a Cross, and a Friend

Monday, 13 August 2007

This morning Bob found out while he was getting our breakfasts that many people let their dogs loose at an area called Schreiber Beach, and we were given directions to find it. It was indeed a place where there are not many people or dogs & it’s pretty safe for letting a dog like Panna off leash.

The water was blue, the cove surrounded on either side by rocks, much like Smuggler’s Cove, our favourite beach on Tortola, our favourite island in the Caribbean. However, even though there was nice sand, in many places the beach consisted mainly of rocks of various sizes, mostly rounded smooth by years of water rubbing against them. There were black or grey ones, pink ones, white ones, and rocks with a blend of colours. It seems they have been washed ashore, mainly during times of rough waters. The water too, although lovely & clear as in the Caribbean, was QUITE a bit cooler! There were ducks in the water, otherwise I don’t think Panna would have had any interest in going into it. The road to it was interesting too, with a 12% grade at one point, but we made it down & made it back up without any problem.

We then drove to Rainbow Falls Provincial Park, where I hoped to take a 10 kilometre walk/hike on the trails to the falls & through the park. Unfortunately there had been a woman who’d gone missing there some days earlier. The search for her was still on-going, and the park was closed to the public. So I had to re-think my plans for a walk - to be honest, the hills around Schreiber are among the steepest & longest on the Trans Canada Highway, and I really had no interest in tackling them, paved shoulers or not , with my bcycle. As a “wuss” who has now chickened out on this stretch, I can only express my admiration for those who have cycled these hills, even if they had to walk parts of them.

Finally Bob dropped me off about 8 kilometres east of Schreiber, from where I would walk along the highway back to the motel, or rather if it was necessary to get to 10 km. It was a fairly decent walk, considering I was on the shoulder of a fairly busy highway. There were a few fairly long climbs, but they didn’t bother me as much as they would have had I been cycling.

I stopped for lunch at the intersection of a small road with the highway and noticed a fairly large plain white cross set back about 30-40 feet from the highway (about 10 metres). For some reason it “spoke” to me, not like so many of the other roadside memorials, so I tried to go down and check it out. But it was surrounded by shrubbery on three sides and was on the edge of what resembled a former gravel pit for the 4th side. There was also a railroad track very close to it. So I have no idea what happened there, but it was moving in a strange way.

It had not taken me more than 8 kilometres to reach the motel, so I kept going, checked out some streets on the other side of Highway 17, then made my way back. About an hour after my return a good friend from Ottawa, Margaret, arrived on her motorcycle. She was taking a trip to the “North of Superior” region, hoping to tackle some of the more interesting trails & roads that one can ride, using a Suzuki Elf, which she’s only recently obtained. We’d pre-arranged this meeting, and she was planning to spend one or two nights at the same motel as Bob & I. It was really neat to see a face from home & we went for a nice dinner together in Terrace Bay, the next town to the south of Schreiber. She & I finished the evening with another glass or two of wine, nice!

DAY 47: 10.8 km, walking

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