June 6, 2016
Into Winnipeg: Do not go past the 424!
On Sunday we continued our good progress towards Winnipeg, putting in another day of more than 130 kilometers despite a swirling, less-helpful wind. The reality was that there just wasn’t much else to do besides cycle all day, although I was delighted with the sight of a few trees beyond Brandon, indicating that we were finally transitioning out of the prairies. I was still getting on well with Vivian, although it had been a sad day indeed when I realized that her fitness had improved to such an extent that, like all the hapless sidekicks that had gone before her, she was in fact able to cycle much faster than me.
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On Monday I suffered terribly due to my hay fever. The first two hours of the day were some of the worst I could remember. My nose would not stop running, I must have blown it a hundred times but it would not stop. A cold wind was blowing from the north, making my nose worse. I felt really weak too, I’d not slept well last night as we’d accidentally camped next to a railway line, and now all of my energy reserves were being diverted to produce snot. By the time I caught up to Vivian at the small town of Elie my eyes were itchy and swollen as well. Luckily there was a pharmacy in Elie and I was able to find some medication, or meds as they call medication in Canada, which is a nice abbreviation, the kind of which would help me keep my blog posts much shorter, if only I could stop writing such unnecessarily long sentences, such as this one.
I felt better leaving Elie, although still weak, and Vivian, who was desperate to get to Winnipeg despite having stomach pains herself, overtook me to once again race on ahead. I had already told her that we were not going to follow the highway into the big city, but instead that we must take a turn before it in order to follow a bike trail. I told her repeatedly that she must not go past the turn for the 424 road. Leaving Elie I had done my best to cycle faster, but Vivian insisted on zooming ahead. “Do not go past the turn for the 424! If you miss it, you’re on your own!” I reminded her once more.
Well I cycled on alone for a while until I reached the well-marked turn for the 424. Needless to say there was no sign of Vivian. She’d obviously breezed straight past it and was now on her way into Winnipeg on the increasingly busy main highway. I was very glad I’d told her she would be on her own if she missed it, and I turned off alone onto the quiet side road.
I felt a surge of joy and happiness. Not to be free of Vivian, but because the road was so nice. It was quiet, almost traffic-free, and it was not simply straight, but actually had corners and wound through villages of big houses with big yards. It felt like being reborn. I stared for ages at a horse. I had forgotten that the world could be this interesting. The monotonous prairies had chipped away at my soul a little bit, now I remembered that cycle touring was actually fun and interesting.
I had some trouble locating the trail but eventually I succeeded and was glad that I had. It was no more than a grassy track that Vivian may not have enjoyed with her thin tyres, but for me was perfect. I felt free and alive again as I bumped my way along, no longer to the sound of cars and trucks whizzing past, but instead listening to birdsong.
Unfortunately my bliss was interrupted after eight kilometers by a major highway on the outskirts of Winnipeg. I could see the trail continuing on the other side, but there was no way to cross the road. I waited a while, hoping for a break in traffic that never arrived. Eventually I had to concede defeat, and made a huge diversion north. But it was alright, more cycle paths led me to my destination, that of my old tree-planting buddy Jason’s apartment, where I was to spend the night.
The first thing that I did after the meet and greets was to get online and find out what had happened to poor Vivian. As I suspected she had missed the turn and run into heavy traffic approaching Winnipeg, so she’d resorted to her old faithful tactic of stopping and looking very sorry for herself with her thumb out at the side of the road. A pick-up had soon stopped and escorted her through Winnipeg to the warm showers host that we’d planned to stay with on the other side of the city the next night. So everything had worked out alright, and I would ride there in the morning and reunite with her.
It was really nice to see Jason and his girlfriend Maxeen again, with the last time we’d seen each other being early 2012. On that occasion we'd had a bit of a messy night, getting very drunk and going out night-clubbing, crawling home at four in the morning. But four and a half years later we now sat around enjoying a quiet dinner and a few board games. Times have certainly changed.
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Sunday 5th June - 134km
Monday 6th June – 89km
Today's ride: 223 km (138 miles)
Total: 51,526 km (31,998 miles)
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