Roads and kilometres

(This is another middle-of-the-night, after-nap posting. Through the tarpless bug-netting of the hammock, I’m watching the Summer Triangle rise through the trees of this downtown urban campground.)

We walked over 33 kilometres today. I’d guess over half of this was on roads, mostly paved. Thank goodness the heat and humidity of the last few days left last night! Today was cooler, drier, and pleasantly breezy. 

One of the stories is that we found water. Three places come to mind. One was a merest trickle flowing through a cattail marsh. We removed the ‘woodsies, crudsies and fausties’ by coarsely  filtering through a corner of our shemaghs, and then applying our personal treatment approaches. Kookork used his Sawyer Squeeze filter. I double-treated mine with my UV SteriPen. 

We did not expect to get water through much of today …

The second welcome source of water was a building supplies store​ staff

, who pointed us to their kitchen with taps running municipally treated water. I don’t ever recall appreciating the sharp chlorine taste so much!

The third was the downtown Owen Sound municipal campground, staffed with the most welcoming gentleman. The most amazing part was that the water taps were so high up that the water poured over my (tall) head — and came in the choice of two temperatures! Oh my! They also had big white metal boxes that sloshed water onto our hiker clothes and spit them out perfumed and dry. Whee! (We — temporarily! — don’t stink.)



Along the way

  • Setting off from the Woodford Escarpment 

    The day begins

  • Courtesy of a cow-calf farmer who has kicked the Bruce Trail off his land (because inconsiderate and disobedient hikers let their dogs run freely amongst his cattle), I have two photos showing a stark example of heavy grazing. The first is looking northeast into his presently grazed forests. For the second, I swiveled 90 degrees to the northeast and shot into the forest on the other side of the road, a forest that is a few decades younger but to my eye had never been grazed. 

    Presently being heavily grazed

  • Never grazed

  • #blazeoftheday

  • The end of the White Trilliums

  • Scenescence illustrated

  • The Polish Tree, carved in 1942 by a Polish soldier being trained nearby. (Translation, please!)

  • This marks the first day of summer: “day’s eyes” first blooming. A week and a half early by my books!

  • Quite the stunning crevices right on theveastbside of Owen Sound

  • We found some ‘chaga’ fungus, Inonotus obliquus, and boiled it into a very pleasant tea (served with sugar).  The purported and unproven medical benefits are evidently destroyed and made unavailable by our (standard) method of pounding the fungus and briefly boiling it. 

    Chaga tea, made from Inonotus obliquus