Perth to Hamilton

I am never hitch-hiking again. Well, the hitching is ok, the hiking sucks.

We weren't really sure we were gonna hitch-hike, we were still considering just staying an extra night in Perth and taking the bus on Sunday. Or maybe trying to get to the VIA rail station at Smith Falls, about 20 minutes away. However, when I tried to call VIA, they didn't know if our bus passes would be good for the train (apparently the Canada Pass is good for some VIA rail routes, and VIA is supposed to know which ones, but they don't). She didn't even know how much it would cost to get to Peterborough or Toronto if our passes weren't good. And the next train didn't come for another 4 hours or so. Instead, we went to the highway (if you can call a little two-lane road a highway) and stuck our thumbs out. We weren't out there two minutes when a guy pulled over. I figured luck was finally on our side.

The guy was only going about 20 minutes down the road, and he let us out at the start of Silver Lake. We ended up walking all the way to the convenience store. Anyone reading this who lives out that way will have a better idea of how far we walked, I just know it took about 3 hours, which felt more like 6. The sun was beating down, but when we finally found a bit of shade that crossed the gravel shoulder, the little black flies (which were up until that point only annoying) would swarm and become absolutely maddening. I breathed one in through my nose and it bothered me for the next 18 hours. Yeah, this is a long story.

Most of the cars flying past us carried either elderly couples or young single women, the least likely categories to pick up weird people at the side of the road. At one point a guy in a U-Haul with Arizona plates pulled over, and we hurried up to him just to find that he didn't actually have any room. He'd picked up a hitchhiker a ways back, so the cab was full. He was gonna let us ride in the back, but he didn't know the combination to the lock. Looking back, that sounds a bit odd, but at the time, I woulda offered to try to pick the lock if I thought it woulda worked. So we thanked him for at least stopping, and then continued the trek.

We finally found the convenience store (after a bunch of roadside signs that mocked us with distances) and bought some water - priority number 1 at that point. Don't hitchhike without water. We told our tale to the guy behind the counter, then asked about a taxi service. There was none, but the guy said he'd be leaving in a couple minutes, and he'd take us down the road a bit. So we got a 10 minute ride closer to Peterborough. We got walking, watching the sun get lower. It was about 8 by this time. We started to get to this marshy area where we'd seen beaver dams from the bus. I stopped to try to look around the marsh and saw something moving through the water. It turned out to be a beaver, first one I've seen in the wild. It was hard to tell in the light, but it looked like just the tip of its snout and the tail, the rest underwater. I scrambled for the camera, and Neil was getting really annoyed, and then the thing went underwater, and then came back up for air, and I was still waiting for the stupid camera to turn on, and then it vanished again. Grrr. After waiting around, it didn't show again, and we started walking.

The light was really fading fast at this point. We bridged a small hill and started to turn a corner. Two cars were flying up behind us, and I started thinking we were screwed, we weren't going to get picked up, and we would have to be careful not to get hit. Then one of the cars was braking, and we were running after it, and I had this one moment where I thought it was gonna just pull away like some cruel joke, and then the guy was clearing room for us. And he was going all the way to Peterborough. It seemed perfect, we could grab the express bus to Toronto when we got there.

The guy who’d picked us up was really cool, too. He’d just graduated from a police foundations course a couple days before, and he wanted to get a job with the OPP eventually. He talked a lot about the training he’d gone through, and some of the differences between the OPP and the RCMP. I didn’t realize that the RCMP is actually part of the military.

Anyway, we got to Peterborough at about 10. The guy dropped us off at the bus station, which was closed. We managed to call Greyhound, and discovered the next bus didn’t come by til 4 am. I was ready to find a motel room and catch a bus later in the morning. Unfortunately, the first place we stopped at told us every place in town was booked except the Rock Haven. The guy there said it was a long walk, but we figured it couldn’t be that bad after how far we’d already walked. It probably wouldn’t have been too bad, but we walked down one of the main drags, and then made a left when we shoulda made a right. We passed the arena where the local hockey game had just let out. We passed over some bypass, and felt like we were heading out of town suddenly. Then we came across a Best Western and stopped in. They were full, and they told us we’d been walking the last 20 minutes in the wrong direction. Now I was ready to get a cab. Unfortunately, what with the game just gotten out, there was a 30+ min wait. By this time it was almost midnight. We’d left Perth at 4 (we’d probably eaten around 2 – the usual fair junk: ice cream, maple taffy, other nutritious stuff), and we’d had a couple of bottles of water since then. We decided to skip the motel, find a 24 hr restaurant, and wait for the 4 am bus.

We ended up in a pub – the aptly named Thirsty Canadian – and had caesar salads and nachos. At about 1 am we wandered over to Tim Horton’s. Here’s another Canadian constant – if there’s anything that’s open 24 hrs, it’s gonna be Tim’s. From Whitehorse to Peterborough. At 3:15 we started our saunter over to the bus station, and by 4 a small crowd had gathered. I was kinda surprised at how many people were getting on such an early bus. I was even more surprised at how many people were already on it. When everyone had gotten on from Peterborough, it was completely full.

We got into Toronto at about 6 am. That was actually really cool, and worth all the trouble. We got some footage of the sun rising over a sleeping Younge Street. Well, the taxis were awake. Every time I stepped onto the road to get a shot of the empty street, a swarm of them would converge on me. Neil would stand behind me trying to wave them off. He has many jobs on this film 

Anyway, we went for breakfast, killed some time, then went to Lyle’s place to pick up our packs. We didn’t want to get there too early. But he was up, and all was well, and we ended up back at the bus station and then headed toward Hamilton.

For some strange reason, we unpacked everything before taking showers and going to bed. And then when I finally was lying in bed, I couldn’t sleep. Just stared at the ceiling. But when I finally did fall asleep, I got about 17 hrs worth. Now that was nice.

And today is all about relaxing. I did some packing, did some laundry, did some writing.