Potato blossoms on the Confederation Trail

Last year, when we set out on our second big cycle tour to Europe, one of my goals was to not compare it to the first one (#cycletour2015), which had been an astonishingly lovely vacation – perhaps the best we have ever had. I wanted to let #cycletour2017 have the chance to be its own thing. I think that philosophy really helped us enjoy the second trip; it was very different in some ways, but we still returned home exhilarated.

But in truth, not comparing our last two vacations was no great task: though we visited several different countries on the second tour, the two trips were similar enough that there were few glaring points of comparison. But this goal of not comparing cycle tours will be a little harder this time. Cycling Prince Edward Island is, literally and figuratively, and ocean apart from cycling in Europe.

Last night, we were both fast asleep by 9:45, and we didn’t stir until 7:45 – 10 hours of much needed and refreshing sleep. After a shower and a quick cup of hotel-room coffee, we were on the road by 9 am. After yesterday’s tiring day on Route 12, we decided that since our next night’s accommodation was very near the Confederation Trail, we’d stick to the bike path today. Once we were on the trail, our first destination was the town of O’Leary, where, the previous evening, our eye had been drawn to the Maple House Bakery and Cafe on Google maps.

Quebecers can't resist the Maple House...

Our intrigue was well-founded, and we spent a pleasant 45 minutes there eating a hearty breakfast and picking up some lovely buns and delicious peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies for lunch. Then we headed back onto the CT. The Confederation Trail is a rail trail that crosses the island on the old PEI railway bed. It passes mostly through the interior of the island, so its main drawback is that you won’t get any ocean vistas cycling it. On the other hand, you can be pretty certain you’ll have it pretty much to yourself – at least on the stretch we did today, from Howlan to Wellington. I think we saw a total of four other parties all day. I may be in the minority, but this is the kind of cycling I love: rolling through a mix of forest, marshy scrubland, and farmland. PEI is famous for its potatoes, of course, and the fields of flowering potato plants gave off the same intoxicating aroma that I first noticed in Belgium last year (I know, I know… don’t compare…).

Potato blossom smell-o-rama

Today was just as hot and humid as yesterday and there was still something of a headwind, though not nearly as brisk, but riding the CT, surrounded by trees and fields, was at least 4 or 5 degrees cooler than cycling on pavement, and being a rail trail, the gradient, while undulating, was quite gentle. The trail has much to recommend it in terms of scenery, but the surface was inconsistently maintained for most of our ride today. Some sections were fine, but others suffered from the passage of ATVs and dirt bikes (despite the barriers and signs forbidding motorized vehicles), which chew up the stone dust and leave tread marks, making the surface somewhat soft and bumpy in places. We didn’t see a single one today, but there were places were there was clearly more ATV traffic than bicycle traffic. With those caveats out of the way, not having the stress of cars passing by and being able to ride side-by-side made riding the trail, warts and all, well worth it.

So glad there's a gate to keep the ATVs out!

We had lunch at a picnic table along the trail at Nordham and then called the B&B (Chez Yvette) in Urbainville to warn of our impending arrival. Unfortunately, the room wouldn’t be ready until later in the afternoon, so we decided to push on to Wellington (a French-speaking town despite the name) to buy some food for supper before the Co-op closed at 5. We were basically forced to picnic again in an adjacent park, since there are no restaurants in the area. We finally rolled up to the B&B a little after 5, having cycled 60 km today – and though we were tired, it wasn’t nearly same feeling of exhaustion as yesterday, even having gone 10 more kilometres.

Tomb of the Kings

I think I've posted a version of this before, but I went through and made some fairly major changes. You can read the French original here.

I love this dream poem, with its almost cinematic imagery, by one of Quebec's truly great writers. It's so dark, so filled with sadness and bewilderment, yet, by the end, bears witness to the heart's miraculous optimism.

Tomb of the Kings
-Anne Hébert (Translation, Peter Garner)

My heart is at my fist.
Like a blind falcon.

The taciturn bird grips my fingers,
Lamp swollen with wine and blood,
I descend
Toward the tomb of the kings,
Astonished,
Only just born.

What thread of Ariadne leads me
Through soundless labyrinths,
Each step’s echo consumed as it sounds?

(In what dream
Was this child tied by the ankle
Like a spellbound slave?)

The dream maker
Grasps the thread,
And bare footsteps come

One by one
Like the first raindrops
At a well bottom.

Already, the odour moves in swollen storms
Oozes under doorsteps
To secret, round chambers
Where box beds lie.

Drawn by the reclining figures’ static desire,
I look with astonishment
Set into the black bones
Gleam encrusted blue stones.

A few tragedies patiently worked
Upon the breasts of recumbent kings
In the form of jewels
Are offered to me
With neither tears nor regrets.

Arranged in a line:
Smoke of incense, rice cake
And my trembling flesh:
Ritual, submissive offering.

The gold mask on my absent face
violets for pupils
Love’s shadow disguises me with meticulous strokes

And this bird I hold
Breathes
And laments strangely

A long shiver,
Like a wind that catches from tree to tree,
Stirs seven great ebony pharaohs,
In their solemn, ornate sheaths.

But it is only the depths of death lingering,
Playing out the last torment
Seeking appeasement
And eternity
In a light rattling of bracelets
Vain circlets playthings of another place
Around the sacrificed flesh.

Eager for the brotherly source of evil within me
They lay me down and drink of me;
Seven times I know the vise of bones
The dry hand that seeks to rend the heart.

Pale and filled with the awful dream
Limbs untangled
And the dead gone from me, murdered,
What glimmer of dawn could stray here?
Yet how, then, does this bird tremble
And turn its sightless eyes
Toward morning?