Events

August 14th - Hike to High Falls - Join us in this 3 km hike to High Falls and learn some interesting facts about nature, low impact camping, and hiking in bear country. We will meet at the Park & Zoo parking lot at 9:00 am, Cost $5 when you sign up

August 24th - Intermediate Bike Clinic - For those ones that are comfortable with basic bike maintenance, we are now offering an intermediate clinic to help you out taking better care of your bike. Cost $5 when you sign up.

August 27th - Paddling Eel's Creek - Jon Moreno will lead this fascinating day trip to Eel’s Creek. We will start paddling from the highway 28 towards Norththey's Bay road, with a stop for lunch at the beautiful High Falls. Cost $30 when you sign up, includes boat and boat transportation.

Gear Swap/Rental Sale coming up on Saturday October 1st! If you are interested in buying a boat from our rental program, call us and put a deposit and you can pick it up at the sale!

I spent the last academic year studying in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with a program offered by Trent University. During the Christmas break, while most of my classmates headed south to the beaches, I decided to hop on my bicycle and ride to Laos. I bought a few maps and after calculating some distances picked Luang Prabang as my final destination, a small town in the middle of northern Laos. I had no idea what to expect, as the roads on a map all look the same regardless of their condition, and they give no idea what type of landscapes the roads pass through. Also, while guide books offer good information about the bigger towns along the way, they give little insight into what lies between those tourist niches. So I set out with little clue what was ahead of me, which was cause for great excitement.
Of course, along with this excitement came fear. I had never been to Laos before, and I was unsure what conditions would be like. By this point I had been living in Thailand for several months, so I had become reasonably familiar with the culture and language. But while Lao culture and language is fairly similar to Thai, their political history is not. During the seventies the long-reigning monarchy was taken over by the communist party, and the country was subject to a nine-year period of American bombs dropping all over the country in the fight against communism. As a result, the country is still badly under-developed; there is very little infrastructure in any sector, and this includes roads.
It turns out, though, that the road was surprisingly good. The road that I spent most of my time on is fairly new, or at least recently paved. The main traffic on it is trucks moving raw materials north to China. A couple times a day a bus goes by, and even in the remote areas there is lots of foot-traffic, especially in the mornings and evenings, as people walk to and from their fields. Notably, there is virtually no car traffic, as very few people in Laos own cars, and fewer still outside the main towns. The result is that riding the main road is quite pleasant: there are many opportunities to exchange greetings with the locals on foot, and the big trucks pass by only every twenty or thirty minutes, leaving the rest of the ride quiet and peaceful. And since the road is designed for big trucks, there is never a steep hill.
A typical riding day would start in the town where I had spent the night, and I would head for the next town on the map. Usually the towns would be conveniently spaced about sixty or eighty kilometers apart, and since part of the purpose of the trip was to relax (it was my Christmas holiday after all), this was an ideal distance to cover. Also, the bike I was riding didn’t encourage me to ride much more than eighty kilometers in a day. The main towns were generally in a low valley, often surrounded by flat paddy rice fields. But almost each day involved riding into the highlands over a mountain pass or two before rolling into the next lowland town. As a result, there were days where I would spend two or three hours at a time climbing a steady incline, but it was never steep for the trucks’ benefit, so it was not terribly difficult to climb for so long at a time. It was also not difficult because the scenery was stunning. Rather than steady switchbacks, the road meanders through the hills and provides new views around each bend. At the height of a pass, the road would often run along ridges, offering panoramic views to either side. And of course the long uphills were always followed by long downhills, a much-deserved reward after a long climb.
I also passed through countless villages in the hills, which at certain times of the day where quite vibrant with most of the village outside along the road working or playing. I was always greeted, by kids and adults alike, with “sabai-dee”, the Lao greeting which roughly translated means “relax-good”. I rarely stopped, however, because there was no reason to; most of these villages had nowhere to stop and eat, and some had roadside ‘shops’ that had almost nothing to sell. Also, since we did not share a common language it was not possible to stop for a chat (most people in the highlands are hill-tribe people, not ethnic Lao people, and speak their own tribal language first and Lao second, if at all. I could speak some Thai which is similar to Lao, but not close enough most of the time…). Most of the time I passed through those villages without stopping and simply returned the warm greetings as I rolled along.
These long highland passes created one main problem: food. After a couple lunchless days, I started ordering a dish to go from wherever I ate breakfast so I could eat lunch wherever I liked. Thankfully I was always able to make it into a town each evening where there would be a place to spend the night. I had brought a tent along just in case, but never used it because there were very few flat clearings that weren’t being farmed, and because it is dangerous to step off the beaten track in Laos due to a very high volume of unexploded landmines leftover from the American war. I spent my last night on the road in a Buddhist temple, and embarrassed myself by falling quite ill and vomiting in the temple grounds. I was so sick that I was completely unable to ride the last day into Luang Prabang and had to catch a truck instead. I laid in bed for several days in Luang Prabang before taking my flight back to Chiang Mai to continue my studies. It was a not very glorious ending to an otherwise fantastic trip.

by Darcy McCord, Bikewerks Mechanic

Click here to see more pictures of Darcy's trip


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Hiking Routes 

We asked our own Jonathan to write down some of his favourite walks around Peterborugh. Thanks Jonathan and Katie for letting us in on places to go!

Miller Creek Conservation Area

To get there: take Water Street toward the Zoo, turn left on Carnegie Dr (which becomes Smith Centre Line) for about 7 kms, left on Smith Line # 7. The sign is disguised and overgrown but worth the hunt. Parking is limited to one or two spots on both sides of the road.

There is a shelter/lookout over the huge marsh just beyond the trail. The trail gets quite overgrown the farther you go but you are almost guaranteed to be alone out there the whole time. (Ed. Note - unless everyone who reads this decides to try it out on the same day!)

Emily Tract

To get there: Take Hwy #7 west toward Lindsay. Turn right on Emily Park Rd. Pass Emily Park and take a left on Peace Road. The parking lot is just down the road on the left.

This hike has two loops, one inside the other. The shorter loop is approx. one hour and the longer is twice as long. If you take the south east trailhead, follow the trail until you see a trail to the right. This is the shorter loop. The longer loop skirts a stand of trees tapeed for syrup.

Orono Crown Land

To get there: Take Hwy #115 south toward Toronto. Take Taunton Road exit and follow for approx. 4 kms. Orono crown land is on the left. The gate is normally closed so parking is limited to the shoulder. Be sure to keep clear of the gate or your vehicle will be towed!

An Orono Crown Land Steward Membership can be purchased for $10 from the Orono Chamber of Commerce. You do not need to be a member to walk on the land - we just thought you might like to know how to contribute to continued access to this beautiful spot!

From the parking lot, follow the trail to the left and down the hill to the creek. The best trail follows directly along the creek and is quite remarkable. There are plenty of fish in the creek, making a serene fishing spot. 

For more info and maps, go to www.realontario.ca

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Canoe and Kayak Repair

Do you have a canoe or kayak in need of repair or restoration? Bring it to Wild Rock and some folks will take it to their repair shop and return it fixed!

Here are some of the things that they do:

We repair/restore/rebuild fiberglass, kevlar, cedar-strip, cedar canvas, and Royalex. We machine our own gunnels, yokes, thwarts, seats. We also do outfitting, such as padding, D rings, etc.