July 24th - The return starts

Trying to sleep last night I kept hearing a sound, like the noise my phone makes in vibrate mode. After checking my phone a few times, I figured it must be that the person in the next room is really active in texting. I didn't know what it really was until I mentioned it at breakfast this morning. I learned that it's the channel buoy for the Souris River (and not the grail shaped beacon - that darn Zoot!)

The Lighthouse and Beach Motel, where I stayed overnight.

I've been seeing a bunch of rabbits on the rides, usually about 1-2 per day. For the last couple of day, I've started the rides thinking that this would, perhaps, be a rabbit-free day, but was soon enough proven wrong. Today, I make the entire 8km from Souris to Harmony Junction, where I rejoined the main trail with nary a sign of a rabbit. In fact, the first larger mammal I saw on the trail, at first, I thought was a small fox, but turned out to be an orange and white house cat, and this was only after I got onto the main trail.

The only underpass I've seen on  the trail, on the branch line to Souris.

I was stoked to see this, being a x-c skier, especially since x-c skiing is not allowed on the Confederation Trail (it's maintained by a snowmobile club in the winter)

The artesian spring at Harmony Junction - I think it's run dry at the moment.

The aforementioned cat. I think.

In the next 10km, however, I scared 3 different rabbits off the trail, skewing the average number of rabbits per day, and per km, with today being the shortest day of riding, with only 32km's of trail between Souris and St. Peters.

Once again, I arrived in St. Peters before noon, but this time I decided to just grab a quick packed snack of a cookie and crushed muffin, then started riding to Greenwich, for the sand dunes that are part of the PEI National Park. It was on the way there that I got my first (and hopefully last) flat of the trip, changing the tube at the side of the road and breaking a tire lever in the process. Similar to the motorcycle flat outside Williams Lake earlier this year, it made me feel a bit extra on guard for flats afterwards.

The highway to Greenwich, looking into the bay.

A bit further on, the rain changed from occasional, light showers, into full on rain, and I ducked into a rural take out for a larger lunch.

Enjoying the product of the Island dairies under an umbrella while it rains outside.

Lunch: The remains.

The difference in Greenwich between the South shore dunes, on the bay, and the North Shore dunes, on the ocean, were truly amazing. The latter were huge, rising more than 20 feet above the beach, which had waves breaking offshore. The strength of the wind in moving the sands was also obvious, as the posts on one side of the access trail to the viewpoint were almost completely exposed, with no steel anchor left in the earth, while on the other side they were buried deeply.

Dunes, and not those written about by Frank Herbert.

Reading one of he information signs on the boardwalk I was struck by the working of it. It noted that animal tracks on the dunes create weaknesses for erosion, and so people should stay off the dunes to ensure that only natural causes of erosion occur. It had me wondering about this divorcing of human actions and "nature". This strikes me as a false dichotomy, and setting humanity apart - I would tend to think we should encourage awareness of our individual and collective impacts on this world, which we are intricately a part of. If we're seeking to preserve a particular ecosystem in a specific state, would not out actions in doing so, in this dichotomy of natural-human caused make it then be not natural?

The boardwalk across the lake. It was a floating boardwalk, which I didn't realize made it rock by people walking on it, until some people walked past me on it, as I was on my bike. :)

It was a wee bit rainy and windy.