Beneath monotone colourless skies and a warming fleeced blanket, an early-hours ramble around Harmony Bay, the headlands either side having seemingly disappeared into the lake overnight.
What other aquatic mysteries are lurking here I wonder.
Expectantly looking sideways over the still waters for some truth, only to bump into a tree.
Robin has invited me over to breakfast, and I don’t know what to expect when I shuffle up the few steps and knock hesitantly on the door.
To be greeted by a warm welcome, that’s what, from inside a warm house and immediately a hot plate of fresh waffles and fried eggs is placed in front of me, warmly received as well.
Bacon, fruit, maple syrup, the works – help yourself, and I do.
I am here on an anonymous Canadian morning devouring a near-perfect hot breakfast with a near-perfect stranger with a near-perfect view out to Lake Superior.
A little colour might be welcome, but hey that’s my only contrary observation.
To drink, I take chaga. It’s not Lancashire Tea, but it’ll do.
It’s a healing brew, and perhaps I need some healing … but yeah it’s good – it’s hot is the thing.
What am I doing and how did I get here and where did the sun go and do I really care about all that right now, because I’m eating a seriously good morning feast and even engaging in some friendly smalltalk and hell it’s not even 9am.
I’m prepared, I’m ready … Canada will see you now. Bring waterproofs.
Leaden skies are now heavy with a kind of silent crying – a recurring theme – a rushing fountain.
I start on my chosen path up the mountain, a higgledy-piggledy mush of a trail winding around the mounds of rocks and boulders, through the most unfriendliest of trees which let all of the rain seep through – all of it – so much so that I’m very quickly soaked, in spite of my so-called waterproofs.
All I can do is carry on regardless because what else am I going to do today it’s not like there are a plethora of museums and art galleries to visit in the air conditioned dryness of a bricky building.
Nature / life is pissing all over me, on a mountainside; I allow all of this purely because of that breakfast.
When I reach the viewpoints, I begrudgingly acknowledge the vertical cliffs and the moderately bleak mist-covered landscape in front of me, the endless forests containing a life well hidden from view today.
I’m colder and wetter than my excursion into Misery last week. At least that had a pagoda to shelter under.
I have no option here but to be wet and to get more wet.
It’s an exasperating trek back down the mountainside, across streams and ditches and through mud and no-life trees and all the while charcoal skies are making this a mockery of sorts which I might laugh at when I come around to the idea that this was in any way approaching a good idea.
Until then, all I’m searching for is a dry sanctuary … a free house, perhaps … and preferably some hot hot heat.
When finally a glimpse of my car appears, an overjoyed elation of the sort I enjoyed only a few cooking hours ago when I poured that maple syrup over those waffles, and ate the whole mess with streaky bacon and fresh juicy strawberries piled on top in a perfectly voracious scene.
It’s entirely possible I might be thinking of that breakfast on my deathbed …
Anyway, in the streaming rain I climb into my 4WD and set it to gas mark off-the-scale, heated seats to max, the full hot lava – sitting there motionless except for occasional chilled shivers, all in an attempt to thaw out for fifteen short minutes.
Only to be interrupted from my zen-like still thoughts of nothingness when a Real Policeman suddenly and unexpectedly appears at the window.
I’m in the middle of nowhere, side on to a sodden jungle uprising, absorbed in my own shivering serenity and wet clothes, trying desperately to soak up some warmth … and shit, I’m about to be ticketed for illegally high temperatures on a mountainside.
Shit … I’m going to lose some heat here goddamnit!
I lower the window, causally shivering, and words tumble out of my mouth … No sir (sir … ? sir … !) I haven’t seen a random man in army fatigues, I swear there is no-one up the mountain trail because I’m the only living person in the vicinity today who thought it a reasonable idea to expose themself to heavy rain and driving wind up on the Robertson Cliffs where even the soaring eagles were laughing at me. I have not walked away from my accommodation without paying, no sir.
(sir … ? sir … !)
Hmm, actually … did I … ? maybe I did … ? I have paid Robin, haven’t I … ?
After a cold minute and with interrogation over, I’m left alone to continue drying out, thinking yee-ha! I got away with that!
Even though I’m not quite sure what I got away with / am getting away with. Cops, eh?
Last time I met one was in the Alsace, and he was straight out of Chips and gave me a 90 Euro fine just for the privilege of stopping to say hello.
Right now I’m going nowhere fast, so I hit the trail in reverse to the TCH, and head due north to Pancake Bay just to see if it’s worth any fuss, and to see if there is any resemblance whatsoever to any kind of pancake that’s ever crossed my path.
In the enveloping gloom of a mid-afternoon, I’m not quite sure what the answers to these questions are … all I’m doing is killing time and (still) trying to get dry.
When finally I pull into the gas station, I’m sold everything, all the essentials – fuel, water, butter, tarts, a room – and an apple fritter the size of a Canadian beaver (a standard unit of measurement in these parts, or so I’m told).
Of course, they will have seen me coming a mile off.
Once I’m reconciled to all of this, and after I’ve repatriated a kettle for an emergency hot brew, I’m running through heavy rain opposite a sunken lake just to get to the restaurant I really shouldn’t be going to for my French-Canadian meal – tourtiere / sea pie; swam here all the way from Quebec.
Once again, I curse the wind and the water and the sun and the moon for the lack of any mashed potato. What does a paying guest have to do to get some pulverised yams in this country!
It’s clear there will be no close encounters of any kind in the Voyagueur’s Lodge tonight.
To underline all this and to close the day on a high, I observe an ever-largening puddle – dimly lit by a flickering light – directly outside my motel window, wondering if by dawn I may have sunk into it.
I’ll sink faster after that monumental breakfast.
An Outside World 