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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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The urban wilderness adventure never stops! Yesterday the intrepid Nanmac and I walked to the Toronto Zoo from Trinity Bellwoods Park. The route we took was 20 miles on concrete (ouch). It took us 10 hours. We mainly did it out of a shared interest in so-called "binge excercise" and self-directed adventure (ie: because it was there). We are also working on a video project that will be discussed further at some later date.
We left shortly after 5 am, and got to see the very end of Saturday night on Queen Street West, small straggling groups of bleary-eyed droogs, and two guys with a card table doing tarot readings in front of the Shoppers Drug Mart. Other points of interest, off the top of my head: sunrise over the Don Valley with waterfowl in the river below, coffee at 7:30 am in the "Stepford Beaches" which were full of blond women jogging. Also a jogging dad with stroller and labrador retriever who offered to take our picture. We declined. Big fence around the water treatment plant.
Kingston road was long. Pain set in for both of us around Midland, which was a major watershed as it meant we were at the edge of our Toronto map and had to turn it over to continue. Lots of trudging followed, punctuated by Freezies and Tim Hortons rest stops. By the time we turned off onto Old Kingston Road, the trudging was more like hobbling. But we went down into a really nice ravine with a park, marsh and river that cheered us up. There was also a very dead and smelly raccoon. Roads kill. Steep hills were a new factor, but being off the main road was a treat. Meadowvale was the final stretch. Crossing the 401 was post apocalyptic, as always, but the limping made it feel even more so. We had a lovely rest under some trees and took our shoes off. The final approach to the zoo included some confusion, as the road signs did not anticpate people arriving on foot. I think we might be the first people to ever walk to the zoo from downtown Toronto. I take Nanmac's point that this would be a dubious accolade.
Thankfully the zoo parking lot, our last hurdle, proved smaller and more shady than we'd feared and all of a sudden we had acheived our goal. Now we did want our picture taken, and a kindly fellow zoo patron obliged. That triumphant image is on Nanmac's camera right now. Maybe we'll post it someday, maybe we won't. We splurged on tickets for the train-like zoomobile to cart us around, but our zoo tasks nonetheless required more walking than we wanted. Once we were finished, however, we hauled ourselves onto a bus to Kennedy station and the TTC carried us right back home with no fuss.
I can't imagine conducting that expedition alone. Nanmac, I applaud you for your amibition, strength and resilient sense of humour. It was a great day with a great friend and I will always remember it!