Day 13: Toronto

Welcome

Yesterday we entered and exited Canada.

At 6.30am the wake-up call came. We drowsily rose from our beds and shuffled out into the lounge to put on shoes and jackets. The bus pulled up to the Canadian border and we got to hear Rob’s communication skills at their finest. As the border officer asked questions about our visit Rob shout-talked back at him, making sure all the answers were clear and audible.

We hopped off the bus and headed into a building to get our passports processed. Once they had ascertained that we were gun and drug free we were sent on our way. Everyone retreated to their bunks for a few more hours of sleep.

*Golden Sparkle Face catching the rays of a pure Canadian sunrise.*

I woke up in Toronto and made a pot of coffee before heading out for a run. I left the bus and headed through Cabbagetown, through Riverdale farm and then up along the Don River. Soon I reached the Evergreen Brickworks and there I entered a beautiful snow-covered trail that runs up the Moore-Park Ravine.

*The Prince Edward Viaduct is a spectacular structure and I did spend some time stopped to admire its graceful steel arches.*

My bridge of the day though, was a concrete structure that after a considerable amount of research I have been able to find neither a definitive name or birth date for. One website I found labeled called it Railway Bridge, Moor Park Ravine. Several other sites said it was Governer’s Bridge. A blog I found referred to it simply as The Bridge Over Mud Creek. The same blog said that this bridge was constructed in 1918 and that it is 117 metres long and 24 metres high. Whether or not these facts are true, this bridge appears to be a reinforced concrete girder design with a concrete truss structure supporting a double-tracked railway line. If anyone knows anything definitive, get in touch!

On the way back to the bus I passed through David Balfour Park, running along another snowy trail and found another nearly identical rail bridge that is on the same line. What a great city in which to own a train.

Jon and Liz spent part of their afternoon at the Allan Gardens, a diverse collection of exotic plants housed in a cast iron greenhouse built in 1910.

Back at the bus I put together a breakfast of champions. This time I started with fruit, adding to the bowl a chopped banana, chopped kiwifruit, a chopped unripe peach, fresh raspberries and fresh blueberries. I topped this assortment with yoghurt and then added my great grains cereal, Blueberry Nut Crunch, naturally flavoured, with real delicious BLUEBERRIES, and a few glugs of milk.

Then it was time to load into the venue. Not a very long push but there was very narrow set of stairs up to the stage which bumped it from a class 4 up to a class 5. Our venue was The Phoenix, a purpose-built music venue that houses around 1000 patrons. The bathrooms have a fantastic system of sinks that reminded me of a saw-tooth factory roof.

We were set up to go nice and early so we made use of the time and sound-checked thoroughly for an hour and a half. I finally got my in-ear monitor mix sounding perfect and it made my gig especially enjoyable.

After a very fun show we packed-out speedily to get on our way to the border. There was a very helpful man from the venue who held his torch pointed into the trailer so Gabe could see what he was doing.

Finally someone has created a proper shower system. This ground-breaking faucet design is the way of the future. It took me a few minutes to get this thing dialed in but it was well worth the wait. As well as a gentle and saturating rain-shower nozzle at the top, this system has lateral thrusters set at both chest and waist height to help you rinse off. Finally there are two waterfall nozzles which deliver a flat sheet of water from above, or at your thighs. While I did slightly flood the backstage bathroom and a bit of the corridor from testing this shower, the luxurious experience more-than compensated for the amount of time I had to spend cleaning up.

As Rob got the bus on road out of Toronto we settled in and attempted to watch Top Gun Maverick. There is a dodgy HDMI port on the receiver for the TV so it took us half an hour and three laptops to get it going. We just got past the big where Tom Cruise flies his plane very close to the other planes when we approached the border crossing.

It was another masterclass in medium-distance talking from Rob, and the border officer replied in kind, bellowing his own stream of words.

There is an excellent free resource available for those crossing the Peace Bridge between Canada and USA. On peacebridge.org you can find free live webcams to watch yourself trundle across in real-time.