Distance: 45 km
Elevation: 64 m
Date: August 30, 2022
I am in Saskatoon – ahead of time! This was my last cycling day! 2,733 km through three provinces and two time zones, through mountains, hills and prairies.
Tomorrow, I will board a train to Toronto and see what expects me on the next section of my journey.
The night had been bad. I barely slept in my warm room and my bed with a questionable history.
It turned out that I was the only paying guest in the hotel. Only the cook was sleeping in a room next to me. And the walls were very thin.
After I had my stuff together I had breakfast at the local gas station. Yummy!
The distance for today was just over 40 km. No big challenge despite the heat. However, I noticed that I was tired and had a low mood.
In my way I passed by two potash mines that the locals had told me about yesterday.
For today we had planned a Facebook Live together with Dennis and Annika from the “Dachzeltnomaden Hilfsorganisation”. Since you never know if you have cell reception in Canada, i stopped at a little village along the way. Technology was a little challenging but we got it to work finally.
As mentioned, my mood today was a bit low. First of all, because I was tired but also because the journey was coming to and end. Furthermore, there were hardly any donations so far on this tour which was very disappointing. There was not even a welcome sign for a nice selfy when I reached Saskatoon. So I was pitying myself a bit.
My first stop was the train station to understand where I needed to be tomorrow morning. In Canada, railroad is dominated by cargo. They own the network and the cargo trains.
And there is way more money to make with that. A passenger train runs every two or three days and has max. a handful of wagons. And there are only three different lines in all of Canada. Three!
A cargo train however, is four km long with double stacked 40 feet containers, pulled by four locomotives. It is impressive to see.
The attendant told me that it would be fully normal that my train would have half a day delay because cargo trains were given priority. He gave me a website where I could track my train in real-time so I would not wait for hours at the station. Good to know.
After that I went to a nearby campground and checked in. I had a shower and washed all my clothes so I would smell nicely aboard the train. Also I trimmed my facial hair so that I did not look like Tom Hanks in “Cast Away”.
After a little nap I ventured out to explore Saskatoon a little. It has a very nice river, the South Saskatchewan River, as well as parks and trails to go with it.
I had dinner in a nice pub and celebrated my arrival a little. Then I cycled back to the campground and went to bed early.
Hey, you made it !!! Congratulations to you, your body, your knee and your mind.
I hope your mood will change soon and satisfaction and pride take over.
P.S: MDR Kultur has an interview series and one of their standard questions is: “What is more difficult for you: getting started or coming to an end?” Since years I try to answer the question and have learned a lot about myself