Walking on a Country Road…
Tim and I have been trying to get out and do more walking lately, and one of the best ways to do so is to walk on one of the many Public Footpaths in our area. Public footpaths are pretty interesting. If you’ve got one on your property, you aren’t allowed to block access to it and need to let people walk on it, so some of the footpaths run down the middle of a farmer’s field or behind someone’s house! Apparently there have even been cases where a house had been built over a public right of way, and the owner had to let people traipse through their house! (not really. If you needed to, you could provide an alternate path and ask that the current path be diverted).
All the paths are marked on the Ordinance Survey map, and Tim happens to have one for the area. Tim’s parents walk the family dog along a public foot path and we did some walking with them (or just with the dog) last year, so this time we set out for a different path. Last week, we drove over to explore a new path in a nearby town, but yesterday we stayed close to home and probably walked about a mile round trip.
The walking was great fun….until we came to a muddy field that almost took my new shoe! In the future when we walk that path, we’re going to make sure it has been dry for a few days, I think. It also started to rain on us, which wasn’t too pleasant either!
We made it about halfway to Scothern (a neighbouring village) yesterday before we had to turn around and head back home due to the weather. Our goal is to walk the same path multiple times and to see how far we can get in a half hour as we improve our stamina.
I got new shoes just for doing all this walking, too. I think I spent at least an hour in Millets trying on multiple pairs of hiking shoes until I settled on the pair I got. They were a little pricey at £69, but not as high as some of the pairs they had (there was a pair I wouldn’t even look at because it was priced at over £120!). And I actually do notice the difference walking in them. My feet don’t hurt as much (or at all) when I’m wearing the boots. They’re a bit cumbersome though. I’m not used to clunky shoes so I keep tripping myself. But it’s still way better than trying to walk the muddy paths in some of the shoes I usually wear! I should take a picture of my shoes sometime 
.
Here are some photos of our ramble yesterday. It looks like (judging from the quality of the photos) my camera might be on it’s last legs (or it was the dying battery), so please excuse the poor quality:
(this also was my first try at using the WordPress gallery function. Pretty neat!)
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Google Walking Directions
Just because Google offers walking directions, doesn’t mean you should follow them.
On Friday, Tim and I made plans to go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I knew where the movie theatre was and I knew how to drive it, but Tim and I would not have access to a car on Friday. I used Google’s new walking direction feature, and it surprisingly took us the same route as we’d go via car.
Problem: The road (Schoolhouse Lane in Manor Twp) doesn’t have a sidewalk for most of the road! It doesn’t even have a shoulder at parts of it, and some of the homes along the road have Poison Ivy along the curb, so you don’t want to walk on the edge of the lawns. It was hard going and we kept getting dirty looks from the cars whizzing by us, but we finally made it over to the cinema.
As for how we liked the movie, that’s probably best for a different entry.
We’re leaving in a few minutes to head down to DC for a week, so see you on the flip side!
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This Town Needs a Bus….
On Friday, I had to go into town for Joe. He asked me to deposit a cheque that came in the mail for him, and his bank is over a mile away. I took the opportunity to also go to the Extra Foods, as the sale flier announced “Dollar Days” and I thought it’d be a good way to stretch my money.
My ankle/foot had been bothering me for several days and so I kept putting off the trip because 2 miles round trip plus whatever other walking I did was going to be hell on my leg….but I told Joe I’d go by Friday for him, so I put on the cheap ankle brace I bought my first week in town and headed out.
And I was in pain within a half a block. This town needs a bus. Even if they just run 2 busses up and down Main Street from the Safeway/Wal-Mart parking lot into town and maybe terminating around the post office, it would be an improvement. I actually gave it some thought. Most of the side streets aren’t deep enough that someone couldn’t walk up to main street to get a bus, so the bus wouldn’t need to divert from main street. A bus over to the greyhound and over to the little airport a few times/day (around the times of departures/arrivals) would probably help out, too. (The train station is off Main, so it’d be covered). I’m sure a bus is the pipe dream of anyone in this town who is car-less or who is a teenager (of course, I don’t know if Canadian teens are “mall rats” the same way US teens are or not). A bus would be most beneficial during the wintertime, when I’ve been told your nose will freeze within a minute of being outside, and the few weeks of Summer they get here (those days when I was complaining I was so hot). It would benefit older Canadians who still drive because they have no other choice, injured people, teenagers, people who don’t drive, and even those who do drive who might not want to drive daily.
One thing I noticed in town was the lack of people out on the streets walking, but a tonne of cars on the street. The town reminds me of places like State College and Ann Arbor – small towns that have a “main drag” where pretty much all the stores/restaurants are. but the main difference between State College, Ann Arbor, and here? The two US towns are car un-friendly, and have a bus system – even some free loops to assist people (Silver Adept and I took the free bus in Ann Arbor several times when it was really cold out and I was visiting him, and when I went to Penn State, we were always on the Loop).
If Dauphin did start up even a small bus loop on Main Street, it would also bring commerce into the town and bring people to jobs – Living over where Sarah and Joe do, the closest stores are the Safeway and Wal-Mart, both across the street,and both US-based companies. But a mile into town, there’s an Extra Foods and a Co-Op, both Canadian owned and even a bit cheaper on prices. Currently, I’ve been walking down to Extra Foods, or going with C to Co-Op, but I think if I was here in the wintertime, I wouldn’t want to walk quite that far. A bus that I only had to walk a few meters to catch that would take me there and back would be favourable! The mall is hiring – many of the shops have “help wanted” signs…and if there was a bus in place, the people who lived in town and needed a job but had no car could take jobs out at the mall. Downtown has a lot of empty store fronts and stores “going out of business”. I wonder if the reason is because people don’t walk around in town to go to those stores. If there was a bus for getting up and down main street, some of the fledgling businesses might see more action. People wouldn’t have to bother with trying to find a rare parking spot on the street if they wanted to check out a store they drove past, just hop off the bus.
Not to mention the environmental impact all those cars are making. How many people who drive everywhere would be willing to ride the bus if one existed? Could a bus really lessen the number of cars on a street? I think so.
This whole thing stemmed from me being in lots of pain, and being unwilling to call for a taxi. Taxi’s are way too expensive, IMHO to use daily, and my money is tight up here, so I didn’t want to have to stretch it any farther, so I stuck it out. And now I’m in pain. I have a bruise right above my ankle on the back of my leg, and I think it’s from the strain I put on my leg because I was being extra careful with my foot.
And of course, like all ideas, there’s the possibility it’s just not feasible or has already been looked into and determined to not work out for the town. I don’t live here, so I don’t know….but I definitely was wishing for a bus while I was walking on Friday!
I’m just hoping I don’t have to walk all the way down to the bank again before I leave!
Walking around Dauphin
Today I walked North of Sarah and Joe’s (I think. They can correct me if I’m wrong) to the actual town part of Dauphin. I had a lot of fun walking around and exploring. My pedometer told me I walked over 4 miles, but I can’t believe it was really that much, though I did go on some side streets and backtracked myself at one point, so maybe I did.
The town of Dauphin is small, I think maybe the entire area of “downtown” is about 6 or 7 blocks long. I found three Dollar General type stores, at least two (maybe even three) places that had “pharmacy” in their store name, a few assorted other stores, and three locations where you can mail stuff through Canada Post.
I walked down to the train station and discovered there is a train museum inside the station house. Unfortunately, even though the sign said it should be open, it wasn’t. I sent an e-mail to the address on the sign though to ask when it was open, so hopefully I’ll get to go to it at some point before I go home!
I also learned today that postage is expensive. Letters home are CDN$0.96, and letters to the UK are almost $2!
Photos:
For more photos, check out my gallery for today: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/winnipeg-manitoba-august-2008/around-dauphin-part-one/
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