The first one was at the entrance of the Elora Gorge Conservation Area. Overjoyed at finding the route successfully, as I rode down a slope, I did not use the brakes. There was a left turn immediately after the slope. On a normal pitch road I would have still made it. But just at that corner, the pitch suddenly gave way to small loose stones and I jammed the brakes immediately. I skid. Some skid it was. Back wheel sliding sideways. A perfect drift by NFS standards. This continued for about 5 metres, and I continued to lose control till by a split second decision, I ejected myself from the bike pushing against it, so that I landed on my right shoulder on the tall grass and wet soil that cushioned my fall.... birds and stars.....After a second or two, I got up.. the backpack still on me.. the cycle front wheel was turned inwards, while the hind wheel was still rotating. My right knee had fallen on the small sharp stones though, and it started bleeeding profusely, but it had been subject to a lot worse torture during my childhood. Adarsh who was cycling right behind me said that it was like a movie scene and for quite some time, he was under the impression that I was pulling off a stunt.
A close retake of the scene
The Grand River flows through a deep gorge in this area forming many rapids as the one above. The place around has semi-dense forestry making it an ideal camping spot.
The poor telecom services in Canada in addition to my injury prevented us from getting in touch with the rest of the group who arrived by car. When we did, they had already done tubing, while we had already been around Elora Quarry Conservation Area, a swimming hole, where it was fun to see many people cliff-jump into the water.
Elora Quarry Conservation Area
Scene 1: I told Adarsh how exactly to sit on the tube, and not to be afraid. We checked and properly tied each others' equipments. Adarsh saw the flow, got too frightened and was almost backing out. I reassured him. "Nothing's going to happen. It's very easy."
Scene 2: (5 minutes later) Adarsh comes out through the rapid unscathed and floats gently and peacefully downstream only to notice that I am standing on the right rocky bank, while my tube is slowly floating away towards the left bank. I started walking across the rocky bed of the river towards my tube, and walked past the floating Adarsh (a funny scene as I picture it again) telling him how I ended up in this state.
What happened in the interim 5 minutes was that I launched myself into the river. The first sub-rapid was easy; in the 2nd one, it almost tipped over, but I got over it without any mishaps. I was getting confident and was shouting "Yo.. yo.." Then came the 3rd sub-rapid. And halfway through it, my tube capsized. I was completely in the water for a moment. As soon as I came up to the surface, I checked my specs... still intact... and I desperately held on to the tube. So far I had been on the tube, but now the tube was on me, as I kept rolling over and about downstream by the fast moving water, absolutely out of control. I was trying to follow the advice... stay calm, do not resist the flow, try not to stand upright. I was hoping that the water would grow calm soon, and I would manage to get back on the tube. Just then I reached the 4th sub-rapid, and I got tossed about so vigourously that here I lost my hold of the tube. I was afraid that there were more rapids coming up, and I forgot that I was still wearing my helmet and life jacket. In the helpless state that I was in, completely at the mercy of the river, a thought of 'this is the end' crossed my mind and in a desperate attempt to save my life, I shouted out "Help, help" probably for the first time ever. As I fought to reach a side of the river, I saw an old woman holding out an oar from the bank. I accepted the help and reached the rocky bank. It took me a few seconds to get over the shock. I was bruised all over just as warned. But now, life saved, my mind switched to the 75 dollars deposit, I was to lose if I lost my tube. Thankfully I saw it gradually slowing down on the other bank...
After collecting it and continuing, the rest of the tubing was largely uneventful and boring. Initially I was enjoying the beautiful scenery, floating down a river with high cliffs on both sides but at places it became so slow that I got off, took the tube in my arms, walked down the river along the sides and relaunched in faster waters. The sitting on the tube was also not too comfortable. Neither was the life jacket. One more point of concern was when the tube was being pushed against rocky sided cliffs. The arms were in danger of getting badly scraped against them if anyone gets immersed into the natural beauty too much and thinks poetry.
At one spot I saw a fly-fisherman. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_fishing) I parked myself there and chatted with him for a while. He said that the commotion was too much for him catch much fish. I said I was sorry for adding to the disturbance. He said "It's fine. The water belongs to everybody" and I added "Even to the fish"
Fly Fisherman
We all went to the Quarry swimming hole again. Rohit was in the mood. He swam around in the water, and then decided to cliff jump into it, which he pulled off very easily, twice. I was tempted to do the same, but restricted myself, thinking that I still have to bike back some 40 kilometres and couldn't risk exhausting myself further.
Finally when I returned to CLV, I was all battered and bruised, but I had made myself proud. 135 kms in 2 days on cycle; 90 in a single day, and that too 60 kilometres of them after the fall. It was a great experience. There were roller coaster like slopes both down and up (mostly in that order) and we did the Neo thing, pretending to be on motorbikes, bending completely down to reduce air resistance and moment of inertia. At the bottom of the slopes we went up to speeds of 50 kmph. There weren't any cars coming on either side of the road, so we took it over completely. There were beautiful scenes of farmlands and the play of colours of the setting sun. It made me stop over and over again as I took photographs, putting our target of reaching home by 10:25 pm in jeopardy. Adarsh was setting and keeping track of the targets and we were pretending to play games and commentating ourselves... " 12 kilometres left, 25 mins to cover it.. can they make it?"... "They are running out of health points too" Finally we raced upto an average of 25-30 kmph for the last few kilometres but still missed our target by 3 minutes.
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