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Yes, very early Saturday morning I went on another long Night Walk. This is the path I followed:
In order to start the walk at Atwater, I had to take the 354 night bus, it was scheduled to arrive at 1h40 that morning, I took this photo after I got in and settled into my seat.
When I got on the bus there was a couple sitting in the very back of the bus, the guy was reading a book, the girl was lying down, her head on his lap. About five stops after I got on, one other person got on.
In past walks that I would do in the suburbs I made it a thing to do, to count
1. The number of other night walkers
2. The number of nocturnal animals I see
3. The number of other night buses I see, and
4. The number of police cars I see
For this walk I did not track any of those things as each category would be too numerous (well, except for nocturnal animals, of which I saw none). In the city there were plenty of other night walkers, I probably saw 8-12 night buses and at least a few police cars. Here's the first intersection:
The next two photos show where Atwater and Dr. Penfield meet, and the school where C-ling goes.
Shortly after that, Dr. Penfield comes to an end where it meets Cote-Des-Neiges in a parallel connection. In the foreground you can see the Dr. Penfield, further back you can see CDN.
Just a little further past that I thought to take this photo of the sidewalk on the north side of CDN, it was very pleasant:
It was shortly after the previous photo that finally I crested the hill. More or less from Ste-Catherine and Atwater to this point, it had been a mix of gradual and steep uphill walking. Coming down on the other side, there was an interesting spot of art along a wall of an apartment complex; here is just one small part of it:
I bit later I turned the corner from CDN to Queen Mary:
And just a few minutes later I saw this:
Next I turned the corner onto Victoria, and it was just moments after this, I marked the time, it was 3h26, that I started to hear bird song. Up until that moment there wasn't any. It dropped off as I passed through a commercial part of Victoria, but picked up again at around 3h45 and I heard it the rest of the way.
Here is Cote-Ste-Catherine metro station, closed at this hour.
Here is one entrance to Plamondon metro station, also closed at this hour. I saw another entrance to this metro a block later.
Then I turned the corner from Victoria to de la Savane.
On de la Savane there is a cemetery, this gave me the opportunity to see that the sky was starting to lighten up. The photo was taken at 3h53.
De la Savane turns into Royalmount when it crosses the Decarie expressway.
This is the Decarie Expressway looking north, rather empty (not surprisingly).
After I crossed Decarie, a few blocks further on Royalmount, I started to hear this immense noise. As I got closer I figured it out - there were perhaps two or three hundred seagulls camped out and flying around this one industrial building. If I was to guess, not a single one of them was resting still and quiet - they were making so much noise!!! As I passed by, a few of them flew near me, others flew to the closest building to me to look down and watch me. I was eerily reminded of Alfred Hitchcock's movie. I should have at least taken a photo, or a short video, but I just wanted to get past them.
Here I turn the corner of Royalmount to Devonshire. The sky is starting to lighten further.
Where Devonshire ends at the highway, and where I then join up with Cote-de-Liesse there are no street signs at all. Devonshire goes underneath the highway, however, there is a pedestrian crossing of the railway, underneath the highway that allowed me to join the Code-de-Liesse service road. It was too dark under there to take any photos. Here's a closeup of that section:
This was my first street sign of Cote-de-Liesse
All along Cote-de-Liesse are industrial building and hotels. Of the industrial buildings I found about half were 'for sale' or 'for rent'. Of the hotels, I found about half were clearly shutdown, with no vehicles of any kind, while the other half did show signs of life. As I was passing I had this idea, if I was a multi-billionaire to buy up all of the empty industrial buildings and also the closed hotels, tear down all of those buildings and remove the infrastructure that supports them and plant Miyawaki forests. Yes, I know, the local municipality would lose out on tax revenue from businesses that might have been put there eventually, but with my multi-billions I could create a foundation that pays the city some amount in perpetuity to keep these new forests safe.
The next two photos are when I decided to turn to look behind me to see how the sun rise was faring.
Soon I crossed highway 13, rather empty (not surprisingly).
Cote-de-Liesse turns into Michel-Jasmin, and soon after that change, I've crossed over the Dorval Circle and have reached the train station.
The sun had risen at this point and so it was casting long shadows; then Michel-Jasmin was no longer Michel-Jasmin, it was Cardinal.
Then I reached the Pine Beach train station and finally Cardinal wasn't Cardinal anymore, it became Donegani.
There aren't any more photos of this walk, from there it was Donegani to Ashgrove and then I'm home.
Having had a nap the day before the walk was a bad idea; it made it so that I didn't fall asleep as easily earlier Friday night. This meant I had fewer hours of sleep before the walk, and I was starting to feel it near the end, around where CDL turns to Michel-Jasmin. It was just a sense of grogginess and a bit of fatigue. I'll endeavour to not nap for my next walk.
I'm thinking of taking the 354 bus all the way west instead of east, into Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, and then walk along the north side of the island, through Senneville into Pierrefonds on Gouin, and then turn south on St-Charles to Elm, taking Elm east where it turns into Donegani.
1 comment:
That is a good route. Some 25 years ago, i'd get lost trying to find shortcuts from Cote de Liesse to Blue Bonnets, more thna a few times i found myself in strange industrial lots, surrounded by ominous concrete tanks designed to off-gas sinister liquids.
If you went around Senneville at night, you'd see your wildlife. But don't omit too much of Gouin in Pierrefonds, it's nice to get so far as St Jean, it was 'country' enough for bait shops, last time i passed there.
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