Cottage Camino - last 2 days

Sunday morning, May 29 - Breakfast on the dock - at the cottage I never eat inside unless it is raining or freezing! I served coffee and egg on a raft - easier that eggs and toast, and no utensils required.

Not exactly as served

 It was hot when we started off at 6:45, but this section of the Victoria Rail trail south to Lindsay had more mature trees and therefore more shade than yesterday. However, there were more mosquitoes!
The first hour was familiar to me, as I have biked it, but as we headed further south it was all new. After 2 hours we arrived at Ken Reid Conservation area, but once again the signage was minimal, and we walked straight through the park, along their boardwalk, with no rest or picnic area to be seen.

We stopped on the side of the trail and had part of our lunch.
We met many more people today than on the other days - perhaps because it was a Sunday. There were lots of bikes and 8 ATVs passed us along the way.
As we walked through the outskirts of Lindsay a woman with a dog told us that we were only 20 minutes from the Kawartha Dairy, our destination for the day.
 Hooray! We arrived there before 1 pm, Dave met us, and we rewarded ourselves with one of their wonderful ice cream cones - mine was "3 truffle chocolate".
Back to the cottage, had the rest of our lunch, a swim

 and were back in Toronto by 5 pm.


But we weren't finished the Camino! So in July, I invited all my pilgrim friends to the cottage, and the 3 of us plus Pat's cousin, who had done a Camino years ago, and Cathy, who was planning to walk in September,  completed the pilgrimage by walking the last stage from Fingerboard Road to Lindsay and the Kawartha Dairy once again.
It was hot, but this section of the trail was shadier, and the signage was much better once we entered the city of Kawartha Lakes.
This is their website.
http://ktct.ca/
While we were walking this section, we met a woman who had recently joined the board of this section of the trail. We gave her an earful of suggestions, including washrooms, water, more shade, picnic areas and signage showing the locations of all these facilities.
Once we arrived back at the cottage ( after another stop for ice cream for some of us) we found more pilgrims, and the rest of the day was spent eating fabulous food ( thanks to all, especially Ingrid),

A sample of the feast

swimming, sunning, and sharing Camino stories. That night there were 10 pilgrims sleeping over in my cottage/albergue,  also known as Pilgrims Rest.

Morning has broken - Ingrid

So finally, with the help of friends, I was able to complete a dream of walking from home to my cottage.

Cottage Camino, day 3 and 4

We continued up Westney Road, as we couldn't see a direct path through the Conservation Areas. The road was very quiet, hilly, with very little traffic, and a tremendous swath of trillium along the sideroad on the west side. We also saw a fox on the road.

Once we reached the outskirts of Uxbridge, the trail was much better marked. We walked through the Timber Tract then the Countryside Preserve.

Uxbridge bills itself as the trail capital of Canada, so we had high hopes that we would find maps to lead us on. After eating our packed lunches on a bench on Main Street, we went into the Library, hoping for water for our water bottles, a washroom and information. We satisfied the first 2 needs, but the Library had no maps, nor information on the Trans Canada Trail, which started a few blocks away along a rail trail. They called the Township office for us ( pilgrims never walk back!) but they had no maps either. I think we were the first through hikers they had encountered at the Library.

http://town.uxbridge.on.ca/trail_maps

This link covers the town paths, but the rail trail belongs to another county, and perhaps that is the problem.
We walked over the trestle at the beginning of the trail, and continued on.




This Rail Trail is straight and flat, built for trains. It is also without water sources, washrooms or benches, and the shade is minimal. As it was very hot by now, we stopped and called it a day, returning to home in Toronto.

Saturday, we started where we left off, but once again it was very hot, and no coffee shop in sight!
We went off the trail in Blackwater, thinking there might be a coffee shop there, but the only commerce was a junk shop.
No wonder, with only 79 residents!

http://www.ruralroutes.com/7567.html



Trail near Blackwater

A local filled our water bottles, and we were back on the trail. We met several bikers, and a few local walkers, but no hikers. The trail went cross country, though marshes where we saw many water fowl. We ended where the trail crossed Fingerboard Road, and this time, our chauffeur, Dave, took us to my cottage in Fenelon Falls.
We settled on the dock, for a swim, appetizers and wine, had dinner at Murphy's and were in bed by 9 pm.




Sunset in Fenelon Falls

Cottage Camino - Pickering to Westney Road and Concession 9

May 26 - Fortified by a sleep in our own beds, Dave drove us to Bayley and Church street in Ajax, a few kms from where we finished yesterday. Our goal was to follow Duffin's Creek, through parks and Conservation Areas, north to Uxbridge. But the maps were inadequate, and when we used the  GPS, the Trans Canada trail  (TCT) kept appearing and disappearing  on the screen.

Here is the map we were trying to use.
http://old1.tctrail.ca/pdf/DurhamRegionTCTGuide.pdf

We entered a park, called Major Spink Area, with the TCT designation, but soon had to backtrack. Next, through a hydro field path, then east to Westney Road. We walked some distance through the Greenwood Conservation area, ending at Pickering village museum https://www.pickering.ca/en/museum.asp



There we ate our lunch, at a picnic bench, and the helpful staff tried to find out the route of the TCT, as we were to follow Paddock road, and the paving of 407 cut it off just north of there.
With no clear path, we decided to walk over the 407 on Westney road, which had signs up saying it was closed to through traffic. Were we local traffic, or were we through traffic? We decided on local, and walked over the bridge.

We connected with the trail again as it goes through the Claremont Field Center, run by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority https://trca.ca/learning/facilities/claremont-field-centre/
but we couldn't find the trail markings through the center, so we were back on the road again.

We ended for the day at Concession 9, and Dave picked us up and returned us once again to our own beds.
The highlights of the day for me were the many rabbits we saw on the trail, the beautiful wildflowers, and the camraderie of our fellow pilgrims. Frustrations: trying to find and follow the TCT!

Cottage Camino- Scarborough to Pickering

I had mused about walking from Toronto to my cottage in Fenelon Falls many times with my grandson Cy, but when I mentioned it to my hiking friends Lise and Pat, they said " Let's do it!"
So, from May 25 to 29, we walked from Toronto to the cottage, except for one 20 km stretch which we walked on July 19.

It was a very hot week in May: around 30 at the hottest time, midday. The temperature prevented us from doing the whole distance, as we had to stop when the heat was too much for us. The section we postponed was along the Trans Canada Trail, which is flat, straight, and not shaded.

We began our hike from Pat's home at Kingston Road near Warden. The path along the
 Waterfront Trail   http://www.waterfronttrail.org/ 
was familiar to us, as we have hiked it many times before.

Pat B (her picture) Lise, Lynne, Darlene and Ada

 Ada and Lynne joined us for the day, so the 5 of us set out, along the trail and Kingston road, stopping for a short break at Peggy's, as we knew that the washrooms were few and far between once we went down to the beach via theDoris McCarthy Trail at Brimley
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLn2gPF-oUc.

Once we arrived at Guildwood, we climbed up, walked through Guildwood Park
http://www1.toronto.ca/parks/prd/facilities/complex/406/
and back along roads to East Point Park with great (closed) facilities, where we ate lunch. Then down to the water again, through Stevenson Swamp and Lower Highland Creek Park
http://www1.toronto.ca/parks/prd/facilities/complex/4/

 We passed the Rouge Hill Go station, then the lovely waterfront at Rough Beach Park,
https://trca.ca/parks/rouge-park/?gclid=CLLnjqa2mc4CFYKAaQodiCUO1Q
with wetlands, and a boardwalk,

 and picnic tables for another snack. We crossed the river via an interesting bridge, then we were in Pickering - finally out of Toronto!

We walked through Petticoat Creek Conservation Area,
 
 then up the west side of Frenchman's Bay. We had hoped to go down the other side to Duffin's Creek and eventually follow it all the way to Uxbridge, but by the time we hit the north side of the Bay, we were done. 30 kms, and there was the Pickering Go Station. We caught the next train back to Danforth, and from the train we were able to see quite a bit of the trail. We walked from 8 am to around 2 pm, to get to Pickering,  and it took us 20 minutes on the train to return.
Back home, rest up, and off again tomorrow.