Humber River Trail

We had planned to go out of the city but family commitments made us change plans at the last minute.  Since we were near to the Humber River we made a last minute decision and went there.  The Humber river was explored in the early XVII century by Étienne Brûlé.  The river was used a route by the natives to travel from Lake Ontario to the interior.  It is the largest watershed within the city of Toronto.  

Walking along the river you often feel that you are outside the city, though, today it is a holiday and there were lots of people around.  We walked from James Gardens to Étienne Brûlé Park, near the Old Mill, and some more.  In total we walked 14 km.  

Beautiful day, not too hot, not to humid, sunny, perfect for a summer walk.

The pictures:

The flowers are in full bloom at James Gardens

Most of the trail is paved, the bad news:  too many bikes

There was a blue heron posing for pictures

 In the way back the blue heron had been joined by a great egret

A bit farther there was a cormorant

And of course a bunch of messy Canadians

The golden rods are in bloom, letting us know already that fall is coming

Hilton Falls

Hilton Falls is a conservation area North-West of Mississauga in Milton.  It has 33 Km of trails and a side trail of the Bruce Trail zig-zags thru it. The conservation area trail are easy to walk on, wide and well maintained.  The side trail of the Bruce is more rugged, more difficult to walk on but much prettier.

We had not been aout for almost two weeks thanks to my back. I hurt it probably picking up a heavy cooler at at family  picnic.  I am totally out of shape now.

We started the walk at around 10:30 am, and we did part on the conservation are trails and part on the Bruce trial.  We started the walk going around the Hilton Falls reservoir, then we follow the Bruce to the Hilton Falls.  This is the most visited part of the park and we found a few people around there.  By then it was past noon so we had our lunch.

After that we followed the Beaver Pond Trail to the back of the park and around 1:30 pm we turned around, Since we had a commitment with the grand kids, we had decided we wanted to be back at the car by 2:30 pm.  In total we walked around 15 km.

Here are the pictures:

Humber River Trail

This was an easy walk.  My friends and I usually have a lunch once a month, today we changed to a picnic and a short walk (about 8 km) along the Humber river. The river crosses the city of Toronto, coming from the North towards Lake Ontario.

This is the gang:

                            

  We started in James Gardens.  Beatiful park.  Often wedding parties come to have pictures taken here.

 John and Nancy are bird watchers so we were looking for birds.  We always see redwings, robins, seagulls, Canada geese but we were looking for something munusual

 There he is, a woodpecker (you have to ask John or Nancy what kind of woodpecker)

 And the eagle eyed John saw this Igrid, beatiful bird.