More Picture's from the first Leg

The South Terminus

I wasn't sure if this one would turn out due to the position of the sun. The plaque outlines the goal, to make it to the Northern Terminus.

Curtis at the South Terminus
Ruin
We found this old ruin in the afternoon. It was about 20 minutes from the site we had lunch. We weren't about to scale the cliff to get down to investigate further. Perhaps we'll do that as a special excusion one day. Clearly someone built a structure here, for what purpose I'll likely never know.

Bridge Signpost
This plaque commemorates the bridge that was built over the Queen Elizabeth Way, a major highway that the trail crosses. It was only recently opened. I'm not sure how people crossed in the past, most likely on the rail bridge. Not by dodging highway traffic I hope!




Cars in Canal
You can't have too many pictures of old wrecks in canals. I have no idea how these got there. The water in this part of the canal isn't very deep as you can see by the height of the cars in the water.

If our first day was any indication hiking the entire Bruce Trail is going to be an abosulte blast. I'm looking forward to another day out in the fall. In the meantime I'll be busy learning the business of fatherhood. Which is great really, because hopefully I'll be able to pass on the passion for hiking, explore nature and part of Ontario with my children. It's also great that Curtis has the same goals and ambitions.

First Leg - 24 of 845 kilometres complete

Neil at the Southern Terminus

Neil at the Southern Terminus

Neil at the Southern Terminus

What beautiful weather for a first leg of the trail.  We'd decided we we're going rain or shine so I am glad it was beautiful.  The mosquitoes during the first hour or so of the trip were bad, had they been like that all day we might have had to end it early.  Next time, bug spray.

This was a small waterfall like feature we encountered on the trip.  It was water rushing out of what appeared to be a broken pipe of sorts.  Would have looked closer but for the mosquitoes.

This is part of the Old Welland Canal.  You can see the remains of 3 cars in this photo.

This part of the canal can be seen at 43º08'23.05" N 79º10'41.79" W in Google Earth  

Another look up the canal.  This was shot from where Glendale Ave crosses the old Canal.

This is a series of shots as the Edward L Ryerson passed under the lift bridge at Glendale Ave.

Calculating our walk on Google Earth we walked 12.64 km from the Southern Terminus to a park at 43º09'00"N 79º09'18"W.

The day ended after hiking 24.11 km (not including the time we got off the trail in Thorold).

We pick up again across from the Brock University school of Nursing.  43º07'24"N 79º14'37"W.

Sat July 5, 2008 - First Hike

It's started! Today Curtis & I started out the trail. We were hiking by approximately 8:15am and wrapped up around 4:45pm. We started the day off in Queenston by the Brock Memorial and finished at Brock University in St. Catherines.

It was a good start to the journey and we couldn't have asked for a better day. You'll be hearing from Curtis in the future as he'll be a contributor to the blog. I'm going to leave this one short for now. Picture's and other information will be coming soon.

Official Bruce Trail site

For those who may want more information:

Bruce Trail Conservancy

The official website for the Trail, with popular day hikes and other information.

The beginning...

This blog will be dedicated to my journey along The Bruce Trail. As I hike segments of the Trail I'll post on the experience, provide some pictures and otherwise document the progress of this great hike.

Hiking the Bruce is somewhat of a life dream. After hiking the West Highland Way in Scotland the notion of just going for a walk and experiencing nature and getting away from the hustle and bustle of the city just clicks! If there are a few pubs on the way then all the better.

It will be slow going for sure, a few weekends here and there. I don't expect that I'll have the whole trail hiked for at least 10 years. But that's ok, it's not a race. The journey is the focus here, not the destination.