Sun. 30 July: The Blue Yonder
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| On the Blue Trails today |
Note: click on pictures for full size view.
Two
blue loops in one busy day! Now I only
have one blue loop to go.
These
Rideau Trail side trails, marked with a blue triangle, have been a focus for me
this year. Now I’m close to having hiked
every one of them. Today, a colleague
and I walked over twenty kilometres – and rode an Ottawa city bus!
Our
first hike required some logistical planning.
This blue trail starts in the middle of the Ottawa greenbelt, and so we
had to access the trailhead from the main Rideau Trail. Our start was a shopping mall parking lot on
a busy city road (Robertson Rd.) but we were immediately swallowed up in the
woodlands that surround the city. The
trail had some muddy wet patches at the start, a reflection of this rainy
summer.
The
so-called Bells Corners blue trail heads generally northeast for eight
kilometres, skirting residential areas, crossing over the busy four-lane
Toronto-Ottawa highway, with one nice viewpoint across to the Ottawa River and
the Gatineau Hills beyond. Down in the
fields below us, people were busy picking strawberries. The path was quiet, with the occasional
bikers or dog walkers passing by.
A
short walk from the end of the trail at Holly Acres Road brought us to the
futuristic Bayshore bus station, although most of the buses arriving at the
station seemed to have “Out of Service” on their signs. Bus 97 took a scenic route across the western
neighborhoods of Ottawa, bringing us back to our car.
It
was just a short drive to the trailhead for our next hike. The Lime Kiln loop is a roughly circular walk
of nine kilometres. We soon reached the
ruined lime kiln, over a hundred years old, which gave the trail its name. The path wandered through an area of new growth
forest, which was burned in a fire five years ago, and through pleasant
woodland and swamp landscape. The
well-marked trail, mostly a wide forest pathway, was quite dry, with just a few
wet patches. We saw very few people, but
plenty of mosquitos.
It
was hard to believe that we were within the capital city of Canada. Distant traffic could occasionally be heard,
but our journey took us along enchanting woodland pathways for kilometre after
kilometre. We may have been in a city of
over a million people, but it felt more like the blue yonder to us.
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| Robertson Road trailhead for our first hike |
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| The main Rideau Trail heads directly into the forest |
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| A few muddy obstacles at first |
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| Start of the Bells Corners Blue Trail |
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| This summer will never dry out |
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| Secret forest gates lead to civilization |
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| Delightful pathways |
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| Yet within the city of Ottawa |
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| Several sturdy boardwalks |
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| Crossing the main highway from Toronto, Hwy 416 |
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| Views to the Ottawa River and Gatineau Hills of Quebec |
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| Berry picking |
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| Bee hard at work |
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| A concrete world beneath the Hwy 416/417 junction |
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| Futuristic Bayshore bus station |
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| Don't forget how useful the buses can be when planning hikes |
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| Our second hike started at Parking lot P-10 |
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| Boardwalk through the tall grasses |
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| Looking down into the 100+ year old lime kiln |
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| A scary thought |
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| Results of the fire of 2012 |
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| One brief meeting with the main Rideau Trail |
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| Some great bridges and boardwalks |
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| A silent swamp |
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| The trail was well signed |
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| Friendly resident |
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| Varied scenery along the trail |
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Frog trying to avoid being trodden on
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