The Passionate Hiker: The Rideau Trail: Smiths Falls Dam (12C) to Merrickville Locks (13E)

Fri. 1 August: The Rideau Trail:

Smiths Falls Dam (12C) to Merrickville Locks (13E)

On the remote McConnell Road

By road, Merrickville is eighteen kilometres from Smiths Falls. It’s twenty five kilometres by foot along the Rideau Trail. This section of trail links two important points along the Rideau Canal, yet wanders far from the canal, along quiet country roads and woodland ways.

Leaving the Long Reach Park at the east end of Smiths Falls, I crossed over the Rideau Canal at Old Slys Locks. I would not see the canal again until I arrived at my destination in Merrickville. The trail turned northwards, contouring around the east side of town. I passed a large industrial complex, its parking lots empty. Not many years ago, this was the Hershey chocolate factory, sadly now closed.

Leaving the town behind me, I headed out into the countryside. For over eight kilometres I walked beside long stretches of open road, luckily with hardly any traffic. First Matheson Drive, then turning right onto Rosedale Road South, then left on Wood Road, a gravel country road. The CP rail line passes through the fields just south of Wood Road, and a long freight train rumbled eastwards through the meadows.

Finally the trail entered the woods onto a dirt track. For over four kilometres I wandered in a straight north-easterly line, dodging muddy puddles, under the cooling canopy of trees. Sadly the first part of this trail was being used as a free dumping ground, the hedgerows littered with piles of old mattresses and other household trash. There’s a quirky British song about this, sung by Flanders and Swann, with the first verse which goes:

When you're walking in the country
Far from villages or towns,
When you're seven miles from nowhere and beyond,
In some dark deserted forest
Or a hollow of the Downs,
You may come across a lonely pool, or pond.
And you'll always find a big, brass, broken bedstead by the bank:
There's one in every loch and mere and fen.
Don't think it's there by accident,
It's us you have to thank:
The Society of British Bedstead Men.

And so on.

My trail opened out to bypass a bedstead-less swamp. I had to hop along the edge of the path to avoid a couple of large puddles. Eventually I came out of the woods to a gravel road, McConnell Road. A few isolated homes bordered the road, mostly hidden in the trees. At the Burchill Road junction I entered the forest again, a continuation of my previous dirt trail. Crossing the brown waters of Rideau Creek on a sturdy bridge, the path finally swung to the right, starting its southeasterly journey into Merrickville.

It felt lonely out here, with no sign of other people, except for the odd footprint in the mud, suggesting that I was not the only person ever to travel the Rideau Trail. There have been sections of the trail when I wondered how many people actually use it in an average year.

After another roadside stretch beside Richardson Road, I turned off onto another forested track, with the important name of Old Quarry Road. I sensed a slight rise in the land, quickly imagining that I was climbing over a high forested hillside. In reality, it was less than ten metres of height gain.

Finally the trail suddenly emerged from the forest onto a wide road leading straight into Merrickville. I was soon walking through an attractive neighborhood with some large old homes for sale, before arriving at the Rideau Canal in the centre of town.

It was a hot, sunny day with a cooling breeze. The Merrickville Locks were active with families enjoying the start to the August Long Weekend, and four expensive looking boats being dropped down through the locks on their way northwards along the canal. This was a place to linger, under the tall trees on the freshly cut grass, admiring the beauty and the history of the Rideau Canal and its surrounding buildings and fortifications.

During this hike, I had completed the full Central section of the Rideau Trail, from Lally Homestead through to Rosedale, and in so doing I have now hiked one quarter of the entire trail. Today’s trip showed me that a longer day’s journey was feasible, and will be needed as I tackle the rest of this compelling journey.

Statistics:

Total Distance: 25.0 km (hike)

Height Gain: Negligible – one slight rise along Old Quarry Rd.

Time on Trail: 5 hrs. 38 mins.

Smiths Falls Dam (12C): 7.59 am

Smiths Falls Rly (12D) : 8.36 am

Rosedale Rd (12E): 9.38 am

Wood Road (12F): 10.13 am

Wood Road exit (13A) : 10.30 am

Buffam Rd (13B): 11.24 am

Blue Trail Jn (13C): 12.18 pm

Heritage Rd (13D): 1.15 pm