Hamilton- Day 6 – Dundas

We planned a short ride today, riding along the Hamilton Brantford Rail Trail to Dundas Valley Conservation Area, then leaving the trail and descending into Dundas for lunch and coffee, before riding back up, Cootes Drive, and through McMaster, and back to the apartment, for a ride of about 25 km.

We started the morning, the same way as the previous two, picking up coffee across the street, and then cooking our breakfast. I stripped the bed and put the sheets into the washer, then the dryer before we left.

We took a few residential streets and then onto Locke Street, a nice neighbourhood.

Brampton has started putting speed cushions on some of our collector roads. They’re putting four separate cushions across the width of the road. On roads where they previously put only two in the centre drivers were swerving onto the urban shoulder, or into the bike lane to avoid the speed cushion. I suggested using flex posts to prevent this, which I saw being done here in Hamilton this morning.

Here’s another one of Hamilton‘s water fountains, decorated in a monarch butterfly pattern.

We’re riding along the rail corridor here just before crossing above the 403.

This lovely section was beautifully shaded with trees meeting in the middle. My kids lived on the street backing onto the trail on the right hand side for a few years while at McMaster.

The trail continues through the parking lot at the Fortinos grocery store running for a short while through an industrial area, and then into a residential area.

The trail climbs steadily from just west of McMaster to the Dundas Valley Conservation Area.

This is a reproduction, Victorian railway station, and is a combination railway museum, natural history site, and visitors centre for the conservation area.

We relaxed for a while from our climb, then left the conservation area through that the main driveway onto Governors Road. The weather was perfect.

There was a very steep climb on the driveway that defeated us, and we walked our bikes.

We had a nice descent into Dundas. I like the way Hamilton has started putting bike lanes next to the curb with parking on the left when they want to maintain street parking.

I thought this was a cute slogan for a cheese store.

We had lunch at the Burnt Tongue. It was good.

There are some lovely buildings on the main street in Dundas.

We had lunch at Detour Coffee, which has a nice patio with quite a lot of bike parking where you hang your bike up, which we didn’t notice on our way in which is why our bikes, or just leave it against the wall.

There is a very wide multi path beside Cootes Drive on the climb from Dundas, up to McMaster, which is fairly gentle.

McMaster was once again a very busy place while cycled through.

The city, built a nice transition on King Street at Paradise where the bike lanes through Westdale transition from one on each side of the road, to a bi-directional cycle track on one side.

There is a nice protected crossing over the 403.

It’s a bit challenging to cross the traffic going onto the 403 at this point, but there is a protected place to wait to cross.

Unfortunately, the bi- directional cycle track ends at Breadalbane Street and the route for the eastbound bike traffic is convoluted, and longer than continuing along King Street, but King Street is only one way westbound here. It’s five lanes wide, though, so I’m not really sure why they didn’t continue with the bi directional bike lane. Westbound bikes can follow the yellow line I’ve drawn. Our route is the red one.

We did see this colourful mural which we otherwise would not have. And a sign for Relay Coffee, which we will try tomorrow.

When we got back to the apartment, I went up to get Patti‘s car keys and we took the bikes over to the car to load them before bringing down the rest of our things. I had forgotten that she didn’t have a bike rack for her car, and it quickly became obvious that we wouldn’t be able to fit everything in , with the two bikes on the inside, and I was also concerned that the two bikes might get damaged if they were on top of each other. So we just loaded her bike and took mine back up to the apartment. I phoned Michael and asked him if he wanted to come back down to spend the night again, and bring his bike, and we could continue exploring Hamilton tomorrow. He thought it was a good idea, finished up his work, packed and message that he was on his way down.

Shortly thereafter, I realized that I had forgotten to collect the parking pass from Patti, so I messaged her, and she was also home, so I phoned him, and he hadn’t gone past her home yet, so he went to her house to pick up the parking pass.

It worked out well because Megan and John are not back until Sunday and John’s brother was going to have to come and feed Ralph after we left.

Ralph has warmed up enough that I got kisses when I went back up after seeing Patti off and started writing the blog. He has not gone back into hiding with Michael’s reappearance.

We went to Amigos for dinner where we ate on the patio, then back to the apartment to watch an episode of Slow Horses, which we just discovered last week, but love it enough we are already in Season 2 (there are only 6 episodes per season).

Tomorrow we will ride to the waterfront after breakfast at Steve’s Kitchen which was closed on Monday and Tuesday, to Michael’s disappointment. So staying an extra day has worked out well.