Whitby 2023 – Day 3

The weather completely changed last night, and we needed cycling sleeves, and some of us, wind jackets, this morning.

David and Dayle had to attend a memorial in Bronte this evening, so we planned a short day today, so they didn’t end up feeling rushed. The sun came out just after we left, but was intermittent over the day.

Whitby seems to have art program to paint utility boxes.

We took David and Dayle to see the sculpture of Sir William Stevenson, whose nickname was Intrepid. Whitby was home to Camp X, a top-secret World War II spy training school. I wrote about it last year here.

The sculpture is in front of the Central Library on Dundas St., East.

We then headed north towards Brooklin, a Heritage Conservation District in North Whitby. The route I planned was north on Cochrane Street, however, when we got to the rail crossing, we found the road was closed for construction. As we start looking at maps, trying to decide which way to detour, a cyclist came up behind us and offered to guide us past the detour.

He took up cycling during the pandemic, and absolutely loves it, and now has flown more than 10 times with his bike. He was very friendly and patient, and confidently led us to Cochrane Street north of the detour before heading on his way.

We cycled past the Thermëa Spa which opened last fall, and through Heber Down Conservation Area. It has a beautiful tree line, paved multiuse path.

It led to a rural road, a designated bike route, with a good paved shoulder, which likely won’t remain a nice road to ride for long, as a massive industrial facility for Mazda Canada is being built. This, despite the fact that this road does not have ramps to the 407 and is 10 km north of the 401. It’s not going to be long before there is no rural area between the north and south part of Whitby which is divided by the 401 and the 407. We crossed Highway 7 and shortly thereafter arrived at the Brooklin Community Centre and library.

Since this was the designated by bike route up to this point with an excellent paved shoulder, the sharrow centred in the lane, combined with the single file sign, seems slightly more appropriate, and potentially helpful, then the implementation we saw a couple days ago.

The Brooklin Community Centre and library had four good bike racks out front with this message on them, which I thought was a great idea.

Inside they had Emily Batty’s jersey framed. She was born in Brooklin, and is a cross country mountain biker who won the bronze medal at the 2016 and 2018 World Championships.

We had an excellent lunch at Upshot Coffee.

Then headed downhill with a wonderful tailwind all the way back to the house. We could almost have coasted the whole way. There were more nice quiet rural roads with good shoulders and an excellent trail through a hydro corridor.

We passed by the William Anderson house, built in 1834. In 1984 a subdivision was built around the house, but it was purchased and restored, and is the oldest remaining brick house in Whitby.

When we were looking at the sculpture in front of the library this morning, Cindy noticed that there was a QR code for an art trail. So we returned David and Dayle to the house, and I sat down and looked up the locations on the art trail, chose a few to visit, and planned a route.

Our first stop, was at the Region of Durham offices. This piece by Geordie Lishman illustrates with pictures the four directions of the Region: north, hiking and skiing; south, the lake; east, suburban areas and parks; and west, downtown shopping areas.

They also have this great bike rack.

I was interested to see that the Region of Durham has crossrides at signalized intersections, but without bike heads. So cyclists are legally allowed to ride across, but do not have to wait for a specific bike signal, but use the motor vehicle traffic light.

Next, we went to the Wounded Warriors Park of Reflection on the old Cullin Gardens and Miniature Village site. It operated from 1980 to 2005. As we were crossing Taunton Road, Cindy said, “We were here this morning. It’s the spa.” She was correct, but we hadn’t realized this was the Cullin Garden site, and the Park of Reflection wasn’t within sight of the multiuse path. It was behind the spa.

“The park is a tribute to all of Canada’s uniformed service, and their families, who served domestically or internationally, and as a result of service, became ill or injured in the line of duty”.

Down the hill from the park, is the old covered bridge, and the area where the miniature village was, as well as a mini golf course.

The sculpture of Len Cullin is also on the art tour.

I realized that if we continued around the loop that I had planned, we would run into the road closure on Cochrane Road from the north side, so we retraced our route south down Brock Road, where there was an excellent multiuse path with crossrides, which make it makes it legal for cyclists, to ride their bikes across the road, rather than dismount, when, using multiuse paths, rather than the roadway.

We turned off Brock and along a nice little linear park to get back to where we are staying. We got in the front door and realized that we needed milk, so we took Oakley for a walk to the convenience store.

On the way there, I closely observed the timing of another intersection to determine when the bike head light turned yellow. It was when the pedestrian count reached zero. Another thing that is annoying about the programming in Brampton is that the bike head light turns yellow, and then red, long before the pedestrian light gets to zero.

Dinner was chicken curry and rice with cabbage and cilantro, followed by Kawartha Dairy is ice cream.

Tomorrow we will ride a loop east of Whitby.