Hillsburgh 2024 – Day 2

Today we planned to do Barry’s second tile collection route, which again, were new tiles for him, but not for Cindy and me. He planned a coffee break at the Tin Roof Café in Erin, where we arranged for David and Dayle to meet us for lunch and treats, to celebrate Dayle’s 71st birthday.

Cindy pointed out that there were two really steep hills on the route that Barry planned into Erin, and that she knew another route, which would avoid those hills, between the house and Hillsburgh. So after the first kilometre, we split off on the easier route, which was new to me, and planned to meet up at the café.

Once again we saw some lovely rural properties.

We also saw this amazing fungi.

We stopped briefly to see this sculpture Cindy’s sister created for the library in Hillsburgh. The maple fell in a windstorm in 2021, but fortunately didn’t hit the building. “The sculpture is made from 9 foot slabs of the fallen maple tree and mounted on the stump that remained. The sculpture is a book with the pages dedicated to flora and fauna that are carved into the pages and coming out of the book.”

We saw this whimsical sculpture in a field shortly before we got Erin. 

Barry was already waiting at the café when we got to the plaza across the street, where Cindy went into the dollar store to buy a candle for Dayle‘s treat.

David and Dayle soon arrived and we got lunch, coffee, and treats, and sang happy birthday to Dayle, to the delight of all the other people at the café, who applauded when we finished.

I was feeling tired, so wanted to return via the direct route that we had come by, rather than riding the rest of Barry’s route. He decided to ride most of the way with us, and get the rest of his tiles later. We passed this cute park and building as we were leaving Erin.

We saw really fancy gate at one farm.

And a whimsical cut out of some cows on a nearby barn.

We stopped again at the library, and went in to have a look around. They have a fabulous, and huge, book of Annie Leibovitz’s photography which we spent some time pouring over.

For the last few kilometres we decided to get on the Elora Cataract Rail Trail. When we got to 27th Sideroad Cindy and I headed back to the house, and Barry did a loop to pick up a couple more tiles.

I went straight to the hammock by the pond and Cindy brought me and gin and tonic with lime, and I spent a relaxing hour or more before changing out of my cycling clothing.

Cindy played with Maple and I caught this delightful image of them reflected in the pond.

We had another delicious homemade dinner, and ended the evening in the hot tub. Tomorrow we do one of my tile collection routes.