Hillsburgh 2024 – Day 5 – Waldemar to Arthur

The day started with Willy and Rusty in our bed. 

After four days of driving on gravel roads, my car is absolutely filthy.

We were originally going to do a ride in Mono Township today, but yesterday when we were having coffee, we met a group of cyclists that mentioned the Upper Grand Trailway, a rail trail of approximately 10 km one way. When we returned to the house, I mapped it and determined that it connected to the West Luther Trailway which ended in Arthur. Since we had mostly done road riding up to this point, we decided to give the trail a try.

At regular intervals along the trail, we saw pop bottles being reused as containers for used plastic bags for pet waste. It was good to see these plastics getting a second life.

 The Upper Grand Trailway  surface wasn’t too bad, but the gates at the roads were quite tight.

We continued to see turbines and they were often  near a hydro corridor.

Here is Cindy trying to get around another very tight gate.

We were rather dismayed when we arrived at the beginning of West Luther Trailway to see that it was just a grassy track, but we decided to carry on, anyway. It was very rough and slow going.

Cindy spotted the biggest puffball I’ve ever seen in my life.

There were some sections that were worn down to dirt, which were a bit better than riding on the grass.

We found more interesting fungi. Cindy loves fungi and was very excited by our discovery.

This section, although not great, because of the larger gravel, was still better than the grassy sections.

A sign was posted here to indicate something interesting to see, and there was a set of stairs.

When I walked down the stairs, I discovered this old culvert.

Barry decided to put the drone up and capture some of the turbines in the area.

This turbine had a couple of workers on it.

In Arthur, we stopped at Sterre Cafe for lunch and coffee. It was very good.

Just next door, I couldn’t resist capturing my bike in front of a mural.

I had never been to Arthur before. This is the main street.

This is the local war memorial.

Because of the rough surface of the West Luther Trailway we went back on the road. There were very few cars and the smooth surface was very welcome.

When we saw a section of new pavement ahead, we thought it would be even better, but it was actually rougher than the old pavement.

We got back Upper Grand Trailway for the last couple of kilometers.

We stopped briefly on the drive back home to check the view here from, what Cindy’s sister told us, is the highest elevation in the area.

We had haddock for dinner, which we forget to get out of the freezer before we left, and which took longer to thaw than I expected, so I completely incinerated the onions and peppers that I roasted, but dinner was good nevertheless.