Prince Edward County – Day 4 – Millenium Trail to Wellington

The sun came out just before 9am this morning, and looked quite lovely under the mostly cloudy sky. Over the day we had a few moments when the sun emerged again, but it was mostly overcast.

Oakley continues to be anxious, and has been chewing her leg. We found some tape and wrapped it up before heading out this morning. Poor thing.

It was 12° when we set out this morning. We were bundled up in layers. Yesterday I was riding in shorts and short sleeves.

We decided to use the Millennium Trail to ride to Wellington, the second largest settlement in the county. Prince Edward County is a single tier municipality. In 2021 it had a population just under 26,000. Picton has a population of less than 5000, and Wellington, a population of less than 2000.

Our friend Steve’s brother, Bruce, lives near Picton, and we arranged to meet him in Wellington today.  Bruce told us that there is a lot of new home development – single family homes on large lots, the type of development that is a Ponzi scheme. The County has decided to build a new water treatment plant for $200, 000, 000, only $20M of which will be paid for by developers. Recently Doug Ford visited to announce another $18M towards it from the province, which leaves local taxpayers on the hook for $162 million! They probably need to refurbish long before it’s paid for. Bruce said water and sewage charges here are already $2000-$3000 per year per household.

The Millennium Trail is a countywide recreational trail. It’s 46 km long and starts about 700 m from Cindy‘s sister’s house. The county acquired the abandoned rail line from the Canadian National Railway in 1997. As with most rail trails, it is predominantly rural, but passes through some small settlements, as well as Wellington, and Picton.

Here we are at kilometres zero. The trail surface was quite good: on a par with the Caledon Trailway. 

There are no gates at the crossings, although there are stop signs for the trail at the more significant roads, at which we rarely had to stop, because the roads aren’t very busy. 

There was very little leaf colour left, other than some oak trees, but the dogwood, and a few other plants, provided some colour.

Each small settlement has a covered seating area with information about the settlement, picnic table, bike rack, and outhouse.

We weren’t certain what this small shed was, so Cindy peaked in and determined that it is a toilet.

The trail traverses is an extensive wetland. Original settlers in the area travelled mainly by water because the roads were often undeveloped and in poor repair.

Bruce met us a couple of kilometres north of Wellington.

Here we are approaching Wellington on the trail.

I stopped briefly to take a picture of a mural while Cindy and Bruce chatted.

Bruce took us down to see Lake Ontario, which had white caps on it this afternoon.

Here we are riding back away from the lake.

We stopped at the Good Place for lunch. Cindy and I had breakfast bagels and latte. Like Steve, Bruce doesn’t drink coffee or eat lunch. The breakfast bagels were kind of odd, and not as good as what we had in Picton a couple of days ago. 

We had an enjoyable time getting to know Bruce.

Bruce rode with us back to the trail, and then we parted, and he headed back to Picton, and we headed back to Carrying Place.

The trail was mostly downhill with a tail tail wind going to Wellington, but it wasn’t too bad going back because the vegetation on either side of the trail blocked a lot of the wind which was 30 to 45 km/h from the west today. We found Waldo.

This tree which was blocking the trail was not there on our way south. I’m glad we weren’t there when it fell.

We travelled about a kilometre off the trail into Consecon, which we drove through on the way to Picton a couple days ago. When we drove through, we noticed that their library is in an old Anglican church, but it was closed when we were there. As we approached it today, we checked on Google and discovered it was open, so we detoured to see it.

In the foyer they were selling books that they know longer wanted, including a couple of Alice Munro’s books.

The building still has the stained glass windows from when it was a church, and was a very attractive reuse.

We took Oakley for a walk when we got home and had a light dinner, and then a relaxing evening.

We head home tomorrow, but we’ll figure out one more ride to do before we leave.