I left from my parent's place, but realized I had forgotten my first aid kit at home, so made a quick detour back to my place before heading down to the Waterfront Trail. It definitely paid off later that I had gone back for the first aid kit.
Leaving Toronto along the water was familiar territory; once I got just past the Humber Bridge, I stopped for a snack overlooking the water.
Going through the various parks along the waterfront I saw the damage of the windstorm from Friday--trees with roots over 2 metres across had just been ripped right out of the ground.
Leaving Etobicoke I passed through a really nice park called Marie Curtis; the Etobicoke Creek cuts through it, and there's a little beach as well. I got to stay along the Waterfront Trail right up until Port Credit in Mississauga, which was a super cute neighbourhood around the mouth of the Credit River.
Following this, I had to cut up through some side streets, and ended up coming upon a live wire which had fallen due to the wind storm, with a cop sitting in his car in front of it to warn people not to touch it. Not the most exciting police work, but the cop was friendly and wished me luck on my way to Burlington, where he was from.
Towards the end of Mississauga and into Oakville, the Waterfront Trail signs just led me along Lakeshore Road...not exactly a trail, but it wasn't too crowded with cars. It led me through the main street in downtown Oakville, which was cute, and I was getting pretty close to my destination, or so I thought.
When I finally arrived at the entrance to the park, there were big signs saying that this was the day use entrance and that the camping ground was at a different entrance. I was starving at this point, so I figured I’d eat lunch in the day use side before continuing on. As I was walking my bike back to the trail after eating, I lost control a bit, as I’m not used to the loaded up weight, and dropped my bike. The gear cog managed to find its way right into my shin, leaving both a gash and a lot of bike grease.
At this point I was feeling pretty happy that I had gone back and grabbed my first aid kit in the morning. But when I went to clean it, the moist towelettes in the first aid kit were all dried up...so I ended up having to squirt purell all over these dried towelettes, but it did the job.
As I was leaving the day use side, I asked the park attendant how to get to the other entrance, as google maps had already failed me once. She gave me driving instructions which were definitely not the most direct, and had me going along the major roads with cars whizzing past. So that wasn’t the most fun, but then I finally arrived at the right entrance and got a campsite.
Everyone else in the park had RVs, including the 2 campsites on either side of me. It was starting to spit rain as I arrived, so one of the guys from the next campsite ran over and helped me set up my tent and throw all my stuff inside before it got wet. His and his family then invited me to have dinner with them in their RV which was lovely. His aunt and uncle had been living in their RV since August of last year and were just travelling all over the US and Canada. They both had also been on many bike tours so had some tips for me!
After dinner they made a campfire to sit around for a bit before the guy and his parents left to go back to Oakville.
The next morning, the couple in the campsite on the other side of me invited me to join them for breakfast which was also great. So by the time I was packing up my campsite, I hadn’t eaten any of the food I had brought. If this is a taste of what’s to come on this trip, I think I’m going to meet a lot of interesting people.
On my way back to Toronto, I decided to take a different route back. This was definitely a mistake. Googlemaps routed me through this long suburban main roadway through all of Oakville and half of Mississauga where I was passing strip malls and being passed by very fast cars. Not so fun, but by the time I got to Port Credit, I was able to hop back on the Waterfront Trail.
Once I got home I was exhausted, but I had a great time and this mini-trip has just gotten me amped up for my big one!
Day 1
Total distance: 70 km
Total elevation: 149 m
Day 2
Total distance: 47 km
Total elevation: 100 m
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