I was so close. Just another kilometre or two and I would have made it.

I need to find out more about what “sunrise” actually means. According to Apple Weather the sunrise for this hike would be around 7:20AM. I was up at six, and out of the house just after 6:30, by seven it was bright enough that I could have started hiking. Apparently this is “first light”. So I could have started maybe a half hour early, which would have been nice, as you’ll see.

After arriving in Limehouse ON, I ran into the same problem as last time. No (or very poor) cellular data signal. I track all my hikes in the Bruce Trail App (as I’ve said before) but when the app starts the first thing it does is to “update trail data”. I’m guessing this means closures, reroutes, hazards etc. But with no (or very poor) data connection the app just hangs and you can’t do anything. Full offline mode is a pure necessity for this app. I’ll need to contact the Bruce Trail people and make them aware. If there’s no data connection the app should skip the updates and jump right in.

The first part of the hike took me by many farmer’s fields, little streams and meadows. There were also some wooded sections with many fall colours. And the woods were lovely.

There were a few former quarries again, though without any ruins like Limehouse had. The weather was cold enough in the morning that I wore gloves to keep warm. Despite this, I was still surprised to see frost on some low lying plants in one of these former quarries. Perhaps the depressions created by the quarries hold cold air? There was no frost anywhere else. And the woods were lovely.

After crossing highway seven I entered Silver Creek Conservation Area. At this point I was almost 15km in and had not seen a single other person on the trail. Even though it was the Friday before a long weekend. I finally bumped into a mom and her little girl looking at a small creek (not sure if it was the eponymous Silver Creek or not). I was shocked at how clear the water was. Absolutely crystal. And the creek bed was plain stones, not covered in any growth. Until now most of the creeks I’ve passed have had that brown “scunge” that you see in urban creek beds. Or that foamy stuff swirling round wherever there’s a whirlpool. There weren’t even any shopping carts like you find in the Hamilton creeks! And the woods were lovely.

If anyone reading this (ha!) remembers the very first Bruce Trail post I mentioned that I’ve done bits and pieces of the trail over the years, Silver Creek Conservation Area is one of those bits. I was last here in the dead of winter, so the scenery was very different. Part of the trail runs along the ridge of a large valley, in summer it’s hard to see in the distance due to the foliage. In winter you can see the full breadth of the valley from almost anywhere on the trail. The Silver Creek portion of the trail ends at a large reservoir whose purpose is mysterious. There’s a large and quite lovely home on its shores, which makes it a small private lake for whoever lives there. And the woods were lovely.

Up next is Terra Cotta Conservation Area, though I didn’t see anything that put me in mind of Terra Cotta except for one hillside near the beginning. By this point it was getting later in the day and I needed to get home. However, I still wanted to finish the Toronto section. The red mist started to descend. I began to run wherever I could, and stopped looking at the scenery. Then I began to run continuously, heedless of the rocks, ruts, and roots. I was a sweating, snotty mess as I blew past a group of Irish hikers and exited Terra Cotta onto roads. I had only 2.5km left in the Toronto section, I HAD to make it. With about 1.5km to go I made a mistake and checked my phone to see how long an Uber would take to arrive. There was no estimate other than “longer wait”. Uh oh. I requested a ride to see what would happen, oddly it found me a driver right away. Taking this as a stroke of luck I decided to stop there. My fear was that if I kept going I would not be able to get another ride in time, and would be late returning home. So close. But at least the woods were lovely.

Turns out where I stopped to request the ride was right in front of a cidery. I purchased some cider for the evening and ate my packed lunch in the Uber back to my car. This makes a new record for my longest hike yet.

Only 615.2km to go!