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Since my winter bike isn't ready yet, I've been avoiding riding my good
recumbent in the snow and salt. So I went for another long walk today
instead. Actually, I love going for walks, and I don't do it often
enough. It's a great change of pace from all the riding I do, and I
tend to spend more time exploring things when I'm not on my bike.
Today's walk basically took me north-east from home, mainly around the
Humber River. This first picture was taken right near home when I crossed
the Etobicoke Creek.
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On Dundas St., just east of Islington Ave. is Montgomery's Inn.
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The historical plaque infront of Montgomery's Inn. Read if for a quick
look at what this place is all about.
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Another picture of Montgomery's Inn. I've been past here many times, but
I haven't gone inside yet. They have afternoon teas and tours available.
Might be a nice place to stop in on my way home from another weekend walk
if I set out earlier!
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Looking south from Dundas St. from the bridge that crosses the railway
tracks and Royal York Rd. The buildings on the horizon are approximately
where I live. I noticed there's a pathway along the east side of the
tracks. Not paved, but I should explore it sometime. I wonder how
far it goes in each direction? It would be neat if they made more
bike / recreational trails along these rail and hydro corridors. In
fact, this rail line loops around to where the
West Toronto Railpath
will start near "The Junction".
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The stretch of Dundas St. west of Islington is mostly boring and ugly
suburbia. Fast cars, strip malls.... It was nice to get to the Humber
River where I could get away from that. But first, I explored under
the Dundas St. bridge on the west side of the Humber. I have a thing
for bridges, especially if they have interesting arches or other
cool looking designs. There's no real park or pathway under this
section of bridge, but that doesn't seem to stop people from checking
it out. In particular, there's some interesting graffitti down here.
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Looking east under this bridge is like a whole tunnel of archways.
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There were a few of these "Child of Surreality" paintings on the bridge
pillars. I really liked them. To me, graffitti comes in many different
forms. I generally despise the stupid tags, scribblings, and mostly
pointless graffitti that seems to dominate the walls around Toronto.
However, some of the cool artwork and images I see around town are
really fantastic. They can brighten up and liven up some otherwise dull
places, for example, the underside of this bridge.
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Another fun painting.
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I think this one was my favourite.
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Looks like the Reaper has already been reaped.
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Looking downstream (south) on the Humber River from Dundas St.
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Humber River, looking North.
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I'm glad I wasn't around when.....
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....this massive chunk of concrete fell from the bridge and embedded
itself in the ground.
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Some new condos going up on Dundas just west of the Humber.
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I stopped for a coffee at some place on Dundas. I think it was called
"Java Joe's" or something like that. Yes, I'm one of those annoying
uber-dorks who now carries a Blackberry. This is my new toy from work,
I guess one more way to enslave me. :-) But it was fun to be able to
email Jen while I was out on my walk. I wonder when the novelty will
wear off...
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Then I continued walking. Just about to turn north from Dundas onto
Royal York.
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After walking up Royal York and zigzagging through the neighbourhoods,
I arrived at James Gardens and Lambton Woods, part of the park system
along the Humber River. One of the first things I came across in this
park was a pond that was absolutely filled with ducks. They were
all over the place here. I don't think I've ever seen such a
concentration of ducks before.
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Ducks all over the place.
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They didn't seem to mind me too much.
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More ducks.
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Pond full of ducks.
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A duck just dove into the pond, and another was just about to jump in.
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I love their colours.
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Another duck.
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Grooming duck.
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The female mallards aren't nearly as colourful as the males, but they
are beautiful too.
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A pathway through Lambton Woods. The main reason was in this park and
hiking the trails was because I was searching for a geocache!
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Found it! Here's the geocache I was searching for. It's called
"Lambton Woods", and it was hidden in this
old stump. I had to trudge through the soggy forest off the trails to
get to it. [In case you don't know, "geocaching" is a game where you
search for hidden caches in places all over the world, using a GPS
to find the location.] This is my fourth geocache find. I took a
happy-face magnet from the cache, and left a pen.
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A picture of my GPS on top of the stump where I found the cache. The
coordinates were slightly off from what the website said.
Website: N 43° 40.019 W 079° 30.880
My GPS: N 43° 40.022 W 079° 30.871.
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A log on my way back to the trail after putting the cache back.
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In a small clearning just off the trail, someone had hung up two bird
feeders on a wire between a couple of trees.
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These home-made juice bottle feeders seemed popular with a bunch of
chickadees and a squirrel picking up
the seeds that had fallen to the ground. There was even a small bench
set up here so you could sit and watch. If you look closely at this
picture, you can see one of the birds furiously flapping its wings
between the feeders.
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A chickadee feeding on the left feeder.
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Another one.
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Me and a squirrel staring each other down.
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A creek that flows through the park into the Humber River.
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Another view down that creek.
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A train crossing the Humber River high up on the bridge.
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Railway bridge over the Humber River, just north of Dundas St.
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The Humber River recreational path (Tommy Thompson Trail) crosses the
river on this bridge. There's a nice view of the river and the rail
bridge from here.
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The Dundas St. bridge over the Humber River again, but this time from the
east side.
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The sign has seen better days.
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I still think these arches look very cool.
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Humber River, looking south from under the Dundas St. bridge.
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One more picture from under the bridge.
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Just in case I didn't take enough bridge photos today, here are a couple
of pictures of the bridge by the Old Mill.
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As I walked along the riverbank to take this picture, I was startled by
a large heron. I guess I startled it too, so it took off and flew around
for a while until I left.
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My last picture for the day. Looking back over the bridge by the Old
Mill. After this, I just walked down Bloor St. and back home. Looking
forward to my next long walk already.
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| All photographs ©2005 Victor Gedris |
