Local Explorations - Hello from Lake Ontario's Waterfront Trail
In our neck of the woods the summer has been absolutely
gorgeous, a little on the hot and humid side occasionally, but I
am unable to recall a summer that has been so warm and sunny as
this summer of 2005.
The weekend before last I just felt like exploring the local
area a little bit and since I was unable to pry my husband away
from watching some of the season's first football games, I
struck out on my own and laid out an itinery for a little local
discovery. I've said it before - this website is about
exploration and discovery, locally and abroad. The places right
underneath our noses often have so many things to discover, we
don't always need to get a plane ride away to uncover something
new.
Since we spent so much time along Toronto's waterfront during my
brother's visit, and since I am big suck for water in all shapes
and forms, I thought let's stretch the envelope a little further
east and see what Lake Ontario has to offer outside of Toronto's
eastern city limits. More specifically, let's check out the
shoreline and Lake Ontario's Waterfront Trail.
The Waterfront Trail extends for a total of 740 km and stretches
all the way from Niagara-on-the-Lake in the southwest to
Brockville in the east. Of course, 740 km in a day would be a
bit much, so I focussed my explorations on the communities just
east of Toronto: Pickering, Ajax and Whitby.
I started just on the west side of Toronto's city limits at the
estuary of the Rouge River, which forms part of a protected
nature preserve. The river flows out in a lagoon setting and
joins the lake just outside a long extended finger of sand,
right beside a beautiful sandy beach. A video production company
was just shooting a soca music video and the footbridge over the
Rouge River was actually blocked off by the film crew. That
didn't deter a bunch of fishermen underneath the railway bridge
from casting their lures in hopes of catching the big one.
My next stop was Pickering, the first community east of Toronto.
I went down to the Liverpool Beachfront Park, which houses a
brand new very attractive Cape Code style housing development, a
marina and a restaurant surrounded by a marsh just inland from
the shoreline. At the beachfront of Frenchman's Bay there are
various recreation facilities and the boardwalk takes you right
up to the fences of the Pickering Nuclear Power Station.
Back in the car I went and I scoped out the next city further
east: Ajax, which has a beautiful waterfront. I parked my car at
Rotary Park which has a nice pavillion with a food concession,
put on my inline skates and rolled eastwards past the Ajax
Waterfront Park and Harwood Gardens to the east end of the
Waterfront Park. Virtually all of downtown Ajax' waterfront is
parkland and near Lion's Point and Harwood Gardens the shoreline
is elevated, with many benches to sit down and rest and gaze out
onto the infinite horizons of Lake Ontario.
I made a brief stop in Whitby, but by that time my stomach was
growling and the nagging feeling in my digestive system made me
decide to explore this area in more detail another time. I
figured I gotta leave some of the nice stuff for next time.
After almost 20 years in Canada I had never explored these parts
of Lake Ontario's shoreline and I was amazed at how many
beautiful spots I found. As fall approaches, I am planning to
extend my discoveries and head out to discover some of Ontario's
brilliant fall colours and get to know my local neck of the
woods a little better.