Toronto Section - Limehouse (21.5) to Speyside (11.4) - June 22, 2023


Toronto Section - Limehouse (21.5) to Speyside (11.4) - distance 10.2 km

June 22, 2023



The last time we hike this rocky stage is on December 4, 2022, but in the opposite direction, from Speyside to Limehouse.  Barbara is the coordinator then, Annette today.  Then it is winter and bug-free.  This time we are swarmed by hungry mosquitos.  Each of us has our own personal cloud of these pests.  They are so maddening that we gallop straight through the stage without stopping for lunch, arriving at Speyside at about 12:15, some kind of a record!  Stopping for any reason is torment.

There are eleven of us, Marleen, Catherine, Frances (sweep), Muris, Josie, Nancy, Liz, Rita, Andrea, Annette (coordinator), and Doug. 


Liz quietly completes the trail on her own a few weeks ago.  Hoping to avoid fuss, she keeps quiet about her triumph.  We embarrass her with a ceremony anyway.


  Off we go.


Almost immediately we reach the ruins of the draw kiln.  It is once 16 metres high (~52 feet)!  The wood braces prevent further collapse.  Soon Josie and Andrea put on their bug nets, emulating Liz.  Rita toughs it out uncovered for the whole hike.


Our mandatory bridge photo, this one across Black Creek, a tributary of the Credit.  In its day, the old sawmill is driven by this creek.


This arch is all that remains of the old mill race. The plastic wrapping is recent, possibly to stop people walking on it.


Beaver dam.


Frances-of-the-cedars.


The Hole-in-the-Wall.



Leaving the Limehouse Conservation Area at 5th Line.


Following a green path around the edges of fields to ....




... the Fourth Line and a scrapyard where school-buses go to die.  We hike on through mixed forest where the bugs are particularly fierce.  We agree unanimously that stopping for elevenses is a really bad idea.



These are the last photos any of us take today.  By this time our one thought is escape from bugs.  




We reach the 15 Sideroad shortly and scamper to our cars at the Peartree Parking.  We say our farewells and disperse, bug-bitten, vowing to invest in more powerful insect-repellants but triumphant!  Adversity makes us finer, so they say.  

(Photo credits: Annette, Doug, Frances, Josie and Nancy.) 

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