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Published: April 16th 2016
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Day 4 of my hike. This is my first hike with good weather so I was looking forward to it. Drove down to the Niagara region again. I am slowly drawing closer to my home base so that each drive is a few kilometers shorter. I parked my car at the Rockway Community Center and started my hike.
I took the Rockway Side Trail and connected with the Bruce Trail after a few hundred meters. The hike went downhill and you get a nice view of Rockway Falls. About 1 KM in I also ran into a group of deer that suddenly appeared near the trail. In a flash all 3 of them took off running. They were white tail deer because I saw the white flashing tails they had. The next 5 km were a harsh hike that went uphill and downhill. It was also muddy that it slow going. I managed to keep up my pace by going faster on the level portions. About 6 KM in I heard what sounded like gunfire. I was thinking hunters were shooting at deer but they all seemed to come from one area. I found out later that the trail passes
near a gun range.
There is a large section that runs on the road. You exit the trail onto Seventeenth st and turn right and follow the road until you turn right onto King St. There is not a lot of markers but just keep walking until you see your next marker. It goes on for at least a KM until you turn left back onto the trail. The trail slowly winds up the escarpment and there are some great views. At one point I heard a lot of noise in the underbrush and I braced myself for bear or wolf to come out but I was surprised when a wild turkey came out and flew away.
This would be my hardest hike of my trip so far. There were a number of steep hills that you had to go up and if weren't for the crude stairs carved out I wouldn't have made it up. I passed a number of other hikers along the way and we exchanged information about the trail. I was anticipating a 20KM hike but when I hit 20KM I was not anywhere near my destination and when I did a google map
search it showed me over 4KM away from Quarry Rd. Surprised I pressed on and after another 45 minutes I exited onto Quarry Rd near Beamsville. At this point ran into a problem. I had no ride available back to my car so I tried Uber but I was informed there was no Uber available. I couldn't find a number for a taxi in Beamsville so I decided to start waking back. It was going to be 15KM back to my car and I was exhausted at this point. I passed a winery on my way and I stopped in asked them if they knew a taxi company. They were nice enough to look up a number for me. In appreciation I bought a bottle of wine from the De Sousa Vineyards. My taxi came and I got a ride back to my car. It was expensive $51 and Uber would have been about $30. Lesson learned and I will plan out better next time.
Hike Time and Distance. 5 Hours 25 KM
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