Since June, Tracey, whom I’ve known since I was 5, has been joining me on my weekly long distance walks. In the summer I like to start my walks as early as possible (sometimes before sunrise) which makes it difficult to find someone to start with me. Those who have started with me, rarely make it to the end. Tracy has, so far, completed four long walks from beginning to end with me. She’s great company, making the time pass quickly. Today’s walk was to Iqbal foods and back. On our way back to Yonge and St. Clair I wanted to go through the ravine. By accident and not looking at a map, I stumbled on a staircase going down with a city of Toronto sign. We had just done 9 kms to get to Iqbal and I had planned for not going over 20km today, but the stairs looked so enticing that I ignored the fact that I may get very tired and lost. At the bottom of the VERY long staircase was a dirt path on the right and a waste water treatment plant behind barbed wire in front of us.
North Toronto Wastewater Treatment plant. A the bottom of a VERY long staircase.
A few runners passed and told us which direction we needed to head. We followed a long switchback trail up and down for an hour. It’s a great trail for mountain biking and training for hikes. Because we were there early, there weren’t many cyclists and the ones who passed us, communicated clearly they were passing in advance.
Switchbacking trails galore!
By the time we found our way to Bayview we had hiked 1 km in an hour! We were both a little cranky but suddenly two beautiful things happened while we walked through a part of Rosedale I hadn’t been. First, a service berry tree with perfectly ripened berries to snack on. There were many renovated huge homes that I’d comment on to Tracy about how sharing their house could help solve the housing crisis. I’d point and say ‘there’s a place for 3 separate families’ and ‘there’s a place for another four families’. Then we stopped in our tracks in front of a house, three times as big as any other house we had seen. We both snarked about the number of families it could fit. As we passed the end of their (long) driveway we came across a “free” table filled with some great finds. If I was in a car and I was into Ebay, I could have made a little extra cash today. We still had 7 kms to go so I took the smallest item, a Harrod’s earing/necklace set that I hope to find someone special to take. For the remaining distance of our walk, I shut my socialist mouth because I learned a lesson today ‘don’t judge people by the massive decadent houses.’
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