Come Walk With Us on the Trans Canada Trail (TCT)

This morning began around 4:30 am with the melodic and flute-like notes of a Wood Thrush above our tent. It was so persistent that Sean thought I was using call paybacks as an alarm clock to wake him up. As the sun began to rise the Thrush was soon joined by an American Robin, an Eastern Wood-pewee, a Red-eyed Vireo, and a Rose-breasted Grosbeak.   As we emerged onto the trail around 7:30 am the green corridor was flooded with soft sunlight, the humidity giving everything a dream-like quality. It was already very hot, and the sky looked white from the heat haze.  Even in our pictures the blue of the sky is gone, replaced instead with the white humidity.   A few kilometers into our hike we came to a large property with a huge mown lawn, an artificial pond, and several large weeping willows. In my head I was criticizing the landscaping choices as ones that wouldn't support any biodiversity. Just then we heard and then saw a family of six Killdeers on the ...

  Our hike today began with ice cream, which is a pretty good way to begin any day. We didn't get back to the trail until around 2 pm, which was somewhat later than we anticipated, but in the end it worked out well. The air was still, hot and humid as we set off down the Hamilton to Brantford Rail Trail . We were enormously grateful to find ourselves on a well maintained, gravel dust trail under a beautiful green corridor, sheltered from the sun.  Once again we have to admit that our expectations of crossing the GTA were unfounded. Although there were lots of cyclists on the trail, and we were still in the city of Hamilton, it didn't feel like it. Occasionally we would hear children playing in a backyard, catch the scent of a delicious smelling BBQ, or hear a radio playing in the distance, but mostly it felt like we were surrounded by trees.       Even in the hot afternoon air we could hear Red-eyed Vireos asking their perpetual que...