Hike at Boyne Valley

Last Saturday we went hiking at Boyne Valley. It's a few kilometres north of Orangeville, just over an hour's drive northwest of Toronto.

Peter picked up Martin, Edna and I at Finch station before heading up to What-A-Bagel on Bathurst north of the Promenade Mall where we met Keith for breakfast. I have to say it (breakfast) was underwhelming. I don't know why the place was so busy. The home fries that accompanied my eggs Forentine came out of a bag for goodness sakes. Perplexing.

After eating I hopped over to Keith's car from Peter's. He still took Martin and Edna. Besides keeping Keith company, I had a good idea of how to get to the park since I had hiked at nearby Mono Cliffs Provincial Park and had also driven the same way up to Owen Sound when I used to deliver to the King's Buffet restaurant up there. The trip should have been relatively straightforward. But, of course, it wasn't.

To go to Orangeville one would normally take the 401 to the 410 and go straight north. The 410 changes to Highway 10 north of Brampton, but it's seamless.

Since we were starting quite far north of Highway 401 we took Highway 7 west to the 400. From there we would go north to Highway 89 and head west to the park entrance on 89 and Highway 10. This was a route I hadn't taken before. Nonetheless it shouldn't have presented much of a problem.

Our first mistake was getting off the 400 at Highway 88 (the exit before 89). There was a lot of traffic going up the 400 because a dump truck had driving off the road into a ditch around 88.

Keith wanted to exit early because he was running low on gas. Peter was ahead of us and he exited at 88 too. Instead of heading east towards in the direction the sign indicated the gas station was we followed Peter west because we figured he must know a short cut or something.

Well Highway 88 ended at Highway 27, so we headed north on it. At a set of traffic lights Keith turned left because he thought he saw Peter turning left. Turns out it wasn't Peter. Peter was still going north on 27 to Highway 89.

To make a long story short, Keith and I ended up getting lost. And, of course, Keith was panicking because we were on small county roads with no gas station in sight.

We got directions to the nearest one from locals and eventually found the park. It was a comedy of errors to say the least. Peter actually got off the 400 early because he saw us signalling. He didn't actually know where he was going.

If we had continued straight up the 400 to 89 we would have gotten to the park no problem and Keith wouldn't have had a meltdown. I believe this could have been avoided if he had more gas in his tank beforehand.
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The Hike.

The hike itself was both good and bad. The scenery was really nice. Especially in the wooded areas. It was beautiful - green and lush. Along with the scenery, though, we had to deal with the mosquitoes. There were quite a number of them. That made it quite unpleasant.

The terrain was varied. There were some climbs. Nothing too substantial though. The trails are rated at a moderate level which was fine for most of us. Keith got tired near the end though. We did walk 12 kilometres and it was fairly hot in the open areas when you were exposed to the sun.

At the end we sent Peter and Emily ahead to get the cars to meet us along the road back. So they actually walked an extra kilometre more.

We all enjoyed a meal at Wild Wings at Yonge near Finch afterwards. I had a burger. The rest of them had wings (of course).