So it's taken a while, I'm sorry, but finally I'm taking the time to sit down and reflect on our last Bruce Trail adventure. This means you better take the time to read about our last Bruce trail adventure...seriously. Here we go.

The alarm clock went off shortly after 5am and we were out of bed shortly after that. Shortly after 6am we were on the road and shortly after 7am Kattina pooped in the woods and shortly after that our hike began.

Once again we found ourselves leaving Kinsmen Park behind. We entered a forest and immediately noticed an awesome rock pile with vines covering it. From there it was a lot of the same as previous hikes.

There was a lot of vineyards through the trees and in the early morning coolness I could hear a chattering of sorts. I couldn't quite discern what I was hearing until I heard the oh so familiar and inviting sound of cheerful laughter! My first thought was that it was way too early to be laughing...about anything. The second thing I thought was who on earth is laughing?

Coming to a small clearing in the tree line, I saw lines of people making their way down rows of grapevines. It was a group of migrant workers in the vineyard. We stopped to watch them and take a few photos and then went on our way.

At about 4km in we arrived at “the Future Home of Mike Weir Winery” which I believe is currently Fielding Estates Winery. We rested here by the roadside and enjoyed some peaches while checking our map.

Once the peaches were devoured, we headed up the road past the Organized Crime Winery and back into the forest. At our 6 km point we found the beautiful 30 Mile Creek and enjoyed a wonderful snack of samosas and trail mix on some nicely set up logs.

A few twists and turns away from the creek we found a mole :)! A dead mole :(. We approached slowly checking for glass, gas, fire and wire. When none of the notorious 4 could be found, we checked him out with a stick and became curious when we saw no blood or any other sign of struggle. In fact, we became so curious, we kept on hiking!

About nine elevenths of a kilometre later, we came across yet another dead mole! Weird! This one we messed with a little more...you know, made him poop, poked his eyes...Dahmer style...

Moving on, we met a dude named Matt from New York! He has been hiking for 21 days straight at what we calculated to be about 30km a day! The dude is hardcore and I hope he reads my blog. Straight up.

It was neat to meet Matt on the trail because we generally see no one on the Bruce. But this day we got to meet two more people. Dennis the Menace and his father. I don't know if he was the real Dennis...well I do know he's not the real Dennis so anyway there was a kid with his dad. I call him Dennis because he was armed with a slingshot. I said “hey” and he said “my dad is finding squirrels and I'm trying to shoot them” “Yep” said dad, sipping a beer. Epic.

So we journeyed on over another dry river and around slippery rocks and logs and came to the most exciting thing I've ever seen on the Bruce...we came to what I like to call, the great monkey temple...it's a concrete structure in the middle of the woods at the base of a cliff just sitting there. Although the temple smelled like condoms and Red Bull, it was still a phenomenal thing to see. Yes, this hike was short (13km) and somewhat uneventful, but we had a blast hiking together and I got a killer shirt from the Grimsby thrift store...every thing is $4 or 2 items for $6...um, yes please! Grimsby also had a cool guy named Stavros who is the owner and operator of Grimsby's finest taxi service, Grimsby Taxi. He was our companion during our ride back to the car and I fear I may have lost my map in his van...yep.

Thanks for reading and I hope you'll come back to read about the start of the Iroquoia section which is coming very soon.

Xoxoxo

Zach + Kattina + Bruce