My Canada trip was both urban trip – visiting family and friends and resting from the hikes – and, of course, the hikes.
Prior to the visit I thought a lot about how, what and where should I go. I had a distinctive time frame – from the end of August till the weather gets too cold – and so I decided NOT to focus myself at a single trail , but rather spend some time in different locations across the country and see as much wildlife, nature and friends as my time (and money. Canada’s expensive!) will allow.
The first hike was the Bruce trail - a 800 KM long hike, out of which I walked about 200 – started in tobermory, up in the bruce peninsula, walking to wiarton, then hopping to Owen sound and ending in the Inglis falls.
The trail is quite an easy one, and follows the white lime stone cliffs and shores of the George bay – a part of lake Huron – an amazingly clear fresh water lake.
This was my first encounter with Canada huge spaces (Canada’s the second largest in the world). Coming from the packed Israel, it was quite a shock – never in my life have I experienced such a vastness… on top of that, coming from the drought plagued country into the one which posses 20 % of the entire fresh water supplies in the world left me astounded … at least for the first day or so.
And so – if I had to sum the trail up in three words – one of them will definitly be HUMONGOUS. Huge, crystal clear lake, it’s shores are either beautiful white low cliffs (about 250 meter max) or just simple stones reaching the water (there are some sandy beaches – but they are rare). The second word will be BEAUTIFUL – the entire region is covered by forest (still green by the end of august) – so you have the beautiful cliffs, magnificant trees, amazing clear lake…
BUT – the problem is that for 200 km, the views are too repetitive. As I mentioned earlier, the trail moves between the elevation of the sea level and 250 meters – which means that there’s not much diversity in vegetation. You are owed at the first day. The second day is nice. The third day may be ok, but you get real excited when you finally spot a squirl, for it breaks the MONOTONY of the trail. Compared to the Israel National Trail, where you get to see at least two new sceneries each days, the Bruce is, unfortunately, boring .
SUMMERY: definitely worth visiting, but not for more than a week. I’d also suggest having a car – the public transportation to this region is awful and expensive – take a car and do day hikes on different parts of the trail.
