Niagara Falls ON – Flinton ON
Fri Aug 26, 2022
(~381 miles)

I was up before 0600, drinking room coffee and poring over today’s questionable weather map online. There was a big low pressure system coming through, but most of the rain was up north and mostly past us. The weather looked favorable for todays route across the Niagara peninsula and around the western end of Lake Ontario, tracing the shape of Ontario’s “Golden Horseshoe” region. We might catch a shower or two, depending on how things unfolded.

Part of the vacation deal with Char was to ensure we visited one of Ontario’s botanical gardens so she can get her flower fix. We were planning to visit one in Ottawa, but Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens was close-by and supposed to be pretty nice. I wanted to hedge our bets in case the Ottawa location was a bust or we couldn’t fit it in. Because of our dinner plans with Wolfe tonight, we needed to get an early start in order to squeeze in the Gardens visit when they opened at 0700.

We packed up the bike and actually only just got moving by seven. Rolling through the quiet morning streets of Niagara Falls, Clifton Hill offered only residual imagery of the crowded midway that we had pushed our way through yesterday.

Garbage trucks hummed and clanked along the curbs as we hit the parkway and saw the just-risen sun poking through the clouds over Rainbow Bridge. A beautiful morning!

The parkway was empty as we headed north out of town and we passed just a couple cars in the few miles to our destination. We pulled into a deserted parking lot for a zipline adventure course to check out a river feature called the “Whirlpool”. We strolled out onto a viewing deck that overlooks a giant semi-circle carved into the river bank by the force of the river over hundreds of years. The river makes a giant eddy here which, while cool to look at  in motion, is nothing as dramatic as the ship-eating maelstroms of Saturday-morning cartoon tradition.

In another mile, we pulled Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens. We paid for a parking pass ticket at an automated kiosk machine in the middle of the huge empty lot. These kiosks seem to be installed at even the most minor provincial roadside attraction you want to visit up here. We’d spotted several of these at various trailheads and scenic areas already. Apparently, if something is worth looking at up here, the province wants their cut.

After tucking the slip of paper into the windshield, we got our bearings and realized we’d be walking hundreds of yards across empty parking lots just to enter the gardens. Since we were really short on time this morning, we donned helmets and jackets again, then moved the bike over to a different lot, right outside a gate into the park. We strolled through the open gateway into a scene that could have looked at home in any big city greenspace, with wide paved footpaths and black iron lamp posts complimenting the deep green grass and low-hanging trees.

Aside from a few local folks walking dogs and some staff gardeners, we had the place all to ourselves and enjoyed walking around the landscaped park and various gardens dedicated to certain plant types and arrangements. I spotted another black squirrel, so far the only native Canadian wildlife we been able to enjoy besides that little snail by the falls yesterday.

The place is lovely to walk through and the gardens beautiful, though you could tell they were suffering a bit from a lack of late season staffing to keep up trimming the hedges and fighting off the weeds. Apparently, they use a lot of student labor from horticultural schools to help.

Springtime must be peak season here and quite a sight to behold, but there was still plenty to look at and enjoy in late summer. The grounds are vast enough to be divided into distinctly themed and shaped garden areas often enclosed by the tall hedges. The rose gardens were our first stop, and we moved on through several different flower gardens, a rock garden, and even a well-stocked vegetable garden with all sorts of edibles getting close to harvest time.

After an hour or so walking around in our MC boots, we’d gotten our fill for this visit There was a huge elm tree that caught my attention, as we don’t see elms in New England anymore of such size due to the Dutch Elm disease. We stopped for a short breather here to enjoy the tree, and watched more of the black squirrels along with their more typical gray counterparts.

We still had to break our fast before continuing downriver, so we geared up and headed back south into the Falls, veering off the parkway via Victoria Ave to cut out to the western edge of town. Scoops Restaurant is a small family run diner-style joint in a strip mall along Lundy Street. It was recommended on the NER website so good enough for us.

The interior was very clean, if plainly decorated, and we received a very friendly welcome from the staff. It wasn’t crowded, so we were seated right away at a table by the windows. I went for an omelet and side of bacon while Char couldn’t resist the description of a cinnamon toast waffle. I had to try a bite and it was soo good!

After a quiet breakfast and some coffee, we were ready for the day’s ride. Beelining east, we ended up going right past last night’s hotel, retracing our earlier route from there, down the still-quiet Clifton Hill and back onto the parkway. We kept on motoring past the botanical gardens this time, but pulled over shortly after to get a look at the huge dam across the river at the Niagara Falls Power Generating Plant.

It was a beautiful morning for a ride along the river, taking in sights of well-kept pseudo-mansions and large vineyards. The Niagara peninsula is a big wine making area, so there was plenty of open agricultural land to enjoy riding through all morning. Just like yesterday, the parkway runs close to the river, offering great water views as we travelled.

After several miles, our route brought us into Niagara-on-the-Lake, a smaller town than the Falls,  located right where the river flows into Lake Ontario. We kept close to the water, missing the downtown area, but enjoyed looking at some of the older style houses and architecture that are prevalent in this community.

I’d considered a couple of the restaurants here in town for a breakfast option, but the pandemic had apparently caused a downswing in online reviews as of late, so maybe next time. We did stop briefly at the Mississauga Beach parking area to take in shoreside views of Lake Ontario’s impressive horizon. The lake looked flat and monochromatic today under the cloudy skies.

This little park is next to a golf course which is apparently the oldest in North America. It was one what must have been dozens of golf courses we would see during our ride this weekend. Literally, we couldn’t believe how many golf courses there are in Ontario – it seems like every single town has their own. No wonder so many Canadians retire in Florida. Or does Florida have that many courses because the Canadians go there? 🤔

Hopping on the bike again, I spotted a strange little pattern of streets on the GPS and simply had to make a small detour to investigate. We cruised down narrow shaded lanes into a residential neighborhood that turned out looking like any typical suburban housing project back home. There was no special purpose or facility evident, just the odd pattern of a completely circular street with side streets radiating in a spider-like pattern. Very odd in comparison to the grid layout comprising the rest of the rest of town’ streets. 🤷‍♂️

We turned onto Lakeshore Road, which is more of a main thoroughfare and, despite the name, actually located a block away from any water views. In a bit more traffic now, we followed that for several miles west, through the northern end of the city of St. Catherines and right on out the other side.

I’d pieced together the next portion of our route south of the lake based on a ride report I’d found online, confirmed by a suggested route from Wolfe, who used to live in the area. Basically, we tried to follow the squiggliest lines (not very!) we could find in a region that is mostly laid out in ruler-straight grids that go for miles and miles. Turns out that most of those curved roads more or less follow the topography of the Niagara Escarpment, a 700 mile geological ledge that stretches from New York to Wisconsin.

The sky was active with rolling clouds, but we only felt a few minor sprinkles as we roamed out into the more rural areas. Our first wayside was to check out a small conservation area with the unlikely name of Balls Falls, about 10 miles west of St. Catherines. There was no place to just pull over and park for a quick photo, with rope barriers and cones lining the road to foil any freebies. Of course you could enter the park’s lot for a fee, but I wasn’t willing to pay an admission fee just for a quick photo. We continued over the small bridge that crosses Twenty Mile Creek above the falls and could see that it was almost completely dry, reminding us that Canada had been suffering some of the same severe drought conditions as we had this year. So there was really no waterfall to look at anyway!

We drifted south of the escarpment and picked up Twenty Mile Road heading west, which parallels the creek for several miles. There was a lot of farmland and some vineyards though this stretch, and we got stuck right in the middle of countryside rush hour!

At Smithville, we took a right to head north back up onto higher ground. Ridge Road is another slightly curvy rural passage tracing the top of the escarpment through this southern portion of the most heavily populated area in Canada. It parallels the shore of Lake Ontario, about two miles north, for 10 miles or so, running maybe a couple hundred feet elevated above the lakeside urban sprawl. You can tell you’re riding atop a hill, but views are mostly obstructed until you get closer to Hamilton, where the escarpment drops steeply down right from the road.

At the far western end of the ridge, just outside the city limits of Hamilton, was another attraction on our route – Devil’s Punch Bowl Conservation Area. This is a semi-circular canyon carved into the edge of the cliff by waterfall action over hundreds of years. Unfortunately, the entrance was blocked off – closed for renovations!

The road curves tightly around the little park here, and I was hoping we might at least get a glimpse of the waterfall, or at least the canyon from the other side. We pulled into the parking lot of the Punch Bowl Market & Bakery and parked the bike. A quick stroll across the street and over the guardrail gave us barely a glimpse through the overgrowth. We could see the observation deck that overhangs the canyon walls (not in this photo), but there appeared to be no waterfalls running today. The drought strikes again! Oh well…hey does that say bakery? 🙂 Smells wonderful!

Since we were stopped anyway, we decided to pick something up to bring as a thank you for our hosts tonight. Stepping inside, we could see that the place is equally split between typical farm store goods, groceries, etc and a full-on bakery. Guess which part I took photos of? 🙂  They had all sorts of pies: sweet pies, savory pies, cooked pies, pies-in-process. Plus, some wonderful-looking empanadas, cakes, cookies, etc. Everything looked simply amazing!

After first confirming that they did not sell pie by the slice 😒, I became particularly curious about the piles of “butter tarts” resting behind a sheet of plexiglass. What is this magic??? They’re like little tiny PIES, chock full of brown sugar, cinnamon, pecans and other deliciousness! They looked wonderful, so we had to get a couple for a snack, along with a few other pastries to take to our hosts tonight. We didn’t have room on the bike to bring them a full pie. I’m wishing now that I’d tried one of their hefty-looking empanadas as well, but we didn’t want to spoil lunch.

As it was still two hours riding to our planned lunch stop, we enjoyed our delicious tarts out by the bike while stretching our legs. I’m kind of glad these pastries aren’t a thing back home as they could easily get addictive! The skies seemed to be getting lighter by now. Looking at the radar, it looked like we might be in the clear for the remainder of the day in terms of rain, so we were getting away with another dry day, which suited us fine.

After this nice little break, we hopped back on the motorcycle and turned on Centennial Road, which took us on a short steep descent down the escarpment and into the city of Hamilton. In a couple blocks, we took the ramp onto the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) – the major highway linking Hamilton to the Toronto area via a thin spit of land and a high bridge called the Burlington Bay Skyway. The thin strip of land extends almost the entire way across this end of Lake Ontario, with just a narrow dredged channel through the middle for boat traffic.

I wanted to get a peek at the Burlington Canal Main Lighthouse by the channel, so we exited the QEW before bridge in order to take the local roads through Hamilton Beach. Unfortunately, the lighthouse grounds and tower are under quite a bit of renovation, with gates, scaffolding, and vegetation hiding most of it from public view. We got as close as barriers would allow. You can just see the top sticking up here in the center of the photo, dwarfed by the green twin towers of the vertical lift bridge.

Distance scenery is a bit scarce in Ontario in general, so rather than just cross the lift bridge and continue along the spit, we headed back into Hamilton in order to take the high route over the Skyway to see the view from there. Traffic wasn’t too bad and we weren’t in a rush, anyway. It did present a nice viewpoint of the lake and surrounding area, with the Toronto skyline stretching off in the distance. Everything is just so FLAT around here!

After the crossing, we exited in Burlington to pick up a road called Guelph Line. That so many roads in Ontario are named “Lines” was another one of those unexpected discoveries about traveling in a different country. It kept us wondering if there was something special that designated which roads should be “Line”, rather than “Street” or “Road”. Some later research revealed that it’s just another naming term, stemming from the survey or property lines of major landowners back in the day. Certainly, most of the rural roads in southern Ontarios are arrow-straight gridlines, as a rule, so the name does rather fit.

The grid, oddly enough, runs mostly on diagonals to the cardinal directions around here, with the “Line” roads aligned in a  NW-SE fashion. Most of them on the map appear to be numbered unpaved lanes that lie between some larger asphalt roads that were renamed for local towns or big property owners. Guelph Line is one of the bigger paved streets around here, and we followed it for some 15 miles or so northwest until we hit a construction detour, then simply moved over one block to continue into the small town of Rockwood.  From here we made a small semi-square route to the west, passing by Guelph Lake for a quick glance before heading due northeast on Wellington Road 124.

Traffic began to build up a bit outside the town of Erin, so we again decided to trust this grid system and “hop over” one block to continue towards our lunch stop. Hence we also learned of the “Sideroad” street-naming moniker, another quirk of the colonial surveying system used to create roadways in the province way back when. Sideroads apparently run perpendicularly to the Lines, so SW to NE in this area. Sideroad 10 is a well-graded gravel dealio flanked by nice pastoral landscapes and featuring little traffic.

We arrived in the hamlet of Belfountain around 13:30. In an area with so many straight roads and homogenous scenery, this little village sitting along the escarpment is apparently a local mecca for motorcyclists. It’s home to locally famous Forks of the Credit Road, which is supposed to offer some of the only real curves for a hundred miles around. Plus there’s a great little breakfast/lunch café, with an ice cream window, providing sustenance for motorcyclists and other wanderers of the countryside.

Hungry and ready for a break, we pulled into the lot of Higher Ground Cafe and parked towards the back of the lot by a couple other bikes. The restaurant sits at the top of a quiet T-shaped intersection, with an antiques shop on one opposite corner and not much else around. Nice and quiet spot today, but I can imagine rows of bikes parked here and plenty of activity on busy Sunday mornings, similar to the Vanilla Bean, a popular motorcycling wayside down in NE Connecticut.

After taking a gander at a custom BMW sport bike parked nearby, we headed over into the pleasant wood-finished cafe to order some lunch. They have a decent selection of sandwiches along with plenty of pastry items. We were planning on dinner in just a few hours, so we each got a yummy light sandwich and a cookie to split, along with something cold to drink. Despite the heat, we wanted to stay outside, so enjoyed the shade of the umbrella-equipped cafe tables out front.

There was an interesting antique car parked just 20 feet away while we ate. Despite not really being a car buff, I can appreciate cool retro styling and just had to get a closer look at this British-made Hillman Minx. Apparently, this example is a bit of a frankenstein, incorporating parts from a Toyota Echo for the interior! Pretty stylish way to tootle around the Ontario “lines” and “sideroads”!

Following lunch, we mounted up, turned the corner, and immediately hit the famed Forks of the Credit Road, a narrow and curvy lane running for about 5 miles northeast from Belfountain. Wolfe had warned us that law enforcement has gotten heavy on this small stretch of roadway due to bikers with heavy throttle hands. We didn’t see any LEOs on our run, but there were an inordinate number of speed limit signs and traffic cones to block parking.

While this road would barely register on the curve-o-meter as anything beyond normal New England back roads, it is quite a pretty road, leading down through a woodsy riverlands area by the Credit River, which flows out of the provincial park just to the north. There is one small gnarly blind hairpin, that truly requires idling speed to get around unless you were to have a buddy watching the road around the corner for you.

We came out onto Highway 10 and banged a left to Caledon Village, then right again on Charleston Sideroad (actually paved this time). Traffic came to a standstill in a jam on Airport Road into Mono Mills along Highway 9, and I wasn’t having it! We’d just passed a park of some sort and the GPS was showing a route through it to get back to the last sideroad to cut the corner to the east. I pulled a uey and we turned onto the gravel lane through Glen Haffy Conservation Area.

There was nobody at the front gate taking money, so we continued into a pleasant park that looked a bit too refined when compared to the bare-bones left-to-the-wild plots of forest that we are used to calling a “conservation area”. It really seemed more like a large series of picnic areas, with a small system of gravel roads to connect them. We passed several grounds crew working the place today, mowing and clearing brush, perhaps to prepare for weekend frolickers from Toronto. After a slow mile or so, we got to a big gravel turnaround right by our next turn on the GPS…which was across a grassy field and blocked by an old gate. Curses, Garmin, foiled again!

We couldn’t get there from here! Back out we went, back along the gravel out of the park to the paved road. This time turned away from the jammed traffic (which was getting worse) and found the actual sideroad we’d been aiming for. It was another rural gem on gravel with nice views and horses.

There are only a few main thoroughfares leading due east-west in the region north of Toronto, so we didn’t have much choice but to zig-zag, first taking Highway 9 a good 25 miles to the 404. We pulled off for our first Canadian fuel-up in the town of Schomberg. I had planned out a couple different route variations for today, with the original plan leading us up north of Lake Simcoe. But we were running behind that timeline and had a dinner reservation to keep, so we crossed over Highway 400 to remain on a slightly shorter alternate plan that stayed south of the lake. 400 northbound look jam-packed, so I was pleased with the decision to keep south of the lake. We took the 404 for it’s final few miles, and then Highway 48, where we pulled a uey to take in this field of sunflowers.

Having grown up in the Blackstone Valley of Massachusetts, I never considered that there might be other places in the world called Uxbridge (apparently there are five!). I’d always thought the name had come out of a phonetic misspelling for “ox bridge” or something. Apparently, it is yet another import from jolly old England. So I had to to snap a pic of this particular group of road signs, as Sutton is also the name of a Valley town.

Circling to the eastern side of Lake Simcoe, we kept on Highway 48 as it diverged east from Highway 12. Things started to get a tad more scenic, with even a few bends in the road (not quite curves mind you!) as we began to follow the Trent-Severn Waterway corridor, into the Kawartha Lakes region. We were needing a quick break by the time we reached the fun-to-say town of Coboconk, which straddles the Gull River where it empties into Balsalm Lake. The view from the bridge there was quite lovely.

We took Highway 35 south for a few miles to round Cameron Lake and picked up Kawartha Lakes CR-36, which would take us many miles east, staying north of the chain of lakes that make up the Waterway and are a major draw for the lake-cottage industry of this region. We crossed over one of the canal locks in Fenelon Falls, but couldn’t see much from the saddle besides our own shadows in front of the water rushing away from waterfalls below the bridge.

It was pleasant enough riding with a few nice lake views sprinkled in now and then, though the traffic was a bit heavier than we expected in such a remote-seeming area. I figure there just aren’t a lot of roads throughout the area, so the main ones get a bit overused. We joined Highway 28 at Burleigh Falls, situated between Lovesick Lake and Stony Lake. From Woodview, we turned on a narrow woodsy local lane called Northey’s Bay Road (an NER BONE road), which skirts through the woods above Stony Lake and was much more enjoyable than wading through all the town traffic. It took us around the end of the lake and onto county roads 6 and then 44, which beelined SSE to hit Highway 7 in Havelock.

We made good time with the shortened route plan and arrived a bit early, around 19:00 at the Iron Rooster Rotisserie and Grill, a local watering hole and chicken place that Wolfe had recommended.

I’d looked the place up in advance and saw that they have several antique motorcycles on display, so we moseyed on in to take a look around while waiting for our Canadian hosts to arrive for dinner. The place was hoppin’, with both indoor seating and the outdoor deck packed pretty full.

Their motorcycle collection were display in a wide hallway leading towards the restrooms, and were very cool to look over. I’m not that knowledgeable about the mechanics and history of motorcycle design, but it was nice to be able to get up close and personal, to look at how everything was put together back in the old days. Unlike many modern motorcycles covered with the casings and smooth plastic, there’s something viscerally captivating about looking at machines like these and being able to intuit exactly what mechanical function this part or that served.

Aside from a few classic Indian cruisers, there were a couple really old Harley-Davidson models and a beautiful early BSA, plus a Vincent and some others. Quite a collection! There was no security barrier or tape or anything, you could just walk right up to check these things out, though I’m sure someone’s watching from somewhere!

Pretty soon, Wolfe his lovely partner/pillion, Karine, arrived. Hugs all around – it was very nice seeing our friend from the north again after the long pandemic border closures. The two of them had recently closed on a house in nearby Flinton, which was where we’d be spending the night. We enjoyed a great meal together, chatting about our trip, Lines and Sideroads, Canadian real estate, and the State of Things in general.

I was tempted by their many sandwich options, but changed my order to match Wolfe’s 1/4 chicken dinner, since rotisserie is what the place is known for. I was once again too distracted to snag photos of the food, but the chicken was fall-off-the-bone delicious. Restaurants still have somewhat limited hours due to staffing, so we ended up closing the place out around 21:00, despite drinking nothing stronger than ginger ale!

It was a dark, but brief ride back to Wolfe and Karine’s new digs. Flinton Road probably had the best curves of the trip so far, but  the surface was iffy so I took the unfamiliar road pretty cautiously in the dark after a long day in the saddle. We’ll need to get back and run that one in daylight – apparently it’s a popular one for locals. We pulled into their place just past 21:30 and were greeted first suspiciously and then rather enthusiastically by their two dogs. Freya is a hyperactive and beautiful red Doberman, with some heart-wrenching scars leftover from a previous life. Barney is a smaller old mongrel dog who was a bit unsure of us and overwhelmed by Freya’s energy, but is very sweet and stuck to Karine like glue.

It was dark, but from what we could tell and how Wolfe described it, they have a pretty sizable and isolated plot of land to enjoy for their newly acquired homestead. He took us on a tour of his impressive collection of bikes in the roomy but stuffed detached garage, and then we got a tour of the house, which is quite airy and welcoming. They were still in the process of moving in, between busy schedules and the recent closing, so we were (and are) still thunderstruck and grateful at how generous and welcoming they were to host us for an evening with everything they have going on.

After quick showers for us “southerners”, we enjoyed a nightcap in the living room along with some of the pastry that we’d brought along from Devil’s Bowl Bakery. I was barely able to keep my eyes open by now, but enjoyed the socializing. We loved having dogs to hang out with in the evening, and I developed a bit of a crush on Freya, whose energy reminded me of our boxer Tango when he’d been younger.

We talked about their plans for the house, past and upcoming motorcycling travel and events, and life during the pandemic over the past couple years while the border had been essentially closed. Oh, and butter tarts (!), which are apparently a very common snack in Canada, especially traditional around Christmastime.

We had a full day of riding together planned for tomorrow and needed to get an early start to fit it all in, so we headed for bed after an hour or so with an agreed wake-up time. Freya elected to join us on our bed for the night, which was a special treat for us! When I realized that I’d forgotten something and went back downstairs, she insisted on accompanying me, walking slightly ahead, as if to protect me from whatever dangers lurked in the darkened house. Adorable.