Times when you are astounded by the beauty around you are such a joy at any age, but to discover what is just on your doorstep after a lifetime of travel is doubly so! Hiking the Bruce trail provides so many of those moments that it could get a bit boring for those of you patiently following my blog but here it goes again.
Looking out over Niagara escarpment on an early summer day on the Cape Croker section of the Trail, is like being in a deep, dark foreign jungle.
Complete with giant ferns,
And just when you need to catch your breath yet another kind soul has provided a bench to rest and have your breath taken away yet again by the view!
Quietly contemplating the peace around us an eagle hunts before our eyes, drifting on the thermals.
Not all is peaceful though – Cheryl and I have had the occasional dispute about whether we follow the white flashes of the Bruce or interpret the maps they provide. I am big on following the flashes although as we let them guide us into this crevice even I had a moments doubt!
But then it guided us out once again.
Scrambling up the rocks we spied these sparkling wild strawberries…tempted by the fruit we remembered they were the bears favourite too and carried on climbing…a little more quickly.
The spectacular limestone cliffs of this part of the Niagara Peninsula that the Bruce Trail follows is in Cape Croker, a part of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nations. At times it felt as though we were seeing the land as it might have looked when the First Nations were the only humans in this region…humbling indeed.