Sunday 17 January 2021

Pandemic response - Week 43 - Blyth Greenway Trail

A puppy must have been ‘THE’ present for Christmas this year, at least here in Bayfield anyway!  I know, getting a dog, or pet of any description, has been a very popular thing to do over these past few months, but I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve met on my daily walks who are out with a puppy that’s anywhere from about 8 to 15 weeks of age.  I’m clearly in the minority by not having a dog (of any age) to walk...just can’t imagine being a pet owner as a part of my life, even if it did mean company during a pandemic.  I have to keep hoping that at some point, maybe before the end of 2021 (?) I might be able to travel again...

I love the play on words with my neighbour’s new lawn sign...their address is 2 George Street

Walking one of the paths through the woods at the south end of the village - just a change from the streets today.


Woke up to a little freezing rain this morning.  Not enough to damage trees or wires but just enough to make ground and roads really slick - making walking and driving really difficult.  By the afternoon it was possible to walk - carefully - and really the only ice left on the trees was down on the beach.











Couldn’t walk the length of the pier today...very slippery and icy plus it would have been hard to stay dry.

Wanting / needing to see some new scenery, I headed to another little town about 35kms away called Blyth.  There’s a very little, just over 1km, trail along the Blyth Brook which was originally developed as a local community project in Blyth but has now become a part of the G2G trail.  So I ‘hopped’ on at Blyth and walked for about 4kms. Unfortunately when you’re hiking a linear trail by yourself you can only go so far in one direction, and then you obviously have to turn around and come back.  I shall look forward to the time when, together with friends, we can leave a car at one point and hike to another point, where we can have a car waiting there.

The Blyth Greenway Trail - along the Blyth Brook


With a direct link to the G2G


There is more snow inland from what we currently have in Bayfield, but even here you can see many places where it’s not even deep enough to cover the furrows.




I met a very lovely gentleman while I was walking today, and after watching him for a little while I asked what he was doing.  He let me in on a little ‘secret’... turns out he’s one of a couple of hundred people in this part of Ontario who are avid geocachers, and he was out maintaining some of his caches.

Not everything I saw today was ‘nature’.

The Blyth Brook

Back in Bayfield, and the change in wind direction overnight brought a lot of debris onto the beach in some places...but another very calm day and lower water levels brought lots of beach to walk on!

I wish I was a drone and could be directly overhead - I’m sure the merging of river water into the lake would be really noticeable then!




The big, dark rock, affectionally known to us as ‘Big Rock’, has been there for as long as I can remember, decades now.  Some years the shoreline is metres out from it, other years, like our last summer, the water has been right up to the bank and you had to swim out to Big Rock.  It’s far too early to predict water levels for next summer but it is nice to see Big Rock back at the shoreline...at least for now.



If the birds are any indication, plus the fact that the boat was out on a Sunday, there must be good catches to be had these days!

It wasn’t a super windy day but as you can see the sky, and the lake too, look like ‘snow’.
Windy enough though that you needed to be careful when out on the pier!

Found this on the beach today - I think it’s a nice way to end the week!

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