Well, we decided to opt out of the mini rat race that is travelling north to cottage country on the August long weekend. We stayed in the city and had ourselves a pretty good “staycation.” It wasn’t about saving money so much as just wanting maximum “chill time.” We spent a lot of the weekend puttering around the apartment, entertaining, and almost finishing “Sopranos.” We knew we wanted to do something adventurous so I suggested we get our tires pumped up and head down to Toronto’s “downtown urban wilderness”, the Leslie St. Spit otherwise known as Tommy Thompson Park (a man-made peninsula extending 5 kms into Lake Ontario from Leslie St in Toronto’s east end).
Cycling from High Park and along the lakeshore to downtown is a pleasure. We left here around 930 am and arrived about 11. The ride was relaxing aside from dodging the tourists in the downtown strip between Spadina and Bay, and watching out for the spandex speedsters who bomb the paths – surprisingly even in the twisty bits where it’s only a metre wide and weeds encroach on the fringes. There was quite a bunch of cars, pedestrians and cyclists at the entrance to the park. We passed a table where a man had some animal skins layed out (I realized later this was an educational display). We ventured forth down the road, joining the stream of cyclists heading into the scraggly wilds of the spit. Near the entrance a hawk or falcon glided around smaller birds, and later, at a first lookout / break site we saw another bird of prey along the water’s edge. I took some photos of the skyline – amazed that we were in this urban wilderness almost directly south of the core.
Further on we came to another lookout that held an amazing spectacle. Hundreds of black birds, cormorants as it turned out, were gathered in bare trees and flying overheard in occasional pairs. Something large splashed in the water near a footbridge and a lady observed to her children that it must have been an otter. Wow! This was amazing. Birds are definitely the major feature (according to Wikipedia):
“More than 300 species of birds are to be found, 45 of which actually breed on the headland.Among the birds that may be observed are the ring-billed gull, the black-crowned night-heron, the double-crested cormorant, the common tern, the Caspian tern, and the herring gull.”
It really doesn’t take too long to realize the sounds of cars and industry has long faded away and you are truly immersed in nature. At the edge of the spit there are bull-dozed areas reminiscent of a garbage dump, where the weekday trucks dump their landfill. this, and the fact there is a shuttle van, and dozens of people cycling along the path, are the only reminders of the big city. It is amazing and remote in feeling though. The only other place in the city where I’ve seen this much nature on display and felt far from civilization was Rouge Park near the zoo.
Tommy Thompson Park is open on weekends and holidays. Take your bike and check it out!
