Another "Oh no, what have I done moment?"

This oh no! moment came after lunch. There are these times in life, when we seem to move from the tediously mundane to the very cliff edge of existence in just a few minutes (OK, maybe half an hour). Let's begin with the mundane, lunch. It was difficult to find a decent sandwich shop in Tobermory for lunch. Everyone seems to do either wraps or pizza. Unfortunately, unless you have kitchen facilities where you are staying, it's hard to make a simple lunch for the trail. No one seems to do boxed lunches either, well, it isn't wine country!! Anyway, I did manage to find a coffee shop that had bagels and my husband settled for a wrap.

Rocky trail

Fed and watered, or at least "coffee-ed," we drove out to our next trail. This was in the national park just beside the one we were in this morning. Obviously the Bruce Peninsula has come to Ottawa's attention. We left our paid entrance voucher from the first park on our dash, hoping that there was some arrangement for day passes between the two facilities, because we didn't want to have to pay again.

With an air of complete confidence, we strolled up to the billboard at the entrance to the trail. This is where trail conditions are posted and a lot the other information, such as, notes about snakes and bears, just in case. Then we read the fine print. Paraphrased, it went something like this - "Please note that this trail is one of the most difficult on the entire Bruce Trail system. Know your skill level." Gulp! I was ready to turn back. I had visions of a path skirting rock faces, with no obvious means of hanging on!! This was not going to be fun!! My husband was not deterred. "When it gets too difficult, we'll turn back," he said. Whew! now if there were an accident, it wouldn't be my fault. He was given an opportunity to back out and he didn't - "Oh no moment" responsibility dodged again!!

Steep descent

OK, deep breath, move on. Actually, although the trail was narrower than many, with a number of patches of loose rock and one very significant rock face to climb down (and up on the return journey), it wasn't that much more challenging than the paths around Limehouse, which we had done before. "Say not that the struggle naught availeth," it did (availeth, that is)!! The magnificent views were worth every twisted footfall!!

The trail did not actually skirt the cliffs, as I had imagined, so there was little danger of falling onto the rocks below unless, of course, you got too close to the edge at the various look out spots. In fact, there were trees on either side of the path to cling to. Even with hiking polls, a little more support was needed at times, at least by us. We did, however, meet some young hikers with heavy backpacks, who were virtually "running" along the track - show offs :)

It was a great day and given that rain is forecast for tomorrow, we were happy that we had caught a window of good weather for this particularly stunning part of the Bruce Trail. Time for dinner, at the Grandview, again. Their blackened local white fish is amazing!!

Have a wonderful day!!