I parked my car at the parking lot at the top of the escarpment at Quarry Road at the 65.0km mark on the trail.
The trail generally followed the top of the escarpment through to about the 68-69km mark of the trail and then descended through some beautiful forested areas.
The trail then came out onto flatter farm lands with many vineyards and wineries including what appears to be a soon-to-opened Mike Weir winery!
Again stunning views out over Lake Ontario towards Toronto.
The trail headed back into the bush along the escarpment through to the 76km mark and then cut out to Ridge Road in Grimsby. The trail followed along Ridge Road for a few km's passing many beautiful homes looking out over the lake.
Once you arrive and cross Mountain Road in Grimsby you go back into the bush travelling along the bottom of the very steep and high escarpment.
At the 79.5km mark of the trail I came across something that was the highlight of the day. From below the escarpment, walking through the forest, my eye caught a structure up the slope tucked into the edge of the vertical rock face of the escarpment. My family will get a chuckle but the first thought that came to mind was the "Lord of the Rings" movies. For those who are LOTR fans, the characters in the movies are forever walking through forests and coming upon ancient structures and statues. I walked up the slope to get a closer look at the structure - it was obviously very old and I was totally perplexed as to the purpose, located way back into the forest tucked up against the wall of the escarpment. Take a look at these pictures - what was this built for?
From here it was only 500 meters or so descending down to Gibson Street in Grimsby where I crossed the bridge at Forty Mile Creek.
My wife met me and drove me back to my car.
The total tally for he day was 15km.
So, as to the mystery of that structure, once I got home I searched "structure, Bruce Trail and Grimsby" on the internet and to my surprise, there was some posts talking about the same structure in these pictures.
It appears from the information on line that this structure was built around 1915 and used up to 1970. The round cement pad part of the structure is the top of a very large underground water reservoir for the Town of Grimsby. The story seems to go that a pumping station located at the mouth of Forty Mile Creek at the Grimsby shoreline a few kilometres away, would pump water up into the reservoir for use by the town. Someone would climb a tower at the pumping station at the lake, look through a telescope or binoculars up at the escarpment to this structure on top of the reservoir pad and a float device would tell them that the reservoir was low and they needed to pump more water up into the reservoir. Kind of hard to believe but I'm assuming that the article was correct and that is what it was used for - amazing what you find along the Bruce Trail!
Looking forward to my 6th hike!
Completed: 80.0km
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