The Other Trail

There are three trails in town, two of which go through the town on their ways to points beyond. When I write about the neighbourhood trail or the Mississippi Riverwalk Trail, it just a local trail. It begins (or ends) in the park near us and parallels the Mississippi for about 2 km, which is only a little longer than a mile. When I have shown wooden boardwalks, it has been of this trail. It is close and convenient and is only for pedestrians and cyclists.

The other trail that we even more frequently use is the OVRT: Ottawa Valley Recreational Trail. It is along the former CPR line, which was still in use when we arrived here in 2005. The economic crisis of 2008 put an end to the trains, so it was converted into an almost 300km trail. It can be used by snowmobiles and what I will call trail buggies in summer, which I guess are kind of golf carts. Maybe they are exactly golf carts; I don't really know.

Whenever I mention the bridge trail, we are on the OVRT. We saw the new sign on part of our coffee walk. 

We had another of those coffee walks recently, but I refrained from posting the same old thing. I think we've done two coffee walks without posting although when I recently posted the photo of Sue by the puddle with Tim Hortons in the background, that was part of that walk.

Carleton Place is the red dot in the middle of the 300k trail

I really write all of the above to post this recent photo of the third trail: the Trans Canada Trail.

The initial gif at the top and this photo were taken on our little section of the Trans Canada Trail.
We rode sans kidlets that day.

The Trans Canada Trail passes though Carleton place. Yes, it then goes across the country. You can see that it really is a trail here, but you would then have to pick your way through Carleton Place before finding an actual trail again. It does connect with the OVRT though.

Obviously, you can ride this trail a heckuva long way. When we were younger and even more foolish, still in our late 50s, we did ride it the 24k/14mi into Stittsville, but that was far enough for us. There are long railway grades along the loose trail, and we never had the desire to repeat such foolishness.

As a matter of fact, we had only ridden maybe 100 metres on this day when we stopped to take that photo. Ferocious insects, late season blackflies, we think, came out to feast on Sue without mercy. We quickly turned about and headed for home.

Of course, you will forget all of this about the trails, which is entirely appropriate, but at least I have given some context for the picture (and gif) in this post and about our walks or rides in general.