{"id":10440,"date":"2023-10-02T00:37:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T00:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=10440"},"modified":"2026-01-16T13:58:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T13:58:15","slug":"camino-5-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=10440","title":{"rendered":"Camino #5"},"content":{"rendered":"

In addition to buying (on sale wherever possible) all the paraphernalia for my Camino, I have been in training. I know I have posted the trails and kilometres I have walked and described their varied terrain. I keep hoping for a sampling of what I might expect from the paths in Spain. Well, today was payday!<\/p>\n

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Today, I walked the David Balfour loop and it had everything I was looking for in a walk (hike)!! It’s like a slice of the Bruce Trail, except it’s in Toronto and I could walk to it from my house. I didn’t have to drive an hour or more out of the city, park, hike and drive an hour or more back. I just had to open my front door, walk 2kms to Mt Pleasant cemetery (West side), find the entrance to the trail – tricky, but I used to bike the area a lot, so I had an educated guess of where it might be. I know I should write mystery novels – Ms. Marple comes to mind.<\/p>\n

In the section, where I thought I might find the entrance to the park, I saw a women walking her dog. I followed her. She disappeared through a chain link fence into a dark and foreboding descent.<\/p>\n

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Eureka! It was the entrance to the park!! Suddenly, the murky way opened to a forested Eden. Here was a woodland anchored by a creek and banked by steep, densely treed hills. In fact there were actually two paths – a wide easy tract similar to mud creek and a narrow roller coaster of a walk rising up from the embankment. It was mangled by tree roots, laced with precipitous drops and blocked, at times, by large, awkward tree trunks. This is what I needed to add a challenge to my rather tame 10kms walks.<\/p>\n

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At every fork on the trail I found a kind person to tell me which path to take. I made only two wrong turns. One was an easy back track. It was steps out of the park. The other was, on the return leg (no pun intended); I had somehow lost the trail and ended up on the muddy shore of the creek. Stepping stones helped, but my hiking pole was a life saver!!<\/p>\n

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At the end of my walk there was a bench. How did they know! While I was catching my breath a troop of about 50 hikers, with a guide passed me on their (no doubt paid for) trek into the woods. They were all ages and, I’m guessing, all abilities. I loved the fact that they were out exercising. But I was so happy that I could do it on my own.<\/p>\n

Buen Camino<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In addition to buying (on sale wherever possible) all the paraphernalia for my Camino, I have been in training. I know I have posted the trails and kilometres I have walked and described their varied terrain. I keep hoping for a sampling of what I might expect from the paths in Spain. Well, today was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camino"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10440"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12138,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10440\/revisions\/12138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}