Tuersley and Thomas Nature Reserves, Hike #3

We planned to hike in the Tuersley and Thomas nature reserves on last weekend of the strangest summer. Sort of the last weekend?! It's labour day, but the kids don't start school on Tuesday. At the cottage it feels like the last weekend at least, a sort of packing-up, cram-some-quality-family-time-in feeling. Even so, the Legges hit the trail together to find a couple of clues and make the most of the long weekend.

It wouldn't be a hiking adventure with a challenge to find the start! Silly me to assume that Grey County roads would run on a grid, and say...keep the name of a road consistent for the entire length of it.

We squeezed into the explorer with Colton sitting in the "trunk" because I promised it was no more than a 10 minute drive. 20 minutes later we spilled out onto shoulder of the dirt road, none the worse for a little gravel tour!

This is it. Two white signs on a tree are all that mark the section of the main trail that will take us through two nature reserves, Tuersley and Thomas.

Two things make this trail cool. The first is the very long tunnel through the cedar trees. They meet overhead and there is very little undergrowth. This skeleton was sitting just off the trail. Possibly a deer? Everything here feels very still and undisturbed. Have I said "so many mushrooms" too many times this fall?!

This land was logged years ago, which gave life to the second cool thing on this hike. There are a number of huge old beech trees.

Humongous, massive!!

Apparently since they were of no use as commercial logs they were left standing, giants dotted through these reserves.

The trail follows an old stone fence row bordering a farmer's field. It's a linear hike, we turned around when the trail entered an open field and headed back the way we came in.

This was a nice walk, even footing for the most part, single file, a lovely stroll and would be a great snowshoe!

Total hike 3km, 40 minutes

September 5th, 2020