EVCco
Senior Member
Mimico Creek - fairways to highways
I'm back this week to finish off the Toronto portion of the Mimico. As you'll recall, I last left off at the bottom end of the Royal Woodbine Golf Course. But I'm not all that fond of trekking golf courses as they all seem to look, I don't know, a little too golf-coursy for my tastes. Neither "urban" nor truly "wilderness." So I thought I skip the links and start north from Dixon Road, which my now 10 year old map shows to be the North Mimico Valley Park. Yet, to my great displeasure, when I arrive at Dixon I find the Royal Woodbine has since appropriated the valley all the way up to Highway 409! What's that old saying about golf again? "A good walk spoiled?" Oh well, on through the back 9:
Out of the golf course and under the highway now. You know you're entering uncharted territory when you find a bridge this large with absolutely no graffiti on it:
In between Highway 409 and the West Metro Detention Centre:
Through Carlingview Drive, then "hustling" along Disco Road:
The tunnel sections of my trips seem to just keep getting longer and darker. This one, under Highway 427, is so long and dark that I'm forced to use a nearby branch as a makeshift white cane, so I might blindly grope my way through this tenebrous tube:
I find my way safely to the other end, and into Mississauga, to find construction underway on the Air Rail Link overpass to Pearson (as well as morbid reminder of that ever encroaching golf-sprawl):
I had originally intended here to continue on along the Mimico, through Malton and Wildwood Park, to the forks of the Mimico at Derry Road. However, the construction on rail line impeded my progress. I could have pressed on anyway, but, as it happened, while surveying my course on Google Earth earlier in the day, something else caught my attention towards the south. So I follow the tracks beside the 427 to investigate:
At the centre of your typical cloverleaf onramp you'll generally find an empty field - occasionally even a tree or two. But here, where Highway 427 intersects with Highway 409, is a rather interesting feature: two massive stormwater retaining pools! First the northwest pool:
Risking life and limb (and probably some sort of fine) as I negotiate my way on foot across the interchange - this is for anyone worried that my posts were beginning to focus too much on the "wilderness" and not enough on the "urban." Thankfully it wasn't rush hour!:
And here, at last, the southeast pool, in all its concrete splendor:
I'm back this week to finish off the Toronto portion of the Mimico. As you'll recall, I last left off at the bottom end of the Royal Woodbine Golf Course. But I'm not all that fond of trekking golf courses as they all seem to look, I don't know, a little too golf-coursy for my tastes. Neither "urban" nor truly "wilderness." So I thought I skip the links and start north from Dixon Road, which my now 10 year old map shows to be the North Mimico Valley Park. Yet, to my great displeasure, when I arrive at Dixon I find the Royal Woodbine has since appropriated the valley all the way up to Highway 409! What's that old saying about golf again? "A good walk spoiled?" Oh well, on through the back 9:
Out of the golf course and under the highway now. You know you're entering uncharted territory when you find a bridge this large with absolutely no graffiti on it:
In between Highway 409 and the West Metro Detention Centre:
Through Carlingview Drive, then "hustling" along Disco Road:
The tunnel sections of my trips seem to just keep getting longer and darker. This one, under Highway 427, is so long and dark that I'm forced to use a nearby branch as a makeshift white cane, so I might blindly grope my way through this tenebrous tube:
I find my way safely to the other end, and into Mississauga, to find construction underway on the Air Rail Link overpass to Pearson (as well as morbid reminder of that ever encroaching golf-sprawl):
I had originally intended here to continue on along the Mimico, through Malton and Wildwood Park, to the forks of the Mimico at Derry Road. However, the construction on rail line impeded my progress. I could have pressed on anyway, but, as it happened, while surveying my course on Google Earth earlier in the day, something else caught my attention towards the south. So I follow the tracks beside the 427 to investigate:
At the centre of your typical cloverleaf onramp you'll generally find an empty field - occasionally even a tree or two. But here, where Highway 427 intersects with Highway 409, is a rather interesting feature: two massive stormwater retaining pools! First the northwest pool:
Risking life and limb (and probably some sort of fine) as I negotiate my way on foot across the interchange - this is for anyone worried that my posts were beginning to focus too much on the "wilderness" and not enough on the "urban." Thankfully it wasn't rush hour!:
And here, at last, the southeast pool, in all its concrete splendor:
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