Guelph Preservation Park and trails

So. I know I've totally skipped the last 3 weeks of exercise regimes, but my exercise of late has been converting itself from being outdoorsy and athletic to being couch potatoe-y and full of ethanol.

The posts from the last couple weeks have been full of drinking, which I'm sure everyone has duly noted, but to make up for it I'm going to try to be more active now.

I went for a very long walk through the Preservation Park and the trails around Guelph today with Joe.

Our meeting point was the bank in the Zehr's plaza (right -hand side of the map), where we proceeded to walk south down Kortright and into the Preservation Park trail entrance. We exited on the Hanlon (hwy 6) where we walked toward the YMCA, and followed the road next to the Kortright Waterfowl Park. When we got to the Speed River, we continued upwards to get to Wellington (hwy 124). From there, we headed back on a main road (Edinburgh) to get back home. We made a 45 minute pit stop at Rob's place to chill before going home. The end of the red lines makes where Joe and I go separate ways home. I didn't mark on the map my endpoint, so as not to expose my home address.



We left the plaza around 1215pm and got to Rob's by about 3pm. The walk home from Rob's is about 15 minutes, which puts my walk today at a grand total of 3 hours. It was an absolutely beautiful day out. At the outset, it was a balmy 6C out, but the weather slowly warmed, and by the time I got home it was 9C outside. The sun was shining, which is something that I haven't seen a lot of since moving here, so I was glad to be out and about.

Points of interest on our walk:

• Beautiful million dollar homes on one side of the Hanlon/Niska area, followed by suburban cookie cutter crap houses on the other side.
• The Waterfowl Park is now protected because apparently (according to Joe) a few years someone was coming in cutting off the heads of birds to feed to his pet lizard. Yuck.
• The exit tunnel for Wastewater Services, straight into the Speed River.
  "This is where your poop goes" -Joe
  
• The Animal Humane Society, directly next to Wastewater Services.
• The Manor (the only strip joint in town), the exquisitly beautiful Victorian style house, across the Hanlon bridge at Wellington.
• Rob's awesomely warm house, in comparison to the outdoors.