Day 10 (Aug 23)

The morning's road walk sends us past a horde of northbound hikers, who insist we're headed the wrong way. We're heading home, finally in the right direction since Hamilton, but it's too hard to explain. Maybe because it's hard to talk to a horde, or maybe because it doesn't make sense to begin with.

Descending into the woods again, we're once again greeted by loud gunfire - close, and getting closer. How many shooting ranges do these trigger-happy Canadians have up here? A single passing northbound hiker (much easier to talk to) fills us in on the mystery: these are empty cannons at the vineyards, fired automatically to keep birds off the vines. A sort of armed scarecrow. It eases the mind a little to think of this as the sound of winemaking, but as we descend and get closer to the wineries the reports continue to be a little jarring.

Well at least we're walking through some nice, fragrant grapes. Our hostess at Crown Ridge told of some vineyards losing up to 90% of their vines in the harsh winter, but these guys look nice and healthy:

The trail takes us right through the Mike Weir winery, right by the tasting room in fact, right around lunchtime. So a couple of glasses to wash down the trail mix couldn't hurt.

Back into the woods, a fun day of leaping around jagged rocks and little fissures, an escarpment-top landscape reminiscent of Mount Nemo last week. A bit less dramatic, though, so "Little Nemo" maybe.

Some of the local grape crop has migrated into the wild:

Not quite ripe, a very tart treat!

The ridge levels out into a splendid campable area with lots of trails. Still probably not exactly allowed to camp, but it's clearly been done many times judging by the fire rings, and cousin D had advised us that it's all "Queens land" so we shouldn't be shy. (He also warned us not to fall into sinkholes, which we've been pretty good about so far.) We make camp in a soft dry copse and drift off. And almost immediately awake to the sound of drums. Then guitar. A nearby party? It feels like we're deep in the woods, but who knows? It is Saturday night, after all. Soon come the hits of Chuck Berry and early Beatles. "Love, love me, do..." Ah-ha, this is a wedding band! We must be pretty close to one of the wineries. In with the earplugs, and nevertheless strains come and go, rocking us awake and back to sleep all night. Was that Journey? Who plays "Another Brick in the Wall" at a wedding? Ah, this one sounds like "Blurred Lines"... Zzzzzzz...