Cycling through Canada’s historic railway line

Here’s how biking through what was once Canada’s archaic railway line, looked like

Even with the temperature dropping down to as low as 2 degree Celsius, winter hasn’t even arrived yet, so they say. Nonetheless, our hearts have already started craving for summer and dearly missing all biking trails which we did this year. In our short series of  breathtaking biking tracks in and around Toronto, we bring to you three of our most adored biking explorations:

1. Old railway bike trail at Algonquin Provincial Park

Fat bikes/mountain bikes/ tandem bikes were the various available options for us to opt for a bike and rent it from The Lake of Two Rivers Store at the park. As soon as, the shop owner said that the trek is umm…family friendly, two of us zeroed down to tandem bike for over 30$ for an hour. To be honest here, riding a tandem bike can become a challenge even if one of the partner is low on stamina 😉 What started as a complete random exploration showed us a lesson or two in the history.

We were pedaling our way through  historic railway that operated in central and eastern Ontario that operated from 1897 until 1959. Back in that era, (and mind you we are talking about the late 18th century here) survey crews explored on foot to find the best route. The historic bed of railway line takes you through the river, later we learnt that the railway line was intentionally built along the shores of lakes and rivers in order to avoid hills. Though we weren’t lucky to spot animals or birds, it’s claimed that the wetlands at Algonquin is home to great variety of birds including Ring-necked Duck, American Bittern, Sedge Wren, Snapping Turtle, River Otter and Mink.

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The 16 kilometer distance the trail follows runs from Rock Lake Campground to near Cache Lake. Unfortunately, as we were sort on time, we couldn’t catch the great view at the tower site but, if you are really interested and highly energetic you can do so by an accessible walking trail. Though we have our own reservations on whether our photographs could do justice to what we witnessed through our naked eyes, it didn’t come as much of a surprise to learn that Its route through Algonquin Provincial Park saw it play an important role in the park’s development of the tourist industry, with a large station and the Highland Inn on Cache Lake being a focal point of the park though the 1910-20

From what we have heard, during winters novice skiing because of its relatively level surface.. ( to be cont.)

#TEATRAVELANDTALKS #railway #Canada #History #AlgonquinPark