Bruce Trail - Dodds Hill to Colpoy's Range Rd

The 10km hike, then blogging while sitting on my very uncomfortable trailer couch, left me with back pain. I had hoped that the day off yesterday would help, and it did a little, but we still opted for a shorter hike today than we had originally planned.

First we attempted to leave one of the cars up Colpoy's Range Rd

It was very rough with puddles that threatened to swallow up Nicola's little white Toyota Corolla rental. She slalomed her way between, through and beside them until we reached a hill that had rocks that she would have bottomed out on. She turned round and parked the car at the start of the road and then confiscated the trail maps saying I would never be allowed to navigate again!

One of many "apple hazards". We have walked through abandoned orchards and stepped through fallen apples and pears on each of the hikes up here.

We could see islands at the entrance to the sound, Colpoy's Bay

and the magnificent bluffs on both sides.

Nicola had suggested doing this section in case my back acted up and she needed to fetch the car to pick me up, so we were walking on a lot of road.

Still accompanied by numerous monarchs - on a pine tree,

on an apple tree.

The last kilometre was through a section of wood with these tiny little red mushrooms. There was also a lot of animal scat on the trail (with evidence they had been eating a lot of berries and apples).  We decided it was too small for bear (although we do have a bear bell in Nic's pack) and was probably coyote.

Stop at a pottery, hot shower and we were hungry and looking for lunch. We ate at the Green Cafe and Nicola was able to have the quiche as the crust was made with grated potatoes and onion. I had the tomato basil soup and she had fries.

My back had held up OK but I was glad we hadn't hiked any further. I am hoping a good nights sleep will set it right as we have one more day of hiking here.