17th September 2017

Bighead River = 319km
Owen Sound

Got to meet 2 new guests at the B&B for breakfast, they are also hiking the Bruce Trail but are up from Toronto for a couple of days. They are walking some of the bits North of here.

One more day on day packs, yay \o/. We are getting soft with this small packs routine but we will enjoy it while we can. 

Our kick off point for today was Bighead river going South to North so we could make an easier pick up point closer to town. We left the road and were immediately onto a freshly mown/manicured piece of trail. A big shout out to the Vollie/s responsible. It was a real boost to walk on such an open clear track. The track left the lawn and entered into a short piece of Conifer forest before then changing into young Hardwood Forest as it slowly progressed up the “Bighead” Hill. There was a beautiful stream tumbling down beside us for the first 500m odd then the inclination ramped up to take us to the top. As we neared the Campsite we saw a box that I thought was the food box to keep critters away from our food. It turned out to be an open air Dunny with a view, very practical for a bush camp. The Campsite was fabulous and we were both kicking ourselves as we had originally planned to camp here but were put off by the comments that water was only available 900+m down a rocky hill and we did not like the idea of hauling water all that way up a rocky hill. A bad piece of misinformation. 

The next 5km+ were through fabulous woodlands bordering prime agricultural land. Once again this was prime hiking trail with only the occasional boggy bit and the dreaded Poison Ivy. Sadly the trail emerged from this onto a gravel road for the next 4km and some idiot had put some rolling hills in the way, What The?????. One good point of the road walk was we passed some fabulous mixed hardwood forest that was starting show some beautiful Autumn colour.

The next half of the hike was started with a BIG Red Chair plonked in the car park at the Bognor Marsh trail head. These chairs are part of a tourism drive by Medford County Tourist board, basically they have some of these Big chairs dotted around the county for people to go and find and discover their county in the process.

Bognor marsh starts with a beautiful walk down a well maintained road until come to a picnic area, then the fun begins. Basically there were 2 choices down the middle of the track that was boggy and muddy or the dryish sides that was infested with Poison Ivy. Guess what, wet muddy shoes win any day. Once past the marsh it was climb back up onto escarpment, which for the most part was fabulous walk along the top through woodlands, then wham they throw in some rocky descents through the scarp then along the scree before bringing you back up through the scarp to more beautiful walk above the scarp. This change in terrain makes it difficult to determine how long you will take for any given section of the trail and correspondingly difficult to arrange a rendezvous pick up time for your shuttle back to your digs. 

Thankfully our hike today was predominantly in woodlands as the temperature had ramped up again and it was decidedly warm when out in the open sunlight. This weather is just amazing and apparently unseasonal.

Thankfully Susan was patient as she waited for us to catch up her. Susan had brought some cold water with her that was a blessing as we just sculled it down in one in a couple of gulps.

Once showered and cleaned up from our mud wallow it was time to walk across the Valley to get some supplies for tomorrow as we leave Owen Sound and hope to camp out before moving into the Beaver Valley section of the Bruce Trail. Our last Dinner in Owen sound was at the Bishop’s Landing restaurant where the view was fabulous but sadly the service was a bit ordinary.

Time to shut down and chill.