Royal Botanical Gardens
The best part of a dumpy town
This past long weekend I was looking to do something special and although my first two plans fell through, the third one to take some day trips was successful. The first trip was out to Hamilton on Friday and the second was to Oshawa and the Durham region on holiday Monday. I was interested in Hamilton because geographically it is located on the inside of a bay and being close as well as easily accessible from Toronto, I figured it was probably an interesting town.
From Toronto Union station I took the GO train to Aldershot. It’s bizarre but the GO train doesn’t usually go to Hamilton and instead stops halfway between it and the next closest town to Toronto, Burlington. I was originally planning on connecting with a bus from Aldershot GO to Hamilton but when I exited the station I was confronted with the back of two buses. One was a GO bus, which I was expecting, and another was a city bus 18, which had the number I was expecting, so I went for the latter only to realize I’d gotten on the wrong bus. By then the GO bus had left and so I decided to bike into Hamilton. I’d considered biking as a contingency but was reluctant to ride of roads without bike lanes.
It was a good thing I didn’t get on the bus because the best part of the trip was down the road at the Royal Botanical Gardens. I was riding along the shoulder of a wide but not too busy road trying to find a way down to the waterfront trail when I passed the Royal Botanical Rock Garden. It’s new building with a smooth curving wooden roof attracted me, as did the name. I wondered if it might be related to Japanese rock gardens and so decided to stop and check it out.
The ticket is a day pass for all four of the botanical gardens and I was able to get a student discount. I spoke with a volunteer who gave me some background history and then walked around the garden filming a video and also taking photos with the A6000 camera. This is the first time in two years that I’ve used the camera and I realized that I hadn’t cleaned it properly nor brought my circular-polarizing filter nor set it to camera RAW. Also, there was a new infographic every time I took a photo which I’ve never seen before and haven’t figured out how to get rid of and I’m having software issues and can’t properly edit my photos either. I’m clearly out of practice.
The gardens themselves were very nice. The Rock garden is an old quarry which was dug during the depression to stimulate the Hamilton economy and provided most of the stone for the growing town. Later when it was shut down it was turned into the botanical gardens which is immaculately well maintained.
This is the video tour I shot:
Based on the advice from the volunteer I spoke with, I decided to check out the Arboretum which was a short ride away. This is more of a nature park with large lawns giving way to a forest of nice walking trails surrounding a wetland. I didn’t film anything but did a short walk along the water to check out a lookout. Everyone else was coming by car but I still had a long bike ride ahead of me so I had to continue on.
My goal for the day was to bike the circumference of Hamilton bay so I decided to push on and crossed the McQuesten High bridge into Hamilton. The causeway into Hamilton is flanked by an old cemetery and an imperial mansion which I should have taken as a sign that Hamilton would not be all that I expected. Dundurn Park and Dundurn Castle (the mansion) were closed but made me think of colonial imperialisms. It probably didn’t help that I’d just passed a thousand marble gravestones with distinctively wealthy European names.
My time in Hamilton was decidedly less exciting than I had anticipated. It was annoying trying to get to the waterfront trail which required going around the train yards to the Bayfront Park. From a distance the park promised a family-friendly fun time but upon arrival smelled of geese crap. I don’t know how anyone has an enjoyable picnic. I tried to escape by following the waterfront trail but it ended abruptly at an army reserve base obscuring the HMCA Haida and thrust me onto industrial trucking route where I scurried to the sidewalk to avoid being run over. I had wanted to check out HMCA Haida but by the time I realized I the entrance was behind the construction yard, I was well past it and didn’t want to go back.
It probably isn’t a surprise to anyone who knows Hamilton, but I was surprised that the entire waterfront remains heavy industry and not the interesting kind. There aren’t any old buildings just large fuel silos, scrap recycling yards and coal heaps. The only old building I saw was an old cotton factory as I retreated inland seeking a bike route through the city.
That hope was soon dashed as I’d bypassed the center of town, bizarrely not located near the coast, and was traveling along Barton St, the first “main street” following the coastline but not actually main street. Barton St. is best described as a late 20th century roadway of cracked pavement lined by churches, old stores with bars over the windows and punctuated by fast food drive-thrus. Every storefront had bars on the windows as if every building were apart of a large wall to persuade would-be travelers to hasten out of town in fear that they would turn off the main drag and discover better-kept residential streets.
A few wrong turns later and I eventually made it to the road out of town. As it to make sure I didn’t miss out on the best Hamilton had to offer, the waste water treatment plant had the nicest stone work I’ve ever seen on a building.
Getting out of town required crossing under the Queen Elizabeth highway to reach a narrow strip of trail along Lake Ontario and the Hamilton beaches. The waterfront trail along Lake Ontario effectively bypasses Hamilton by travelling along the peninsula which protects Hamilton harbour as does the Queen Elizabeth Hwy from Burlington, yet another reason to never visit Hamilton.
On the bright side, this is the only place in the world that I know of where you can beach along a hydro corridor. I don’t know anywhere else you can beach underneath power lines.
Sadly the best part of Hamilton was leaving. To my delight, I arrived just in time to see a panamax sized ship sail through the bay canal underneath the lift bridge and into the harbour.
When the bridge went back down I crossed and continued into Burlington, passing another wastewater treatment plant beside a public beach. This seems to be a very common trend along Lake Ontario — to have your public beach beside the wastewater treatment plant. I have yet to figure out how people don’t smell it. Fortunately, Burlington’s main foreshore park a little further along was much nicer and has a lookout pier at one end.
Since the botanical gardens had been the best part of my day I decided to bike back down to Aldershot and visit the other two with my combined ticket. Hendrie Park is the main garden and there were several wedding parties there taking photos. This garden is mostly flowers and was much busier. It was a decent stroll garden though and the weather cleared up a little so it was quite pleasant.
I also did a video of this garden.
The last garden was the Laking garden which I thought might have some connection to the lakes since it is prominently located beside the water but is just a small continuation of the main garden. I did enjoy that there were fewer people at this garden but it was quite small and most of the flowers weren’t in bloom.
By the time I got back to the train my legs were well cooked and I was happy to sit down from a day of biking over 50km.
