On Sunday, April 2, 2017 after a great day in Long Point, I thought it would be a great idea to head to the Hamilton area to look for a waterfall. We had some rain earlier in the week, so I expected to have some nice water flow for pictures.
I picked Fruitland Falls that I had never been to. This is located in Stoney Creek, Ontario. Or I guess it's Fruitland, Ontario. This adventure included an kilometer walk down a set of railroad tracks. We all know what that's like walking along the stones on the side of the railroad tracks. It's like walking in sand. Just up the road past the railroad tracks there is another waterfall called Dewitt Falls. This is right beside the road just a couple feet away. Not a huge waterfall, but still a waterfall.
Fruitland Falls
On our walk down the railroad tracks, we came across another small waterfall. Not sure if this one has a name. From the pictures I have seen, this certainly wasn't the one we were looking for. We continued on our walk along the tracks until we could hear water, and sure enough this was the waterfall we were looking for. I took some shots from the railroad track level, and then down below the tracks beside the water. Looking up, there were many Turkey Vultures soaring around. I think we counted as many as two dozen. They started up very high where they were barely visible, then they came down very low. This had me checking my pulse to see if I was ok. They were starting to make me nervous. These Turkey Vultures would factor into our adventure before the day was over.
We decided to head back, and this is where it got tricky. Shannon, my better half decided that the adventure needed a boost and suggested that instead of going back down the tracks, we should make our way down the embankment and try and get a picture of the lower part of this waterfall. Although this made me very nervous, I thought it might be fun too. The angle of the embankment was pretty steep, and it was a bit muddy from the recent rain. We made our way down this embankment ok, but we weren't able to get a good look at the lower waterfall. There was a small landing of sorts, then another embankment. We made our way down that one too. Unfortunately we were still unable to get a good look at the waterfall. There was another small landing of sorts and yet another embankment. We passed on this one and decided to head back.
Equipped with my GPS app on my phone, we decided to head back to the road going cross country. This required going back up hill, which reminded me that I really need to lighten my camera bag for these adventures. This was hard work getting back up the hill, but we succeeded with no issues. We first found a mountain bike trail which we followed for a bit, then we found the extension of the Bruce Trail. This required some ups and downs, and some hops over trees and streams, but it lead us back out to the road then back to the car.
Realizing we were very close to Devil's Punchbowl, we decided that was our next stop. We didn't get very far when we came across a couple Turkey Vultures sitting in a tree right at the edge of the road. There was no way I was going to let this opportunity pass me by, so I pulled over and walked back to be directly across the road from them and snapped some pictures. They were not at all concerned that I was there, so I got lots of great pictures.
After making our way to Devil's Punchbowl, we had to wait from some unruly kids to finish throwing things into the punchbowl. This was extremely rude, and extremely dangerous as I don't think one could survive the fall if things went wrong. The kids stayed safe and I was able to get some pictures of the waterfall. The water flow was very good compared to other times I have been there, so that made me a happy guy. It was getting late, so we started heading for home.
Devil's Punchbowl
On our way home we stopped at The Argyle Street Grill in Caledonia to top off our weekend. We chose this restaurant because it had been featured on the Food Network show You Gotta Eat Here! The service was very good, and so was the food. We recommend a stop here on your travels. Be sure to check them out on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/The-Argyle-Street-Grill-171974199503152/.
Till next time,