With the mild winter we had, there were very few weekends when getting out and exploring was impossible. It was fun exploring new trails and on quite a few of them I made a mental note that I had to return in the spring or summer.
Starting on that theme this past Monday, the last day of April brought with it an opportunity to get out for an hour or so in the late afternoon. So with an overcast sky and the chance of rain looming, I headed out for a short hike.
I figured that Sherman Falls would be a good place to start so I drove down Old Dundas Road and parked where the road meets Lions Club Road. From here you can already see the beautiful 17 metre high Sherman Falls through the trees and within a couple of minutes I was there and able to take a few photos. Due to the rain that had been happening on and off all day, the water flow was strong and made for some good pictures.
After a few minutes I continued on, following the trail that continues back downstream, but now on the other side of the stream. Following the trail up the steep rock, I was soon at the top and walking through the woods deeper into the Canterbury Hills area. My previous hike here had been in the winter on a day after a light snow so on this day the area looked much different with everything turning green and spring flowers in bloom.
Hearing a noise to my left I stopped and stood motionless as a group of about 14 deer entered a clearing beside me. They stopped to graze, looking up anytime I made even the slightest movement or sound but continued to move closer to where I stood.
Eventually when they were about 20 feet away and I am sure hearing the sound of the shutter on my camera, they ventured off; looking behind periodically to be sure I wasn’t following. It is scenes like that that keep me coming back and exploring these trails at every opportunity.
Within a few minutes I came upon this young raccoon climbing a tree. Although he was about 25 feet off the ground, the raised trail that I was on put us directly in front of each other. We stared at each other for a few minutes and as I didn’t want to add any stress to him, I continued walking after taking a few photos of course.
Rounding a bend I approached Canterbury Falls. The Canterbury Falls area really has two waterfalls, both of them being fed by a tributary of Sulphur Creek, which is also sometimes referred to as Canterbury Creek. On this day, Little Canterbury Falls which is a 5 metre (16 feet) tall ribbon cascade was almost dry with just a trickle of water flowing.
The second and larger of the two is Canterbury Falls which is a 9.5 metre (31 feet) high terraced ribbon cascade with a crest width of 3.3 metres (11 feet). It features a wooden footbridge across the creek right at the crest of this waterfall and on this day the water was flowing nicely.
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