ReNe: high park

Saturday afternoon (by the time we get our arses out of the door, anywhere, earliest it's afternoon), after having a looksee-and-march at the anti-war protest, we went for a walk at High Park.

On the good side, it was warm (2C I think) and we didn't need our winter jackets. On the not-so-good side, snow was melting and it was like walking through badly shaven ice kachang.

First thing we saw when we approached High Park. Birds, of the moderately big variety.

And of the water-borne variety. I think that above is one male and female duck.

A swan feeding.

A duck carefully waddling his way across the iced pond.

The ducks were going in and out of that pond, from ice to water. (On the left of the photo is the pond bank, with soil and snow. On the right side is the rest of the pond, frozen.)

Walking along Grenadier Pond, which was almost completely frozen over. There were obvious tracks in the snowy ice, some by humans, some that look like dog tracks. It was tempting to step out onto the ice, but given the high temperatures and the 'ice unsafe' signs, we thought it better not to.

An odd hole in the middle of the pond. Ice-fishing? Underground hot-water vent? Highly localized tectonic movement that cracked the ice and a slab fell in?

Some people were amusing themselves aiming snowballs at the hole.

We started at the northern side of the park and walked southwards. At the south side of the park, there was a quick dash across the Queensway and the Frederick Gardner Expressway to spice up the sedate walk. There's actually pedestrian crossings, but given the low human traffic at that area, the ice banks (after a week of rising temperatures, they are no longer snow banks) continued uninterrupted across the pedestrian crossings. Thus, to cross, one would have to scramble up dirty ice banks about waist-high, then down. Needless to say, slipping on the ice would be extremely painful and embarrassing. On the other side of the street, there would be another quick run up the ice banks. It's tricky because your foot would sink right into the ice, right up to the calf (a little painful in the jagged ice) as you land, and the ice almost wasn't enough to brace you as you scramble up.

True, we could have chosen a safer way to cross (at some point, there would be a dip in the ice banks, making it easier to cross; one just has to search for them), but where's the fun in that?

We ended our walk at Humber beach, which we've been before.