Journey to Ashbridge's Bay

It was marvelous Monday Aug 6th and I decided to cycle to Ashbridge's Bay. ( I had never been!). Started at Bloor and Manning at 1pm and weaved through the downtown core very quickly (hardly any traffic), even participated in an impromptu cycling group across Dundas. As I reached King and Peter there were young marketers handing out free plastic coke bottles (250 ml), even though I had water in my back have some extra liquid wouldn't hurt.

 Reached King street and headed east towards Coxwell, there were some great stores and cute dogs I saw along the way. Turned south and headed along Eastern avenue and crossed of the Don Valley Bridge and withing a few minutes I had reached the entrance of Ashbridge's Park. It was an amazing site to see so many people walking, cycling headed to the beach. 

The sun was glaring, and the atmosphere was amazing, as a neared the beach I got of my bike and tried to find a place to lock my bike, that took longer than I thought! 

As you will see from the pictures below, there was lots of volleyball nets, at least 60+.  Future Olympic champions I reasoned!

I joined a game in progress and had a great time serving, volleying and the occasional spike! The game finished quick and we had new  participants joins and we had a sensational game the  Good Guys vs Survivor Wanna Bee's.  We had a great game which was full of great hits, serves and strategic ace's. 

At the end of the game one of my team mates asked me "are you a professional?" I was responded " multi-sport athlete" We went to on win 2 sets to 0 and bragging rights.

On the way back I took the Martin Goodman Trail and was treated to some amazing sites from numerous film studios on either side to start of the Gardiner Expressway. The trail started on the south side and ends up heading north along side the Gardiner Expressway. There are some challenging turns and detours that made it for adventurous ride and patience was needed at time waiting for the lights to change as we neared the downtown core.  It was great to see the CN Tower, financial district and condominiums making for fantastic skyline of  our wonderful city.

As I reached the Harbourfront made a pitstop to see Captain Jack's boat and some of the boats that were sailing the waters of  lake ontario. I headed north on Bay street and back into the city and admiring the many great sites and sounds of Toronto.

Moral of story:  Check out parts of the city that you have never been to before, you may be surprised what you may see :)