A few weeks ago we discovered a great little find less than a 30 minute drive from downtown Toronto at Rouge National Urban Park.
The concept and arrival at this park was very confusing to us. What is considered the park itself is actually spread out into cities of Toronto, Markham, Pickering and Uxbridge. Our assumption, based on the main page of Google search (One tip – DO NOT listen to Google when you try to get here from downtown) was that it was similar to other National Parks where there is one single entrance. This is just not the case with this park and in fact we realized that there are a number of areas available from Toronto itself that are considered part of this park.
We entered the address which Google had given us into our GPS – 1749 Meadowvale Rd, Scarborough, ON M1B 5W8 – and were confused to see absolutely no signs nor an address of any kind on the road. On a hunch, we drove up the ramp to the Toronto Zoo parking where we saw the “Parks Canada welcome centre.” Here there was a taped up handwritten sign on the wooden gate in front of this building telling hikers to go to the Twyn Rivers Drive location.
Once we arrived there, frustrations were gone as we had finally found a designated area that was clearly meant for hikers – with free parking!
We hiked along the Orchard and Mast trails – around 5k for each if you’re looping back on them.
Pretty confusing but a great little spot with some nice trails that were definitely worth checking out!
❤ JS
carpe diem = travel 
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