The Citizen, 2003-06-25, Page 45PAGE 20. BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2003.
Bring a picnic lunch and enjoy the area’s beauty
Dine with nature
The Blyth Greenway Trail (above) and Lions’ Park (right) offer opportunities to commune with
nature while enjoying a picnic.
If you don’t have to rush from
work to the theatre, there are several
opportunities to take a more
leisurely approach to a performance
at the Blyth Festival, perhaps
stopping for a picnic either in Blyth
or along the way.
Blyth offers two stops with picnic
facilities.
Lions Park, just off Queen St. on
Wellington, has been a favourite
quiet spot for years. If it’s an
inclement day there’s a picnic shelter
to stay under. For curiosity’s sake,
there’s a spruce tree stump that has
been chain-saw sculpted into an
eagle.
More recently the former CPR
track and station area on the north
side of the village has been turned
into the Blyth Greenway . project,
opening up the Blyth Creek area to
public access.
With the entrance off main street
(Queen), just behind Bainton’s Old
Mill, the Greenway offers a couple
of locations with picnic tables, one
near the road beside Blyth Creek and
the old railway water tower, another
farther down the trail near an area
where the trail follows the banks of
the river.
The Greenway has become a
popular spot for Blyth residents and
visitors alike (many members of the
Festival company use it for running,
walking and biking), combining
nature and history. There are signs
along the way that identify the
different varieties- of trees, some of
which grew naturally along the
stream, others of which have been
planted.
The Canadian Pacific diverted the
river to the north to make room for
the station, sidings and cattle pens
when the railway was built from
Guelph to Goderich in 1907. At the
south side of the former railway
lines two of Blyth’s largest
industries had their start. Bainton's
moved the tannery portion of their
business to a location southeast of
Blyth in the 1960s but Howson and
Howson just keep expanding their
flour milling business, keeping a
fleet of huge bulk tankers on the
road drawing flour to pasta making
plants all over eastern Canada.
If you follow the trail to the east
you'll eventually come to “the arch’’
where the north-south “Butter and
Eggs’’ railway passed over the CPR.
If you want to climb to the top of the
arch (which was partially destroyed
when the CPR pulled up the tracks in
1988), you can enjoy a panoramic
view of the village and Blyth Creek.
Though there is no picnic area,
you can also travel west of Queen St.
along the Greenway trail. There are
separate trails that go down to the
river and a neighbour who keeps
fallow deer as a hobby.
Three miles north of Blyth there’s
a shady roadside park on a former
school grounds that many people
stop at in their travels.
Just south of Belgrave you can
take Nature Centre Road to the
Wawanosh Valley Conservation
Area and the Wawanosh Nature
Centre.
Ifyou’re coming from the east, the
Brussels Conservation Area offers a
beautiful area for a picnic. The
picnic area is on the east side of the
Maitland River and can be reached
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