The Hamilton waterfront trail

By: Joshua Patel

Stressed by midterms and need some fresh air? Haven’t yet explored the waterfalls the tour guides all rave about?

One of the major physical features that mark this city’s beautiful landscape is the Hamilton Waterfront Trail. The trail is managed by the Hamilton Waterfront Trust, a charitable organization that makes it possible for everyone to enjoy the trail. Located in the North end of Hamilton, this trail offers a multitude of attractions and services to visitors, apart from its natural beauty. The trail is a beautiful place to get some fresh air and observe the beauty of the harbour.

The Hamilton Waterfront Trust offers a Harbour West Trolley Tour –a guided trolley tour that follows along 12 km of the shoreline and gives visitors a view of the natural and manmade features along the trail.

The Waterfront also offers winter attractions, with an NHL-sized outdoor ice rink, located on Pier 8. A concession skate rental stand is also available if you forgot yours back home.

If you’re looking for a place to dine or grab a snack, the Discovery Centre area has several quality restaurants that can cater to your needs.

An expanded trail system also gives you easy access to other areas such as Cootes Paradise, the Royal Botanical Gardens and Dundurn Castle.

Some other recreational activities that you can do along the trail are take a jog, bike or even join a real-world treasure hunt through Geocaching.com. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s a high-tech treasure hunt where users can use their smartphones or GPS devices to find caches that are hidden along the trail and discover what are stored in these hidden packages.

For you art-lovers, Pier 8 hosts a number of different murals along its fences from local art students.

So take a study break this month and discover a little bit more of the Hamilton waterfront than you knew of before.