By James Rayner
This month’s walk actually took place in May 2022 in the charming village of Port Credit. To get to the starting point, we drove west on the Queen Elizabeth Way to Hurontario Street (Hwy. 10) and took it south to Lake Shore Road, turned right (west) for 3 blocks to Stavebank Rd. and turned left.
Just past the Snug Harbour restaurant there is a large public parking lot beside the Credit River and there is NO charge for parking! We then proceeded west over the bridge spanning the Credit river, past the lighthouse, to the first street on the other side of the river, Front St. South.
Turning left toward the lake, just past the high-rise condos, we came upon a walking/cycling path that winds around through J.C. Saddington Park and follows the shore of the lake to our destination: the Brueckner Rhododendron Gardens. There is a parking lot at the gardens, off Lake Shore Road, if you don’t want to do the walk. However, the path along the lake shore is beautiful and shouldn’t be missed.
Here are some scenes from the path.
This path eventually ends at Maple Avenue. We went up the first street that goes off to the left, Ben Machree Drive; we then kept left onto Godfrey’s Lane (above) and followed it to the entrance to the gardens.
The gardens are planted with several varieties of rhododendrons that bloom at different times so you should be able to visit between mid-May and late June and still see a fabulous display of blossoms. Here are a few of the ones in bloom when we were there in May.
Luckily for us, we visited the gardens when the redbud trees were blossoming too!
As we walked back to the cars, we decided that we were hungry enough to look for a place for lunch. Happily, there was a neat little Italian restaurant on the north side of Lake Shore Road, just east of the Credit River, called Papa Giuseppe’s. We all enjoyed a delicious lunch and would especially recommend the Portobello mushroom melt.
Probus Club of Kingsway-Islington 