You can find posts about our 25 km from WTF adventures here
or visualize them on this map.
Our 25 km from WTF project has gotten off to a slow start. We took most of January moving into the new house on WTF; February focused on setting up the house; and up to mid-March, the weather just wasn’t so conducive for microadventures. So when the weather turned spring-like on a Friday I took off from work, we knew we should seize the day. Konrad and Becky had not been to John E. Pearce Park in a long time (our granddaughter Lily had never been) so we chose it as our destination. Back in September 2017, Robin and I attended the Heritage Farm Show there. However, it was too early for the Backus-Page House Museum to be open, COVID conditions or not. So we focused on hiking the Spicer Trail, which explores the park’s century-old hardwood forest. We parked on the west side of the park and walked the red and blue trails back to the east.
There is a nice old geocache just off the trail (GC1Z7 lady cache placed in 2003). Our granddaughter Lily is getting pretty good at geocaching and likes to exchange loot. It was fortunate that someone left pennies in the cache so we could pay the trolls the tolls to cross the many footbridges on the trail.

We then crossed over to the south side of the park. Back in the early 1990’s, you could still gain access to the lake by dropping down the ravine on the east side of the park. But now, the cliffs have become unstable and the park staff have fenced it all off. We still had a pleasant walk around the park; Lily especially liked jumping on and off the big boulders at the car park.
St. Peter’s Church
After returning to the car, we made a stop at St Peter’s Church just outside the east side of the park. Built in 1827, it is one of the few churches from that time period still standing in Ontario. Like many others of its age, the church’s graveyard holds many stories of the difficult life here a century and a half ago.