Goderich

​Goderich – the prettiest town in Ontario (as they say), with beautiful beaches and fantastic trails. Also, it has the biggest underground salt mine in the world.

Sometimes, we (my wife and I) put our finger on the map and say, “Let’s go.” It happened to be Goderich this time, on the shore of Lake Huron.
What did we find true and, uhh, some questions about it?

Is it the biggest mine in the world there?
From Wikipedia:
“Compass Minerals’ Goderich salt mine, located 1,800 feet under Lake Huron, is the largest underground salt mine in the world. The mine is as deep as the CN Tower in Toronto is tall. It has operated since 1959 and was acquired by Compass Minerals in 1990.”
 
Is it the prettiest town in Ontario?
The downtown has an interesting design. A park (like a circle, about 200 meters in diameter in my estimation), has the Court Building for Huron County in the middle. The street around the park is huge, with many parking spots (for free!!). Shops, restaurants, bakeries, and coffee shops are closing the circle.Outside the downtown there is not much, but it is clean, and all intersections have flowers in the middle, and this time of the year are at their best. So, is it the prettiest? Well, greatly depends on your taste.
We had our lunch in a restaurant downtown. I had lamb and my wife… Santa Cruz… something.

​The Beaches.
They are rocky, dominated on one end by the installations for the port, I assume, to ship the salt. The history of that port is quite interesting; companies were going bankrupt trying to contain the waters to build the port - the wild waves washed their work. And it was a time when a hotel built on the high shore went down when the shore slid.

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​At the other end, there is some sand, but not much.

But what is fantastic there is the number of benches. There are so many that it is like a city of benches.
What is not funny is that they are asking for money for parking ($4 an hour or $20 for the day). The parking space is huge and empty, and I doubt many tourists are going there. It was a nice day for walking, and only a few people were on the whole beach. By the way, we parked our car downtown and walked to the beach, about 20 min. We did it for walking, not to save money, but we congratulated ourselves anyway.


We then decided to take a walk on a trail that goes 130 km to Guelph. It starts with a long and high bridge over the Maitland River. 

​It looked so peaceful that I could not imagine it created such a headache for the engineers building the port. Wintertime it brought immense pieces of ice that smashed into the boats, crushing them.

It had to be diverted to protect the port.

​We traveled about 5 km up the trail, then returned.
The fall displayed those beautiful colors. 

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I liked the trail, it was very well maintained, and guess what? Many benches along…
Interestingly enough, there were many apple trees, and no one collected them, even if they were very tasty.

​When we reached the bridge again on our way back, we saw fishermen in the river’s waters.