I’m always in search of a leash free dog exercise area or trail and decided to check out Bronte Creek Provincial Park. Located in Oakville, this park is a short drive from anywhere in the golden horseshoe and has a wide range of activities to enjoy.
Bronte Creek has two main sections to the park, on the west side of Bronte Creek Ravine is the campground entrance and campsites including 3 yurt sites. The campground area has 3 hiking trails, including one 1.4 km leash free trail.
On the east side of the Bronte Creek Ravine is the day use entrance and the majority of the park amenities, including a swimming pool, playgrounds, Spruce Lane Farm, the Interpretive Centre, disk golf field and hiking trails and the leash free trail.
We entered the day park area and headed towards the parking lot next to the leash free trail. Visiting on a weekday morning in June, there were only a few cars in the parking lot. At the edge of the gravel parking lot is a flat open space of cut grass where we found a few people chit chatting as their dogs played. We headed down the trail through some lightly forested area and then to an open area with cut grass where there was a trail marker.
As we looped around the off leash trail, I was looking for the creek for my puppy to cool off and play in the water. The park map illustrated a creek similar in size to Bronte Creek on the map. Unfortunately, this map is not to scale and the creek that runs next to the off leash trail was about the size of a drainage ditch and then opened up to a small section of brown water. Although better than nothing, I will admit I was a bit disappointed, but my puppy didn’t seem to care and had fun running back and forth in the water.
As we were looking forward to checking out the ravine, we hopped back in our car and proceeded to parking Lot F. We walked past the Spruce Lane Farm and down the Lookout Ravine Trail. This is a flat gravel path about the width of a single lane road and very easy walking. We rounded the corner and found the sign for the Half Moon Valley Trail, which we wanted to follow down to the creek.
I will admit this trail through the forest was pretty, but it was a bit hard to follow. We were looking for the entrance to the creek and ended up backtracking a few times as the trail seemed to criss-cross around on the top edge of the ravine. We did manage to find the correct path and walked down to Bronte Creek. Listening to the birds and the water, it’s easy to forget you are in the middle of the city.
Overall, we spent just under 2 hours at the park and our puppy had a great time running around the leash free area. If you’re in Oakville, a great place to come and visit with both the family and the fur baby.