The Waterfront Trail (Port Dalhousie and Port Weller)

Come ride with me as I explore scenic cycling routes, charming towns, patios, wineries, breweries, unique places to stay, and hidden gems—near home and around the world.

We did this ride on Sunday, Sept 6, 2026 (Labour Day weekend).

Perfect for: Couples • Friends • Solo Riders (but always better with friends!) • E-bikes • 1/2 or Full Day Trip

📍 Ride at a Glance

📍 Start Location: Charles Ansell Park on the Welland Canal, near Port Weller. Address is 320 Lakeshore Rd, St. Catharines.

🅿️ Parking: Free at Charles Ansell Park

📏 Distance: 38 km

⏱ Ride Time: We started cycling at 11:30 a.m. We got back to our vehicle by 4:30 p.m. We stopped for lunch on a patio for about an hour.

⛰️ Elevation Gain: 131 m

⭐ Difficulty: There were some up and down hills as you were cycling on the waterfront trail. Also at times it was windy cycling on the piers and beside Lake Ontario. With an e-bike, always easy as you don’t feel the hills and wind like you do on a regular bike.

🚲 Suitable For: most bikes, but not road bike as you have some gravel paths and trails through the forest on packed dirt.

🛣️ Surface: Forest and waterfront trails wtih packed dirt, crushed stone, gravel • Paved Trail • Road

📅 Best Time to Ride: Summertime – as you are on the water, you pass many beaches, and Port Dalhousie is a summer town!

🚻 Washrooms: Yes – there is an outhouse where we parked at Charles Ansell Park. Otherwise, I am sure you could stop at the Yacht Club in Port Dalhousie. There are also public washrooms in Lakeside Park, and if you are stopping at a restaurant.

💧 Water Available: Bring your own! but we did pass a water filling station in Port Dalhousie.

Charles Ansell Park. A great place to park for free. It is right on the Welland Canal. As you can see quite a bit of parking. Since people come here to see ships in the canal (very near Lock 1) they are always coming and going, so you shouldn’t have an issue finding parking here.

❤️ Why I Chose This Ride

I really wanted to go to the Carousel in Port Dalhousie! Lol…is how it started. I think I was there once when I was a kid with my Mom and sisters. So I looked up cycle loops and found the Garden City Glide – a 30 km loop – which takes you through Port Dalhousie. Perfect! (well…not really, but keep reading to find out why)

🗺️ The Ride

The Garden City Glide is advertised as a fully-signed 30 km taste of St. Catharines using the Welland Canal Trail, Greenbelt Route, Merritt Trail and the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail.
Their website says…..”starting at the beachfront in Port Weller, you’ll follow the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail along and near the shore Lake Ontario to Port Dalhousie with its famous beach and historic carousel. From there, meander along the banks of Twelve Mile Creek on the Merritt Trail into the heart of St Catharines near the unique, single-arched Burgoyne Bridge. Stop in downtown St. Catharines for a well-deserved snack before rolling out along Queenston St past the Carillon Bell Tower in Victoria Lawn Cemetery to the Welland Canal, where you’ll join the Welland Canal Trail and follow the Welland Canal for a 5k downhill cruise where you’ll finish your ride and all’s Weller that ends Weller–yes we did and we can!”

So this sounded like a great ride!!

🗺️ What Didn’t Go as Planned!

A little heads-up if you are planning to do this loop: the website failed to mention that the bridge on Martindale Road is closed from June to December 2026. We got all the way there only to discover we couldn’t get across the water, and there really wasn’t a good detour, so we ended up having to turn around and go back the way we came.

We also found the route wasn’t very well signed and we were left guessing quite a few times, relying on my phone GPS to keep us on track. We actually missed an entire section of the Waterfront Trail on the way there – probably the nicest section! 😂 So, in a way, having to backtrack worked out, because we found it and rode it on the way back.

We were looking forward to finishing with the 5 km stretch along the Welland Canal, but that will have to wait for another day. I think we’ll come back and do a separate ride from the Allanburg Bridge all the way to Port Weller – another cycling adventure for the list!

the bottom left….the blue line. We started at #9 and on the way there, we missed the trail to the right (no signage!) and so missed going to 10, 12 (Sunset Beach) but we did get it on the way back!
When we got back….we crossed ove the bridge at #9, turned left on Broadway and cycled all the way to #1 – to the lighthouse! Very Cool!! This added about 12 km to the trip – so it is about 6 km out one way to the end where the light house is.

☕ Favourite Stops Along the Way

🍽️ Lunch

We stopped in Port Dalhousie for lunch. We had only cycled about 10 km by this point, but when a patio is calling… you have to listen! 😂

We ended up at The Twisted Pig, an Italian restaurant with a nice patio where we could see the water. While we were sitting there, I noticed the Legion across the road. Next time we’ll have to check it out — it looked like they had a patio right on the water, so hopefully they serve lunch too!

We shared a stone-oven pizza at The Twisted Pig and it was excellent. The crust was great, and we chose the Sopressata — the perfect amount of zing!

Of course, a patio lunch called for a draft too. Bart went local with an ale from Oast House Brewers in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and I went close to our home with an IPA from Fairweather Brewing in Hamilton.

So many great pizzas to choose from (probably about 10 different ones).
Bart enjoyed the Oast BarnRaiser Country Ale….and me the Fairweather High Grade American IPA!

The pizza was amazing! especially with the honey drizzle….and the extra parmesan!

🛍️ Shops Worth Visiting

There were some little shops (very few I think) in Port Dalhousie but we didn’t check any of them out.

📍 Highlights

Scenic lookouts – The views looking out over Lake Ontario were beautiful!
The beaches! – We passed several beaches along the route, including Sunset Beach in Port Weller and the beach at Lakeside Park in Port Dalhousie. Lots of great spots to stop and enjoy the lake.
The Lakeside Park Carousel – Such a fun little piece of history in Port Dalhousie. And you can still ride it!
Lakeside Park & the Neil Peart Pavilion – Bart figured out that Rush’s song “Lakeside Park” is actually about this Lakeside Park! Neil Peart spent time in St. Catharines as a teenager. Pretty cool to be standing in the place that inspired the song.
The Welland Canal – Another highlight! We got to see a few huge ships making their way along the canal, including watching them pass through the bridge and lock.

The Lakeside Park Carousel in Port Dalhousie is a beautiful piece of history, built in 1898 and still operating today. Even better, you can still take a ride for just 5 cents—a tradition that has amazingly lasted for generations!

Not just for kids!! I just wish that I picked a horse that went up and down!!! I remember as a kid, that was always the thing to do – look at which one you wanted to run to when it was your turn.

Incredible! They have it covered now to protect it. The details are really nice, and the horse tails apparently are made from real horse hair!

Fun times!!

Sunset Beach in Port Weller has a beautiful 1,200-foot sandy beach along Lake Ontario. The park had just reopened in June 2026 after a major $6.9-million renovation — a beautiful spot along the Waterfront Trail.

💡 Helpful Tips

The Waterfront Trail is a beautiful ride, but be prepared and know your route ahead of time. We found the signage wasn’t always great — there were several intersections with no signs at all, which made you think you should continue straight when you actually needed to turn. Having GPS or the route downloaded on your phone is definitely helpful.

Also, don’t expect one continuous off-road trail. The route is made up of lots of little sections — you’ll be on a lovely paved or waterfront path for a while, then a bit of road, then back onto another trail, and so on.

And if you’re doing this ride on a hot summer day, throw a bathing suit and towel in your bike bag! We passed several beautiful beaches along Lake Ontario, and they would be perfect for a swim and a cool-down along the way.

📸 Photo Gallery

Waterfront trail runs along Lake Ontario.

Port Dalhousie marina and pier in the distance.

It was pretty cool to find out that Rush’s song “Lakeside Park” was inspired by this very park in Port Dalhousie (good job Bart!), where drummer Neil Peart spent time growing up. The song reminisces about summer days at the park — the midway, rides, music, Victoria Day celebrations and even the merry-go-round – which made riding the historic carousel cool!

Neil Peart Pavilion was renamed in 2020. Apprently you can rent it through the City of St. Catharines. It is a large area with picnic tables, out of the sun but right beside the beach, carousel and waterfront.

Wow!! We cycled right out to the end of the pier, and this is looking back at the mainland in the distance. You don’t realize how far out you are until you turn around and look back!

They had a really nice beach in Port Dalhousie. Lots of wind surfers!

Port Weller Lighthouse. It was about 5 or 6 km out to the lighthouse. Bart said he felt a little like we were in Peggy’s Cove!

The beginning of the Welland Canal from Lake Ontario.

We waited at the lift bridge for the Baie St. Paul, from Montreal, to make its way through. The Welland Canal is about 43 km long — wow, that’s a long way for these huge ships to travel through the canal!

🗺️ Route Map

So, the Waterfront Trail there and back ended up being about 27 km.\
We then added another 11 km cycling out to the Port Weller Lighthouse and back — 38 km in total!
A great day!! Beautiful weather, lots of interesting stops along the way, a great patio lunch, and another new area explored on our bikes.
The red dot is where my Applewatch died, so it didn’t pick up the point to Port Weller lighthouse (you can see it in the top right corner)

⭐ My Ratings

🌄 Scenery ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

🚴 Ride Quality ⭐⭐⭐

🍽️ Food ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Overall Experience ⭐⭐⭐⭐

❤️ Sonya Says…

What a gorgeous day weather-wise for a bike ride! It was fun exploring somewhere we hadn’t been before, and overall we had a great day. I just wish the trail had been better marked — there were definitely a few too many times when we were wondering, “Which way now?” 😂

Port Dalhousie was a highlight. Sitting on the patio enjoying a cold drink was exactly the kind of “prize” I like in the middle of a bike ride! 🍺 And of course, we had to ride the Lakeside Park Carousel – for just 5 cents a ride ( I only had a loonie!), how could you not? It was great fun and brought out the kid in us….but next time I want a horse that goes up and down!!

Another great day exploring a little more of Ontario by bike!

💬 Have You Ridden This Route?

I’d love to hear about your experience!

🚴 Would you ride it again?
☕ Did you stop at any coffee shops? breweries? wineries?
any other cool things we should do, stop and see….next time?

🏷️ Tags

Ontario
Port Dalhousie
E-bike Friendly
Welland Canel
Waterfront Trail
Port Weller