Cataract is a village whose name is easy to explain. The falls on the Credit River drop over a ledge of Niagara dolomite into a pool below, and in the mid-nineteenth century the water was enough to drive mills. The settlement grew up around that power and, later, around the railway: the Credit Valley Railway came through in the 1870s, and its line, now the Elora Cataract Trailway, is one of the best-known rail trails in Ontario, running for kilometres through woods and farmland between Cataract and Elora.
Today the village is a handful of old buildings, a few good houses, an inn that has served travellers for a long time, and a trailhead where cyclists and walkers gather. The falls are small but photogenic, with water that comes off in sheets in spring and slows to a trickle in a dry summer, and the walls of the gorge below are covered in moss and ferns. The area is part of the Caledon Hills and feels more remote than the map suggests, with forest close on every side.
For riders it is a good place to join or leave the Forks of the Credit ride. The roads here are narrower and a bit more twisty than those closer to the city, with a tendency toward blind crests, gravel at the edges and short, sharp climbs out of the river valleys. The tarmac is usually decent, but frost heave in spring can leave broken patches, and the villages are small enough that you will meet a tractor as often as a car. A morning ride in late spring, with the trees in new leaf and the river running high, is the best of it.
It is a pleasant market town with a tidy main street, a historic downtown and a long tradition of hosting travellers heading for the hills. The trail users and the local cafes keep the village alive on weekends, but midweek and in winter it is very quiet, and that is part of its appeal.