The Credit River has an odd name with a plain explanation. French traders in the eighteenth century are said to have extended credit to the Mississauga people who lived along it, and the name stuck. Here, in the Caledon Hills, two branches of the river meet at the Forks of the Credit, and the valley opens into a deep, wooded gorge cut by meltwater at the end of the last Ice Age. The walls are steep, covered in hemlock and maple, and the river runs fast and brown at the bottom.
This is easily one of the better places for motorcycling in southern Ontario, and it knows it. The roads around Caledon rise and fall in a way that flat Ontario does not usually allow, with bends that tighten in the valleys and open out on the ridges, and with a good run of tarmac, in a rural setting of old farms, horse paddocks and stone walls. It draws a lot of riders from the Toronto area, and the neighbours and the police are very aware of it. There are speed limits and enforcement on a number of the popular lanes, and on the better days the road can feel like a car park with a few bikes in it. Early weekday mornings are the most civilised time.
The area has an industrial past that is hard to see now. In the nineteenth century the falls and rapids drove mills, quarries and, from the 1870s, a railway line that wound up the valley, and the old line is now a rail trail. The Forks of the Credit Provincial Park preserves some of the glacial landforms and is a favourite with hikers, and the Bruce Trail crosses it. In autumn the valley is crowded with leaf-peepers from the city, so you may share the narrow roads with a lot of hesitant drivers.
You will not find fuel here, so fill the tank in Orangeville, seventeen kilometres to the north, which is a proper town with all services, or Brampton to the south. The villages in between have the odd cafe, bakery or farm stand, but they close early in the evening, and in the cold months many are shut altogether. Spring meltwater makes the river impressive, and October is the busiest and most colourful month.