southeast and passes beneath the northern leg of Highway24 and then the Wayne Gretzky Parkway. The route exits the small city to the east and curves northeast shortly thereafter. It travels between Jerseyville Road and former Highway2 to Ancaster, jogging to avoid cutting through Dunmark Lake. As the freeway enters Ancaster, it once again crosses former Highway2 and dips through the southern side of the town. East of Ancaster, the freeway passes through a short greenbelt, with Hamilton Golf and Country Club lying to the north. A divided segment of Highway 6 meets the freeway and continues concurrently with it through Hamilton; to the south, Highway6 travels to Hamilton International Airport, Caledonia, and Jarvis at Highway 3. Continuing east, Highway403 and Highway6 curve north into Hamilton and meet the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway before abruptly turning to the east and descending the Niagara Escarpment. Scenic views of Hamilton, its harbour, port and Lower Princess Falls are along this steep descent. At the bottom of the escarpment the highway travels through a narrow, heavily developed corridor alongside former Highway 8. It passes beneath multiple bridges in a depressed trench, eventually curving north at a sharp corner and passing beneath more bridges. This section features a reduced speed limit of as opposed to . The highway returns to ground level alongside the Chedoke Creek, a now-channelized river from which the freeway may take its name. As the freeway continues north, it crosses an isthmus between Hamilton Harbour and Cootes Paradise alongside several roads which it has served to replace. It circles around the northern shore of Hamilton Harbour and returns to an eastward orientation. The concurrency with Highway6 ends at an interchange where Highway403 continues east and Highway6 departs north towards Guelph. The freeway continues straight for several kilometres, passing by the Burlington Transmission Station, until it approaches the Freeman Interchange where the opposing carriageways split apart to accommodate the left-hand exit/entry of the flyover ramps marking the western terminus of Highway 407, then it merges with Queen Elizabeth Way. Burlington to Mississauga Highway403 travels concurrently with the QEW for between the Freeman Interchange and Oakville, a straight section surrounded almost entirely by commercial units and warehouses. At the Ford Assembly Plant near the Halton–Peel regional boundary, Highway403 branches off from the QEW as it crosses Ford Drive (Halton Regional Road 13), with the eastbound lanes diving under the QEW and Upper