Toronto :: Canada
A long weekend with the rest of the Toronto escapees.
Places: South Baymouth, Tobermoray & the 26.
Coolest thing I did: Ate something called a stretched pork sandwich. Possibly the best single thing I've ingested in North America.
Coolest thing I didn´t know: Live 8 was far far far less interesting in Canada than it was in London. Bryan Adams. Woo hoo.
With the recent danger of life becoming something like normal the Canada Day long weekend seemed like a really good time to get out of town for a few days and see some more of this country. With the collapse of one of the cheap airlines and record oil prices I've had to cut down on trips that involve flying in aeroplanes. Luckily it is cheap and easy to hire a car here and get out of town somewhere nearby. What I've learned from my yuppie banker workmates is lots of people own cottages around the shores of Georgian Bay, an extension of Lake Huron. Cottages can only mean one thing, scenery (or lots of guilable bankers with cottages facing concrete walls).
It seemes the weekend was a good one to go up to this part of the world. Every man and his dog heads for Ottawa for a massive display of patriotism and waving of maple leafs so the traffic up wasn't as bad as I'd first thought it would be. While seeing the Canuks go nuts on their national day in their capital would have been cool, I couldn't get the picture out of my head of what a similar celebration would have been like on Australia Day in Canberra. Yawn.
So we saddled up our Pontiac Sunfire (who the hell names cars in this country? yanks?) and headed for the northern shore of Georgian Bay. The plan was to head around to Manitoulin Island, which was supposed to be a picturesque bit of farm country with a few First Nations reservations (what they call them Indians here in PC land) on it. After a very, very long drive we arrived on a rather pretty but also rather dull island. We took a detour to see the local beauty spot, Bridal Veil Falls, which turned out to be so eroded they have been paved over with concrete so look more like a storm water outfall rather than a water fall. We spent the overnight in a town called South Baymouth which has a pretty little light house and bugger all else. When the local pizza shop cut us off from the beers at 9pm there was little else to do in the town of 500 but go to bed. Bit of a disappointment.
One ferry ride later the next morning and we found ourselves on the Bruce Penisula and a hopping little seaside town called Tobermoray. This was more like it. There's a dock that is a gateway to the nearby islands that wouldn't look out of place anywhere on the Med. Tobermoray also has the distinction of being Canadas primo diving site, but the idea of a surface temperature of around 5 degrees turned me off a little.
The surroundings almost seem out of place in Canada. The lake is so large you tend to forget you are looking at fresh water and the forrest lined beaches are postcard perfect. It's natural beauty is the kind of thing you expect when you come to Canada, only there aren't any mountains or polar bears.
We took a boat out to Flowerpot Island. Flower pots are what they call pillars of rock that have become detached from the rest of the island at some point due to some geological process that was written on a plaque I didn't really read. Lets just say they are pretty cool. It's the only island in easy striking distance of the port that has hiking trails and it's a easy 90 mins to circuit around the whole island. Spending the rest of the time waiting for our ride back while dangling bare feet in the crisp clean water in the setting sun was relaxation itself. To boot we managed to get a ride back on the jet powered Zodiac instead of the normal boat, which goes very fast and sits half out of the water. Good fun all round.
On the way home on the last day it was a lesiurely drive along highway 26 which has the distinction of housing peoples summer and winter cottages at the same time. On one side is the Bay and on the other side you can see the ski runs cut into the tree line of Southern Ontarios premier ski resorts. While the quality of skiing in Ontario can't be compared with the Rockies or Lautentians it's only a couple of hours drive from downtown Toronto so makes for an easy weekend away in winter. With this all year round use you can imagine that the land is in high demand. To make up for it the cottages that people build would be called small mansions by anyone else. Some rise 3 + stories out of the tree line and there aren't that many places you can actually get down to the lake. The exception is Wasaga beach, which we didn't have time to see but I'm promised is the Costa de Sol of the Ontario lakes. Perhaps next time.
With the abuntant natural pleasantness nearby it's little wonder Toronto is half empty at the moment. If I had the option of a month off I'd be up out there too.